Playing Ketchup...Catsup?

BLAST! Two entries in one night! Okay, I promise to try to keep on schedule from now on....show of hands as to who believed that.

Wednesday:
ILLUSTRATION! Except it wasn't that exciting because she put the wrong short stories up so all the sketch I did were for shite. Whatever. I walked into class and the teacher asked me if I was in the write class and almost told me to leave when I didn't say the full name of the module. She gives off the Professor Trelawney vibe, if you say one certain thing she'll either go ape shit or complete shut down and she's just really skinny and it freaks me out.
I ended up with a story where a guy falls off a cliff because he thinks his daughter is drowning and his wife doesn't pick up on his signals from afar. The mother saves the daughter who wasn't actually drowning and when she returns to shore there's a crowd around his body and it goes between past and present. Good stuff.
AND! all the measurements are in metric...and some aren't even in that. What the hell does A4 mean? It's probably 8/4 for all I know! Bullocks.

Thursday:
I hit the snooze button on my alarm every 5 minutes from 8:45-10am this morning. It rained today for the first time I believe and I broke out my umbrella and walked to class after eating breakfast. There's a nice church and clock I'll take photos of when it's not wet out across from the building I have class in.
Lecture went well today, the professor has a Spanish/British accent that I understood better than just British ones which was nice. Then I went to the Seminar from hell...the professor was different and didn't have any idea what we were supposed to do or how WordPress works. It's not worth it even if you can figure it out, I don't know why we didn't just used Blogspot, so much simpler. I'm pretty sure we were supposed to have photoshopped portraits of ourselves by the end of class but she had just opened photoshop when I got up and left after fiddling for an hour. Class was over and the next one was coming it, the woman's voice is high-pitched and warbly. I got a headache and wanted to tell her to shut up and that I would run the class, people were literally just getting up and leaving and I realized I will FOREVER get the WORST teachers when it comes to photography and learning photoshop.
I wanted to get some shopping done today too but I couldn't top-up my oystercard at Arsenal today when I went so I went back to the house and did it online only I have to wait until tomorrow to use it. Which means I didn't get anything done that I wanted to today and everything was all emo-y. I did, however, take notes on places I would like to go and Kelly, Amanda and I are going over it all tomorrow afternoon to plan and book stuff. I have given myself a $600-700 budget for all traveling in and out of the UK so I have $1200-1400 of my own left for food and other stuff but I have another $2000 from Sean in case. I'm hoping for both of us I won't need it.
Also, I'm crashing Jen's wedding when I get home.

Ta Ta Mon Amis!

Whoopsie Poopsie

I forgot to blog Tuesday night and I apologize for that. My bad.

Monday:
First day of classes, I had Cultures and Magic. The professor cut an hour off class time which made me happy. We watched half an episode of Human Planet about people surviving in the desert and had little discussion groups about it. I'm a little worried about actually making friends in these classes because unlike America where we meet 2-3 times a week and see the same students day after day the classes are once a week and you only see them 12 times. 11 actually for this class I get the 21st off. Like I said, it's gonna be difficult to befriend my Londoner classmates. Also, we didn't even have a classroom until the morning of class so people were still coming in with 30 minutes left.
This was also the day that I realized I only have 14 weeks to enjoy Europe and that I should really get on with booking/planning trips because I might not return for a while. (Though if I have it my way I'll come back for a few years and work here so I can take a trip to a country every month.) I'm excited to return home because it means my own bed and my wonderful car. It also means it's almost time for Kanazawa and after being in London for so long I think I'll find all the Vermonty tourist spots even better than I did before.

Tuesday:
I woke up, as you do on a weekday morning and went to Youtube and found the Boob's new song Hollywood where he dresses up as the Bieb which means I had a good morning. I was expecting to go to a huge lecture filled with 234 kids but when the class split for our seminar groups there were barely 100. I met some nice girls in this class and was complimented on my accent, I won't lie, I found this amusing. I learned that every building in London is a maze and you always end up going in a circle, even if you think you're lost you're probably around a corner from the main entrance.
For dinner my host mother made me some sort of bacon wrapped chicken and I was very confused but she also made mashed potatoes from scratch and the smell was so familiar it was heavenly. I thought it was mac'n'cheese at first since those are the two things I'm so used to eating with most meals at home. And I've been craving a brownie from a box with a little vanilla ice cream....B&J costs about $8 here which is beyond not worth it until weeks 6/7 when papers are due and I miss home too much to hold back.

Tuesday Night:
Kelly, Amanda and I went back to Leicester Square/Piccadilly Circus/Chinatown/Holborn/Soho/Buckingham(area) and wandered around for a couple hours and took photos. I was hunting for clear nail polish and I did find a cheaper one but it was still on the expensive side but whatever. I got back at about 9:20ish and uploaded the photos then promptly returned to watching every back episode/new episode of Criminal Minds/House. It's an addiction really.
I fell asleep to the melodious tones of Charlie McDonnell and his CD This Is Me. I recommend listening to it here: http://charliemcdonnell.com/music/ .

Weekend at Bertolli's

Where was I? Right. First weekend in London and I loved every second of it, including the sleeping.

Friday:
Kelly, Amanda and I got together around 10:30am to plan our trip to Paris because we realised if we narrow it down to just the stuff we want to do and stay in a hostel it's a lot cheaper than going through the tour company. We ended up watching AVPM on youtube and drinking Schmirnoff Ice and Absolut Rasberry while we talked about random stuff like you do as college students.
Also, we were going to meet up with some friends of Amanda's that live in the city as well but it turned out to be a game night at the pub. Both football and rugby on different levels of the pub so we left and found a little gelateria nearby in Chinatown and it literally evaporated in my mouth it was so creamy and light.
We wandered around Chinatown and found a shopping center with an arcade/bowling alley/movie theatre that took up 2-3 levels. We walked around for a little while but didn't really do much but wander around Piccadilly Circus and they took some photos.


Saturday:
Another wonderful day, we met again in the morning to go shopping on Oxford St. and we found New Look, which had some nice but cheap stuff, as well as Primark, goodish but very inexpensive. I bought myself some rings, a shirt, a purse and some Herculean sandals for warmer weather. It all cost around 20 pounds which is what I normally spend when I go on a shopping spree at home so I don't feel too bad about it, especially since I decided I'm not going to buy anything else until March unless I really need it for whatever reason.
We found a pub advertising an "Authentic British Pub" off Oxford St. and the food wasn't badly priced for what they were serving so we went in and had rum and cokes. I had some lasagna that my mouth is still recovering from and it was good. The pub was really nice and clean and seemed like a regular hang out for locals and foreigners alike, didn't hurt that it wasn't crowded either.
Afterwards we headed back to Nido and Amanda and I watched Beauty and the Beast then we all headed over to Sainsbury's to do a little grocery shopping. It was another nice day spent with quality people.

Sunday:
Jet lag hit today and I ended up sleeping until noon because I could just not wake up for the life of me. After I woke up I had a breakfast bar and watched some Criminal Minds, looked for the classrooms of all my classes and tried to figure out what I should bring tomorrow. I just finished up a sketch from one of the short stories we're supposed to read for my Illustration class and figured I'll do a couple more before I have it Wednesday.

I'll leave what happens tomorrow for Tuesday when next we meet again. It is the first day of classes though so I'm nervous and excited. Also, we don't have a classroom yet so I'm really hoping it says it before I get on the tube to go to the City campus....

TAFN