16: dance, dance!

Eight days sure feels like a long time!
On Monday, I went to a club called Heaven with some friends. Drag queens abounding, people of questionable morality getting down...good times. We decided to re-enact our fun Monday night at a club called Metra in the west end. Evidentially I like dancing all of a sudden? ha. I get a nice workout, too. :D

Yesterday I decided to go on a shopping spree...at Primark. haha. I got a few things that I can't quite wear yet. I'll wait until the weather gets warmer. Still, it was nice to go out alone and treat myself a little! I got two dresses, a jacket (since 2 of my 4 jackets are looking a little worse for the wear), a scarf, a tee shirt, a pair of boots, and a purse all for under £80! Go me, go me. I might add that Primark is exhausting, by the way. I had to stand in line for a dressing room for over half an hour!

Tomorrow I am going to Bath with Sara, and I am really looking forward to it. I'm supposed to be deciding what we're going to see and where we're going to go. Hm. Guess I should get to that.

On Friday I got three--count 'em, THREE!--letters from Brigette and Matt collectively, and the day before I got a supercool one from Jenn and Kaila. It was like Christmas! I'm still writing Brigette back, seeing as we tend to write novels to each other, but the others have been sent. Look out!

Here's a little picture from Monday, because I love it:

15: whining, sorry.

I am currently fed up with money and spending it, unnecessarily, on things that should be automatic.

What do I mean? I just spent $300 booking my return flight home--$100 to the program and $200 to the airport for flight cancellation. Freaking awesome. Considering the fiasco that was Vienna, and this $300 cancellation fee which could have potentially been another trip, I have now spent close to $1000 on things that don't actually benefit me directly. And the real kicker? When I fly back to the states, I fly back to LAX because they wouldn't let me change my destination to go straight home. AIFS sucks and if I would have known that I would have to deal with so much bullshit (excuse my language) while I was here, I would have never picked this program.

While we're on the topic of money woes, get this: my spring break in Marseilles? Probably not going to happen, either, considering that with flight, accomodation, transportation, and food, the cost of the trip comes out to something like $600 for only three days. D : Giant sad face. And I don't want to go to Paris again, because I'm probably going to go there at least twice more during my stay.

I hate that I worry about money so much. I'm afraid I'm going to go back to the States and feel like I didn't do anything. But I just can't justify $600 for three days, particularly when that money isn't entirely mine.

Blah, blah, blah. BORING. I just had to get it out. Promise more eventful things in the future.
I guess I'm going to a drag show / club tonight?

14: Hyde park, Shakespeare, misc. weekend.

On Thursday, I took an impromptu trip to Hyde park with my friend, Kevin. We paparazzi-d ducks! Look!




Later that night, I went and saw "Much Ado About Nothing" at the National Theatre. It was incredible! I texted Matt right after to tell him that it was the most moving performance I'd ever seen. The scene were Claudius lays, weeping, upon Hero's grave had me on the verge of tears (at least, that's all I'll admit to...ha), and the scenes between Benadick and Beatrice were flawless. The perfect balance of comedy, turmoil, disdain and love. I was absolutely sucked into the performance and couldn't take my eyes away for the entire three hours. Very inspiring.

Oh, and fun fact: Zoë Wanamaker, aka "Beatrice", played Madam Hooch in the first Harry Potter. Thought a few of you out there might like that!

Okay, I was going to make a huge post, but somehow I can't remember anything I was going to write about right now. haha.

I went to Da Mario's last night (Kaila!) and it was delicious. I had Pasta del Pastore--spinach, garlic, pesto and pine nuts = delicious. I was going to go out to a pub called O'Neils with some of my friends, but that pasta super-expanded or something and traveling wasn't going to happen. ha. Even though it was only in Picadilly, but whatever. We'll see what happens tonight. I am freakishly tired, for some reason? I hope I'm not coming down with the third wave of sickness this semester. It's ridiculous!

In the mean time, I am washing laundry and waiting for the caf to open, while simultaneously avoiding my homework and planning a spring break trip. Too many details!

13: Wallace Museum, "concert."

Saturday, 1 March 2008: My friend Kevin and I went to the Wallace Museum--which was evidently founded by the illegitimate children of Royals, ha--because our Contemporary British Theatre professor told us that it had some great French revolution-era pieces, and we all know what a sucker I am for that era of design. ha. It was really cool! I don't know that I'd make a special trip for it again, but it was certainly interesting. The rooms were so sumptuously decorated, and (as always!) I got a few interior design ideas. I am such a nerd, picking ideas up for museums.

Anyway, we poked around there for a while, looking at their collection of paintings, furnishings, and medieval and Gothic-period suits of armor before hitting up the gift shop. I didn't buy anything, but more than a few things caught my eye! They had a lot of fashion books from the period, and I was more than tempted to buy a pattern book, but it was £20. Eek! If I keep thinking about it, maybe I'll go back or try and find it on e-Bay--or maybe not. I have issues with e-Bay, as you'll find out later in this entry!

Then we went to a restaurant called Fresco, which was essentially a juice bar (I had orange carrot juice...so good!) but also had delicious pita sandwiches for fairly cheap. After, we went and farted around on Oxford street for a bit and then returned home.

