Whirlwind, ending with SNOW

I know it's been a while, but I've been buuuusyyyyyyy!

After being sickly-snuffly all day Friday, that night Ruthie kidnapped me (more like invited me, but still) to head to Hyde Park to check out the Winter Wonderland festival going on there. It was pretty sweet. We were greeted by stands selling mulled cider and wine (yes, please), and wandered past all of these vendors as you walk into the park, selling carved wooden things, hats, scarves, German food (it seemed to be a German festival), candies and other such nonsense. And then once you got past the vendors it was filled with all sorts of rides, from roller coasters to your general merry-go-rounds and giant slides. Definitely a state fair kinda feel, just Christmas themed.

Welcome to Winter Wonderland!

Ruthie posed with Snowmom and Baby

Saturday morning I managed to haul myself out of bed earlier than usual, so I headed to the library to get some research in before getting ready for the football (read: soccer) match in the afternoon. We got super bundled up for the match (it's really cold now!), and headed out around 2 for a 3pm match: Queen's Park Rangers vs Cardiff City. If the first match was intense, it was NOTHING compared to this one. QPR and Cardiff went into that game the numbers one and two teams in the Championship League, respectively, so the Cardiff fans were up and cheering the WHOLE time, and the QPR fans (we were sitting with the QPR fans, sensibly) were up and gesticulating and yelling back at Cardiff the whole time. Because it was such an important match, the police were out in FORCE. We're talking riot helmets and vests, mounted police whose horses were wearing riot shields over their eyes and on their front legs, police with scary looking German Shepherds. The works. The Cardiff fans went into the stadium on the far side (to keep them away from the QPR fans), and there was a literal line of police separating fans from both sides. The Cardiff entrance was even on the backside of the stadium to keep up the distance. The match was intense; final score was 2-1 QPR (thank goodness, otherwise I have no doubt in my mind that there would've been riots), and we got the heck out of there as soon as it was over. Great game, great time (great CHANTS, but I'll save those for another time), great seats (only 4 rows from the field!).



Action shottttt



Police

 Pretty sure we went to the King's Arms to play darts on Saturday, but don't hold me to it. OH! We didn't. John, Hayes and I basically went on a pub crawl in search of a place to play darts BECAUSE King's Arms isn't open on weekends (Sat and Sun night). So we went to a bunch of places until we finally ended up at The Sun down on Drury Lane. The dart board was on the second floor, which was closed for the night, but a nice bartender let us go up there to use it, and we just had to pay 5 quid to use the darts (which we got back when we returned them, whole. I can't think of the word for this scenario of leaving something of value which is returned upon completion. But you know what I mean). So it worked out great for us because we had the whole upstairs to ourselves to play darts and shoot the shit.

Silly boys

Hayes thinks I'm ridiculous

Who you lookin' at?

Sunday funday was spent working on papers; researching and writing and making powerpoint. I gave up on "mind over matter" for getting rid of my cold, and headed to the pharmacy when I woke up. The picture below shows what a gorgeous day Sunday was.




Sunday morning, blue skies



Monday was also spent working on Susie's stuff, once I finished with my Dr. King final in the morning. Took a break last night to go play darts again, and had my Susie presentation this morning. I don't know WHAT I was thinking what I made that powerpoint; it was entirely too long. I bored myself. That notwithstanding, I've learned a lot about beer and brewing over the past few days, and I'll be happy to bore you at length with conversation about it. Just let me know and I'm happy to oblige.



Everyone else and Susie (far right)




Me with Susie



In other news about today, I woke up to SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My alarm went off and I just wasn't feeling getting out of bed until Hilary came into our room and announced that it was snowing!!!!!!!! I basically leaped out of bed and rushed to open the blinds to see the magical white fluffy stuff floating out of the sky.  And then rushed upstairs and jumped on John's bed and almost gave him a heart attack, and then jumped on Hayes' bed, where he pretended to still be asleep, and yelled, "IT'S SNOWING!" I don't think they minded.

Anyway, it snowed through class and through the presentations that went today, and it was so so nice.

Dingle and I were catching snowflakes

SNOW! Accumulation as of the end of class

It has since stopped (but it was on and off through class, so it may not necessarily be finished), but I'm holed up in my room, avoiding writing the Shakespeare that I have due for Jean tomorrow. Although really, I need to document my final days, and I hadn't blogged in a while, and really it was past time. So I don't feel badly about this method of procrastination.

Tomorrow is my last full day in London; INSANE. Barnaby's final is in the morning and I hope to turn my Jean paper in when I go to his class. I've worked out the following schedule with Hayes and John (up for reprisal):

9:30 Barnoe's exam, over by 11

11 leave for Westminster (Hayes wants to go to the abbey, and John and I want to go to a pub by Parliament that has a bell which apparently rings whenever there's a call for votes, so that MPs can chug their pints and get back over to vote... there's a 7 minute window for them to get back over there from the time the call to vote is made... so we want to go check that out)

whenever that's finished (approximately 12): head back; boys to flat, me to see DAD AND MOM! meet at either King's Cross or at their hotel

sometime after that: approximately 3 or 4 or 5 or whenever M&D kick me out before then, head back to flat to get ready for dinner. The boys and me have been wanting to go to this seafood place for a fancy dinner, and we haven't done it all semester, so we're rewarding ourselves for finishing exams by going at....

6pm fancy dinner with boys

8pm final pub quiz

10pm king's arms for final game of darts

whenever we leave: PACKING. of course I've already started that...........

Anyway, tomorrow's going to be a busy day. So in the spirit of getting things done, I'm going to get my butt in gear and knock this paper out. Wish me luck!