rules of life

First some pictures of Wings + Wicked night! :)The Sex and the City flatmates- a night on the town (in painful heels)

Pheobe and Me with wings! (look... NO NAPKINS!)Shelley and Danielle yummmm

How I've been surviving...
1. If there's no cars on the street (or if they're at a far distance away), make a run for it! There's no such thing as jaywalking, and if you don't, you'll never get to your destination. It helps when there's at least another person too- my theory: cars can't run over 2+ pedestrians.
2. Toast and muffins. + nutella. I've also branched out to strawberry conserve too :)
3. Eat only when hungry. This is so hard to do for me, the ultimate snacker. Living in London's the best diet in a way... but not to worry, when I make it on to the continent, I'll be pigging OUT.
4. Have a coin purse, otherwise the ridiculous amount of coins will make your wallet burst. They have £1 and £2 coins and 2p coins.
5. Don't look confused and people will mistake you for a local... until you open your mouth. I fool one person a week (they ask me for directions!?)
6. Carry your umbrella at all times! It's begun to rain :(

This Thursday, our class went down to South Bank for a field trip. Anar and I took the bus to London Bridge and met up with our class at Southwark Cathedral. Europe has so many cathedrals/abbeys/churches! Edward Shakespeare, William's brother, is buried there. Some of the graves were really creepy to look at. Then we headed of to Shakespeare's Globe, which was actually built only 9 years ago! We got a tour of the building and got to look at the exhibition. Apparently, tickets to the pit only cost 1 penny, and people would go to the bathroom right where they were standing! :X People would also yell and throw orange peels at the actors... really different than modern theater. We ate lunch at one of these sandwich places- all the rage here in London, then took a walk across the Millenium Bridge! :)

The Millenium Bridge- It used to wobble O_O

On Friday, our class had a field walk which started at Picadilly Circus. Unfortunately, it started to POUR! We walked around for a bit around the West End: St. James' Square, Berkeley Square (actually pronounced BARKley), which is basicall the Rodeo Drive of London. Celebrities come out and walk around, but no sightings. :( In the afternoon, I decided to check out some of the the exhibitions for the London Design Festival. This has been going on for the past couple weeks, and explains all the design showcases we saw down at Brick Lane! Let me just say, the design, architecture, packaging...everything is so amazing here! It's clean and simple, yet still unique and different. I'm not sure how to describe it. So this is really nerdy, but I love the fonts and graphic design they even use in the supermarket or the tube map! I'm not sure I can really explain it until you come over here... While wandering, I found this kind of secluded street with cobblestone roads and little shops (Carnaby Way). One thing I love about this city is that you can walk anywhere and you never know what places you'll find! At night, I went to the First Fruits Fellowship that Charis told me about. It was really fun (I still can't get over the fact that there's Asian people with British accents! O_o) We went out to Chinatown for snacks at night, like most Asian people would do. I got this red bean float thing with ice cream! It was 3 pounds :( The boba there is 3.50 pounds = $7!!! And I thought Westwood was expensive.

I met up with Arcadians on Saturday!! (Henry and Erica) It was so good to catch up with them! I haven't seen both for such a longggg time! We went to Wagamama for lunch and caught up! They're actually at Queen Mary's College together, but that's wayyyyy outside. Once again, I was reminded of how lucky I am to live in CENTRAL central London. I'm pretty spoiled! On the bus, these little old ladies asked me where I lived, when I told them Russell Square, they said it was "quite posh". LOl.... We walked outside the Tower Of London, which had long queues (lines), so we didn't go in. We walked across the Tower Bridge and then to the Tate Modern! OMG amazing!!! I can't believe how many great pieces I saw- and the museum's only been open for 6 years! I saw Picasso's Weeping Woman (and lots more Picassos), a LOT of Dali's, a hugeeee Monet's Waterlilies, Miros, Calder (?)'s mobiles, one of Andy Warhol's Marilyn Monroes, a Diego Rivera, my first few Mondrians, and a few Kandinskys. I did feel a little bad, since I go through art museums really really slowly, but they went quite fast. Henry was tired, so he went back home, but Erica and I went over to Parliment and the London Eye to catch it at sunset. I love walking around the city (or any other city) at night! Everything's so pretty with the lights! :) We sat at Trafalgar Square for a bit to eat our pastries then walked on Charing Cross Rd (where there's lots of bookstores- any genre you want, and they've got a store for it).

Being touristy in front of the Tower Bridge
Big Ben at dusk :)Trafalgar Square at night! There were also two men in chicken suits holding lightsabers (a sentence I never thought I'd say)

On Sunday, I headed out to church again. It's really nice having local friends- which I don't think many people on this program have. It's actually really hard to find them without going to a pub or a club. We at this really cheap Chinese food place, where the takeaway boxes are extra! They also take away your bottled water, just in case you drink it! WHAT!? Anyways, Rachel and I then went for a little shopping afterwards. She's the American student from Texas who's studying at London College of Fashion. Oh! We also got to ride in one of the boy's car, which was a trip since he was driving on the right side of the road!

Sad story: So I guess I'll never be able to ride the bus on one take from Hyde Park home to Russell Square. This time, I was sitting on the top, resting my eyes when we hear this big THOMP! and the bus shook. We ran over something. This lady was screaming on the floor, so I thought OMG we ran over a person!? It was her poor dog who ran in front of the bus! :( :( SO SAD! People on the bus were really shaken too, this one lady was in tears. They kicked us all off the bus and told us to take another one. I still have that horrid image of the poor dog in my head :(

Just today, we watched this HORRIBLE D film called For Queen and Country. It had Denzel Washington in it! Oh gawd, I can't believe he's connected with such a dreadful film. It's absolutely rubbish (the people at church always correct me when I say "trash"). It's like one of those godawful 80s movies they show on UPN at 3 in the morning.