I have allocated myself about 10 minutes to update. Oops.
Well Thursday seems to be the day to blog since my weekend starts today; I had wanted to blog more than once a week but for now this is the way it is. It’s not even as though I’m horribly busy – it’s the opposite actually – I just don’t feel like updating half the time. I feel like sleeping. Or talking on skype/aim. Or playing tetris on facebook. Or eating. Usually eating.
Let’s see last Friday I got a pair of boots! I returned my Primark ones and got ones at Barretts, a shoe store on Oxford St. They had amazing sales going on, and I got these black flat mid calf leather boots with buckles, and waterproofing spray. They were regularly £50 and I got them for £20. Yay! It really made me so happy to finally have them!
I wore them on Saturday when Rachel, Joy and I went to the British Museum and I left my camera at home. I saw Egyptian mummies, Greek/Roman statues, and the Rosetta Stone. Which I can’t show you because I forgot my camera. Sorry. It is free so I will go back I promise. We ate lunch at Pizza Express and it was delicious, though not REALLY pizza. That night we decided to go check out a club (FINALLY!) called Tiger Tiger in Piccadilly and I remembered my camera. I was so tired from the museum that I came home and napped and had dinner before we went out. It was free before 10pm, so we arrived at 9:45 and of course had to wait for an hour on the queue. Here’s a pic of me, Joy, Rachel, and Beth waiting outside.
We ended up having to pay the £10 cover but that’s not too bad, and they barely checked our IDs. Then it was another £2 per coat. I didn’t have a drink there but it was £5.60 for Joy’s Sex on the Beach. Average. It was pretty crowded and there was the constant thud thud of the beat but no one was really dancing enthusiastically, partly because there was barely any music playing. We checked out the upstairs after doing the coat check-bathroom-bar run and there were a good amount of tables and a few people were nodding their heads to the beat but no one was really into it. It would have been easier to start dancing if a lot of people were dancing as well but most people were there to hang out and talk, it seemed. The music wasn’t on very loud at all. As we were making our way back downstairs Lady Gaga Just Dance came on and of course that’s what we did. But the entire night was like that – 75% bad techno-esque music and 25% decent dancing songs. Around 1 Rachel and Beth left and Joy and I were standing in our spot for literally 30 seconds before 2 guys came up to us. They were from Dubai, and one of them was really enthusiastic. He grabbed both of us in a big bear hug and was like “WHY ARE YOU NOT DANCING!? DANCE WITH ME!” to which we nervously laughed and replied that the music sucked which was why we weren’t dancing. Crazy Dubaian started to dance/suffocate Joy after introducing me to/throwing me at his friend, Calm Dubaian. I was glad to have the politer one, who said something about working in a bank. Maybe that used to be impressive, but not any more. Although if you still have a job in a bank I guess it is sort of impressive. The recession, or “credit crunch” as the Britains have deemed it, has hit hard over here too. I hate the name they’ve given it though because it sounds as though all you need is orange juice and some toast for it to be part of this complete breakfast. After pretending to dance to bad music with a bad dancer (no coming-up-behind-you-hands-on-hip-bones-grinding here – I was holding his hand and he was twirling me around) I rescued Joy from being dance-floor-molested (he actually picked her up at one point. Maybe he was high?) and we escaped by using the boyfriend defense mechanism and by running for the coat check as best we could in hurting high heels through the sea of people that had gathered. Checking to make sure all of our body parts were still where they belonged – Joy had to do this more urgently than me – we got our coats and limped to the bus stop. The N453 looked like heaven on wheels.
Sunday I don’t think I got out of my pajamas. I just did some homework and read a little. Then it started snowing. Ladies and gentlemen, I was here for the London Blizzard of 2009.
Usually snow doesn’t stick here. But this batch did, and it was the most snow they’d had for 18 years. Five whole inches were on the ground by the morning, so naturally everything shut down. The Tube stopped running. Buses stopped running. Taxis were nowhere to be seen. People didn’t go in to work. Classes were cancelled. Every school was closed. Shops didn’t open. Ambulance service was limited to life threatening cases only. Five. Inches.
It continued snowing throughout the day and I didn’t have any classes to cancel unfortunately. Shouts from snowball fights could be heard out my window for about 24 hours straight. Impromptu snowmen reposed on every street. It was magical.
Well Thursday seems to be the day to blog since my weekend starts today; I had wanted to blog more than once a week but for now this is the way it is. It’s not even as though I’m horribly busy – it’s the opposite actually – I just don’t feel like updating half the time. I feel like sleeping. Or talking on skype/aim. Or playing tetris on facebook. Or eating. Usually eating.