That night, I went to a concert that I thought was supposed to be an electro-pop dance party. Sounds fun, right? Everyone we've talked to has said that we absolutely had to go to an electronica concert while we were here, because European electronica is so much different/better. So we go to one recommended by a roommate's friend. This night, aptly described by Kelly, was a huge night of "What the ****?!"

We get to the venue in central London about a half hour after the show was supposed to start because of issues with not one, but TWO trains. (The one ahead of us broke down, and then the one we packed into during rush-hour traffic had a malfunction and also had to be taken off the tracks. Delicious.) The show ended up starting almost an hour late, which I guess is normal. Anyway, the opening band sucked, and that sort of set the tone for the entire night. Why, you ask? Because this is turning out to be a straight-up concert, not a dance party like were expecting. Electronica? No. Synth rock? Yes. Not into it. If you feel like checking out what my ears were subjected to, here. That main song sounds a lot like NIN, but some were this kind of weird Morrissey/Depeche Mode/Linkin Park (ew, I know) fusion and I was not diggin' it real hard.

However, I spent £20 to get in, and so I was going to have fun, gosh darnit. Once my roommates quit ditching me at the same time to go pee and/or smoke a cigarette and leaving me to save spots, we headed into the middle of the crowd and got as close to the front as we could. Danced our faces off. Yeah, I didn't dig the music, but it was definitely an experience and something I'm glad that I did.

Um. I've been meaning to post at some point about all the stupid things that I've done since I've been here. Here's a list:
- Busted my foot in Vienna. Seriously, it feels sprained. This was over a week ago, and I have no idea how I did it in the first place!
- Shrunk my only winter coat. Luckily it still fits, but if, for some reason, you ever feel compelled to put wool and/or dry-clean only materials in a foreign washer (on low heat, of course) with the intent of simply air drying it...don't. Wrists get surprisingly cold.
- Bought a $4 bottle of water in Paris when I totally could have had a Coke for cheaper.
- £14 gin and tonic, also in Paris. omggg.
- Missed my flight out of Slovakia. Shuddup. We don't talk about it.
- Tripped up the stairs in front of the shower-repair man.
- Stepped in a cold dog poop on the street while wearing my favorite shoes.

...wow. I thought I only had two or three dumb things to make fun of myself for, but apparently I am just a big idiot. ha. They just kept coming to me!

I also ordered a new journal yesterday because I found a really cheap Moleskine on e-Bay yesterday, and I was really excited. It was only £2.94 for a regular sized, unlined one, and they are normally much more expensive (like £10). However, after I committed to buy, I was confronted with the reality that the shipping would be more than double the cost of the actual notebook itself. ha. Last time I do that. Live and learn, right? I feel like that is becoming my motto more and more every day.

I'm off to do some of the homework I have been putting off since last Thursday. Shoot. I am really worthless sometimes. : ] Love you all! I am still anxiously awaiting your letters, by the way. Hurry up, you stinkers!

12.

Hello, hello. Not a whole lot of new going on here. I'm pretty sure only about five people read this, so hello Mom, Dad, Ingrid, Matt, and Katie. haha.

Today my Shakespeare class was canceled, which was exciting to me but seemed to make a lot of other people upset because we were supposed to turn in our mid-term papers. Then again, I didn't stay up until 2 or 3 writing it. I actually finished it this weekend. I know, me not procrastinating is a strange and foreign thought, but it is a possible happening.

I didn't do much last weekend, mainly because I needed to work on said paper and read another novel that we never wound up discussing in class. Grr. It was a dense son of a gun, too! It seemed like most of my friends were either on a trip to Scotland or had some relation (family, friend, boyfriend, etc.) visiting, so I was sort of out of the loop. A little tough, but everything is fine now that people are back. : ]

Plans for the week: London Eye (Thursday), looking for a book store of some kind (Fri.) and possibly Primark (the cheaper, British equivalent of Forever 21...which is all I can afford at this juncture), Wallace museum (Sat.) and Sunday is open for homework, etc. I should really start writing papers for some of my other classes. Perhaps the miraculous history of this weekend shall repeat itself in the future, and I won't be a stress case at 2 am on Monday morning? Only time will tell.

10.5: Exciting news!

I am going to Lisbon, Portugal for reading week!

10: Vienna.

Last weekend I went to Vienna with my roommate, Jillian. We flew into the airport in Bratislava, Slovakia and spent roughly four days knocking around the city. I saw the Leopold museum, got lost going to the Sigmund Freud Museum, the Danube canals (one at 2 pm, the other at 12:30 am...lovely), drank a lot of coffee and wore out a pair of boots. Yes, I know. I am so hardcore that I walked around nearly all Saturday--from 12:30 pm until 2:30 am, stopping only a few times for sustenance and obviously, a break from pounding the pavement.

Pictures here. I don't really feel like writing more about it because we missed our flight on the way back because I am an idiot and cost both of us about $230 bucks and I'm really not happy about that because that's probably going to mean I can't go to Sweden. Suffice it to say that I keep forgetting that everything in Europe is in military time, and so the flight that I thought was at 10 pm was actually at 10 am. Yeah. Real smart, G. I'm trying to remember that I am lucky that I am in London and that there is plenty for me to do here, but my head is spinning with the loss of that much money. : [ Bad day for me, boo hoo.

Anyway, you jerks who I've written post cards and still not gotten a response from: if you don't write back, you don't get more! Come on, guys. It's been over a month. You don't want to make me sad, do you? Do you?