November Summary

Oxford Street in mid November.

It's been way too long since I updated this. I meant to do it after I transfered more pictures to my computer but that seemed like too much effort for a while so it didn't happen until now. I have some schoolwork to finish up tonight so I'll just try and cover the highlights of the last 3 weeks.

The London Eye.

On the 15th Rez and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary (although the actual date is the 16th). We went on the London Eye which takes roughly a half hour to go around once. It provides a wonderful view of the city and we were lucky that our 'pod' wasn't very full seeing as we went at night. We also went out to eat at a Japanese restaurant which was very nice. On a side note I was a bit tired that day from staying up the entire night before writing an essay for my British Life and Culture class. I got that back yesterday and got an A on it.

Zahra and Rez on a carousel.

On the following Saturday (the 20th) I went to the Science Museum and Natural History Museum with Rez and her 5 year old cousin Zahra. We had a lot of fun together. At the start of the day Zahra was shy and hid behind Rezzy (even though she'd met me twice before) but by halfway through the day she was holding my hand and asking for piggy back rides.

Rez reaching into a T-Rex's mouth! Oh no!!!

Zahra with the remains of a 'Feathered, Flightless Giant'

For Thanksgiving our study abroad group met at a pub in Fulham and we were given a special Thanksgiving dinner. We were allowed to bring guests so naturally I invited Rez. Some students' parents showed up and a girl on the trip's boyfriend from St. John's (not in the SA group) even came. All in all maybe about 40 people were there. The food was really late and there wasn't really enough for everyone. They pub's kitchen had some complications because the chef's father had died the day before. The dinner was quite fun but went much later than we thought it would so Rez and I had to postpone booking our European travels.

Students at the table before Thanksgiving dinner.

This last Sunday night after Rez got off of work we came back to South Ken and after visiting with Mutian for a hour we booked our European Trip. We'll be sending a detailed itinerary home soon. The trip will go as follows: London -> Amsterdam -> Berlin -> Venice -> Florence -> Rome -> Barcelona -> Paris -> London. Obviously covering this many places in only 12 days won't allow us to see everything but we'll do our best to make the most of the time we have in each city.

Snow!

Today I got my wish and it snowed in London which is exceedingly rare here especially for this time of year. Seeing it outside the window when I woke up helped me start the day off in a good mood. It's still going now (some 16 hours later) although it has slowed down quite a bit. No snow really built up during the day since it would melt as soon as it landed on anything but late in the evening it built up enough on the ground for me to make a snowball to throw at Rez.

Midweek Update

Christmas is upon us.

On Monday I met up with Rezzy after our classes. We met at her doctor's office which was near impossible to find since she had an appointment for after her classes. She was pretty sick last week and she had a terrible cough but she's gotten much better. We went to see Due Date which was pretty funny and before the movie we had dinner in Greenwich.
On Tuesday I felt pretty miserable for most of the day while at my internship. I think Rez passed whatever she had onto me since I had a really bad case of the sniffles and went through quite a few tissues.

Statue of St. Paul on a pillar near the cathedral.

Today I felt better than yesterday but still not great. I'll be quite happy when I no longer have to get up at 7:30 three days a week for my internship. I met up with Rez at a station halfway between South Ken and her school and we ended up walking to St. Paul's Cathedral. We had lunch at Nando's (chicken place) where we got half of a chicken for free through Rez's loyalty card. Afterwards I dropped her off at work and we bumped into her friend Susan on the way there.

Audi R8 - A common sight outside our flat these days.

Some aspects of living in the student housing here are really starting to frustrate me. Each flat has about 6 rooms, a common room with a kitchen, and about 15 students or so. Of these students only about 10 do their dishes so every couple days a huge pile accumulates in the sink. Pretty much all of the students are extremely messy too, so the table and cooking surfaces have crumbs or mystery sticky spots everywhere. Also quite a few of them feel that if something is in the fridge then it belongs to them. Nevermind the fact that my name is clearly written on the top and side of the container. About 1/3rd of my butter has gone missing, over half of my cream cheese was stolen and my box of beef stock tablets has disappeared entirely.

Remember Remember...

London Eye, Parliament Building and Big Ben.

Unfortunately I have no pictures of the Remembrance Day fireworks to post here but I do have a few videos that are entirely too large to upload. After my internship on Friday Rez and I met up at South Kensington Station and headed down to Clapham Common for the fireworks display. Despite being a Friday night the fireworks started at 7:30pm so I didn't even have time to drop off my backpack at the flat. The fireworks were fun though the planning could have been a bit better since we were all stuck staring through trees. The tube was completely packed on the way to the fireworks so we took a bus on our way back.

A fox in south east London.

The next day Rez and I met at Waterloo to go to a festival but we met up rather late in the afternoon and the festival was pretty much over so we walked along the riverside and had dinner in West End.
Today I took a tour of the Houses of Parliament but unfortunately pictures were not allowed inside so I have none to share. The building is very beautiful on the inside and out. I was a bit surprised at how small the actual rooms are where the Houses of Commons and Lords meet.
Even before Halloween I'd started seeing Christmas decorations popping up around the city. It seems like they jump the gun even worse than we do. =P