Let’s see last Friday I got a pair of boots! I returned my Primark ones and got ones at Barretts, a shoe store on Oxford St. They had amazing sales going on, and I got these black flat mid calf leather boots with buckles, and waterproofing spray. They were regularly £50 and I got them for £20. Yay! It really made me so happy to finally have them!
I wore them on Saturday when Rachel, Joy and I went to the British Museum and I left my camera at home. I saw Egyptian mummies, Greek/Roman statues, and the Rosetta Stone. Which I can’t show you because I forgot my camera. Sorry. It is free so I will go back I promise. We ate lunch at Pizza Express and it was delicious, though not REALLY pizza. That night we decided to go check out a club (FINALLY!) called Tiger Tiger in Piccadilly and I remembered my camera. I was so tired from the museum that I came home and napped and had dinner before we went out. It was free before 10pm, so we arrived at 9:45 and of course had to wait for an hour on the queue. Here’s a pic of me, Joy, Rachel, and Beth waiting outside.
We ended up having to pay the £10 cover but that’s not too bad, and they barely checked our IDs. Then it was another £2 per coat. I didn’t have a drink there but it was £5.60 for Joy’s Sex on the Beach. Average. It was pretty crowded and there was the constant thud thud of the beat but no one was really dancing enthusiastically, partly because there was barely any music playing. We checked out the upstairs after doing the coat check-bathroom-bar run and there were a good amount of tables and a few people were nodding their heads to the beat but no one was really into it. It would have been easier to start dancing if a lot of people were dancing as well but most people were there to hang out and talk, it seemed. The music wasn’t on very loud at all. As we were making our way back downstairs Lady Gaga Just Dance came on and of course that’s what we did. But the entire night was like that – 75% bad techno-esque music and 25% decent dancing songs. Around 1 Rachel and Beth left and Joy and I were standing in our spot for literally 30 seconds before 2 guys came up to us. They were from Dubai, and one of them was really enthusiastic. He grabbed both of us in a big bear hug and was like “WHY ARE YOU NOT DANCING!? DANCE WITH ME!” to which we nervously laughed and replied that the music sucked which was why we weren’t dancing. Crazy Dubaian started to dance/suffocate Joy after introducing me to/throwing me at his friend, Calm Dubaian. I was glad to have the politer one, who said something about working in a bank. Maybe that used to be impressive, but not any more. Although if you still have a job in a bank I guess it is sort of impressive. The recession, or “credit crunch” as the Britains have deemed it, has hit hard over here too. I hate the name they’ve given it though because it sounds as though all you need is orange juice and some toast for it to be part of this complete breakfast. After pretending to dance to bad music with a bad dancer (no coming-up-behind-you-hands-on-hip-bones-grinding here – I was holding his hand and he was twirling me around) I rescued Joy from being dance-floor-molested (he actually picked her up at one point. Maybe he was high?) and we escaped by using the boyfriend defense mechanism and by running for the coat check as best we could in hurting high heels through the sea of people that had gathered. Checking to make sure all of our body parts were still where they belonged – Joy had to do this more urgently than me – we got our coats and limped to the bus stop. The N453 looked like heaven on wheels.
Sunday I don’t think I got out of my pajamas. I just did some homework and read a little. Then it started snowing. Ladies and gentlemen, I was here for the London Blizzard of 2009.
Usually snow doesn’t stick here. But this batch did, and it was the most snow they’d had for 18 years. Five whole inches were on the ground by the morning, so naturally everything shut down. The Tube stopped running. Buses stopped running. Taxis were nowhere to be seen. People didn’t go in to work. Classes were cancelled. Every school was closed. Shops didn’t open. Ambulance service was limited to life threatening cases only. Five. Inches.
It continued snowing throughout the day and I didn’t have any classes to cancel unfortunately. Shouts from snowball fights could be heard out my window for about 24 hours straight. Impromptu snowmen reposed on every street. It was magical.
By Tuesday the snow was black, as it gets in any city. The streets and sidewalks were icy, as London doesn’t have snow plows, and I was very glad to have my rainboots when I went to class. This whole week classes were half empty because of the snow. Apparently it is still snowing places. Hayley was stuck at her house after the weekend because the trains stopped running all week. As far as I know she is still there.
I walked through Regent’s Park yesterday and took some pictures of the snow.
And now I really have to go because we are meeting at the London Eye for the Social Programme at 5:30. We are doing that (ahh heights) and then a South Bank Pub Walk, and then I might go out to O’Neills with friends from my Modernism class. We’ll see.
Also: touch wood = knock on wood and pisser = fun time not necessarily meaning wholesome fun.
This took much longer than 10 minutes.
I will write again soon!
Love, Amanda
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