Mad Woman! « Adventures of a World Traveler

Oct 14th, 2008 by Jessica Swing

I’m running around like a mad woman right now. It’s 5:15 and I’m cooking dinner for Dane (read previous blogs). Just came back from Sainsbury’s (supermarket) and now I’m cleaning my room, prepping, and on my way to pick him up from King’s Cross Station.

Tomorrow I have my 2nd date with James from the airplane.

Thursday I have my 3rd “proper” date with Tom, one of the boys I hang out with. Then Ally and I fly to Dublin for the weekend.

It has been fantastic weather here ever since I arrived. Sure there were one or two rainy days, but the sun has been out and shining strong and I am loving every second of it~!

For what seemed like EVERYDAY last week, the plan was to venture around to the National Portrait Museum with Caitlin around noon but it just never worked out. So on day made myself a ham, cheese, and lettuce sandwich and was aiming to eat it at St. James’ Park. Got off the tube and there was Westminster Abbey, glowing in the sun. Popped a squat on the wall opposite it and ate my sandwich and soaked in the rays.

Afterward I walked to the Globe Theater (approx 2 miles) and took a tour with Ally. That was pretty decent. We got a bit silly and had fun. Caitlin met us at the Tate Modern (directly next to Shakespeare’s Globe Theater) and we walked around for about an hour and a half and gossiped and had our girl time.

Half an hour later, we were home. Caitlin contributed chick peas and I whipped up some cheap, yet DELICIOUS cod fishcakes, the peas and some gnocchi. We ate out in the hallway and Roberto, the Italian who lives next door corrected me for having made gnocchi the wrong way. O well. It was still delicious. I have some leftovers in the fridge that I might heat up after this blog.

We have a running joke that the Thames will give you HIV, STDs,
or get you pregnant.

On Monday Tom took me out on our first “proper” date to the Tate Modern. That was nice. I was a cheap date. But the exhibits were really neat. Currently they are showing Rothko stuff but you have to pay £10 for entry, so we just did everything else.
Last Tuesday Caitlin and I arranged to meet with Dane in Angel. We went to a very nice and fun place called the Glass Works. They serve fun drinks. There is one called the Frisky Bison. Pretty much vodka and apple juice. But it sometimes tastes like pumpkin pie.
Last Wednesday everybody stayed in and after dinner we played a quiz game in the cafe with the boys. Britons are really into quiz games. It’s like a competitive sport!

Some of the classes here are good, some are bad like Financial Accounting. Week 2 wasn’t as bad as Week 1′s lecture and I actually may have learned a bit. But it was still boring. Half the class has been doing accounting for years, the other half is first years, half of everyone is foreign and doesn’t speak English. So if we aren’t “skipping ahead” to appease the experts, answering first year questions about how Uni works, or defining “confusing” terms like employer vs employee, we actually get some work. I finished 2 sodoku games within those 2 hours. Its a 2 hour lecture, 1 hour seminar. The seminar we actually did work in so I was happy. This guy Nikola, Russian, sat next to me and we talked and got along during the 2 hour lecture, so we sat together again during seminar.

Been hanging out with Tom a lot. Our 2nd “proper” date to a nice place Chinese restaurant in Leicester Square (said as Lester) for dinner. We’ve been joking for about 2 weeks about how he’ll take me toBurger King and if I’m a good girl he’ll treat me to an ice cream afterward and if I’m even nicer I can pick any item off my list of coupons for BK. It’s been fun. I count how many times Tom says proper, ie: “proper” book, “proper” shoes, etc. The coupons say “Brand New ‘Proper’ Breakfast!” I’ll save those for a rainy day (or rushed day).