Weekly Update!

So I think I'm getting into the swing of just updating on Sunday night as a habitual thing. It's much easier to give a weekly recap rather than to try and update each day. So I think that's the plan.

Monday - Work, then I went to PRIMARK which is this store that you always hear about. Every person walking down Oxford Street for some reason always has a HUGE brown bag full of stuff from Primark, and I was told it's trendy clothes that are really cheap. So, of course, I decided I had to check this out. And, oh my God, it was AWFUL. I swear, it was like Toys'R'Us on Black Friday TIMES TEN. It was so crowded. And additionally, every tourist who was currently in London at that point in existence was in Primark. God knows why. So not only could you not move, I mean, who wants to actually look around for clothes in that environment? Horrible. And everything apparently falls to bits right after you buy it, after you wait in the queue of 50 people to check out. Haha needless to say I did not buy anything...

Tuesday - Busy busy busy day of lab work at work! It's great! And then in the evening I met up with some of the family, including Alex, and we all went out for pizza which was really nice. I love this little Italian restaurant I found that's right near the hospital where you can get an amazing, huge, and delicious pizza for 7 pounds. Not too bad at all! So pretty good night :) I also signed up for the UK equivalent of Netflix and ordered a bunch of photo prints online since my room feels like a jail cell that is cold and icy. So we needed to bring some love into the situation and to help me from feeling homesick. So now all the pictures are plastered over my wall! Much more cheerful now :)

Wednesday - Work, and laundry night! Woo hoo! And, very important to note, that I got an AMAZING care package from Elaine containing a pound of Dunkin coffee among other things. So this just made my day/week, just so excellent! And here's a story, the dryer takes so so so long to dry clothes that I had time to put my clothes in the dryer, wash dishes, go into central London, retrieve the package from the post office, come back, watch tv for 20 minutes, and THEN the clothes were done. HAHA it takes like 70 minutes to get dry clothes, ridiculous.

Thursday - Such a busy day at work too! I literally worked all day from 9:30 to 5:30 with only a 20 minute lunch break and no tea break, that's how busy I was with lab work! It was great though and I loved every minute of it :) Then in the evening, because I CAN, I decided to walk down to the British Museum in the evening and check out all the exhibits I had previously missed when I went at the weekend. So that was pretty excellent, but I also did not anticipate being quite so exhausted after work, so didn't stay long, but still got my dose of culture which was good and healthy!

Friday - See now it gets good. So, of course, I went to work and still had a very busy day, similar break schedule to Thursday, meaning, a lack thereof. haha but that's really ok, I like it that way. Friday was the first day of one of my lab supervisor's 3 week holiday, where I am pretty much taking over his job until he returns. And I think the first day went really well! I got to do DNA extractions by myself, process samples by myself, and even clean up a CVS sample, which I have never even done before. This is all very exciting! God I love this job.

Then after work one of the head people in the office was taking everyone out for drinks because it had been her birthday earlier in the week. So a bunch of us went out to a pub nearby and it was actually a lot of fun! It's really funny, this is just one of the large discrepancies I am finding between my two cultures, I mean, in America, you would never go out for multiple drinks with your boss and stuff on a Friday night, I mean, how much do you really drink at all with your boss? But here it's totally acceptable! At least where I work :) haha I had such a great time just getting to know my boss a bit better and having a few laughs, it was really nice! So I left there about 7:30 and bought two huge pumpkins so that Rachel and I could later carve them. Oh yes, even got them from an organic supermarket, because of the lack of pumpkin patches and farmer's markets in central London. Go figure.

Saturday - Saturday morning I woke up early and jumped on a train and went to Canterbury for the day! It was quite a shock to me because the train was apparently a high speed train, which was not specified on the website. So I got on this train and nearly had a heart attack with how fast it started going! Dear God! But, on the bright side, I did get to Canterbury in about an hour. Haha. So yeah, walked around Canterbury and went to the gorgeous Cathedral. It's just the funniest thing, the town looks like a regular English high street except for the fact there is this castle-like structure in the middle of the road, and just off a side street is this huge Gothic cathedral! Excellent! The cathedral was absolutely gorgeous, I wish someone had been there to give an organ demonstration or something, that would have made my day. But there wasn't one, unfortunately. But Cathedral was beautiful and I got a good deal of shopping done! Including shoes, a few Christmas presents, a last-minute Halloween costume, and CHOCOLATE. From this wondrous and amazing place called Hotel Chocolat. Where I not only bought chocolate, but also bought pasta made with cocoa...I'm thinking choco-mac and cheese? I'll let you know how that is... HAHA

So I came back around 4 and just literally sat and did nothing. I was pretty tired, after the whole week really so it was nice to relax. Then around 8 I started getting ready in my costume, I was subtly a devil, which mainly consisted of hair clips that had little devil horns attached to them. Thank you Claire's. Yes, I was definitely the only customer over the age of 10 in that store. haha! But yeah it was great, curled my hair and got dressed, looked really awesome. I'll working on getting pictures from last night, I was not in charge of the camera so when I get them, I'll try to post a couple. So Rachel and her friend Pete came home around 9:30 and we were sophisticatedly drinking champagne out of wine glasses in our flat from like 10-11ish. Then went and picked up some nurses, and some more Scottish nurses, and caught a bus to some other Scottish nurses' flat! Where everyone was dressed like a kitty cat, literally about 4 or 5 nurses, and we drank vodka and coke! It was such a laugh, we just stayed for such a long time, that by the time we remembered we should catch a bus to go out clubbing it was 1:30... but daylight savings time actually made it 12:30.

So some nurses went home, and the rest got on bus out to Soho, but we only made it to Covent Garden. Some lovely person who drank too much decided to be sick on the bus which made it smell just...awful. So we got off early! But riding the bus on the Saturday night before Halloween is hilarious! Even at 2:00 AM then there are all of these people coming in and out in all of their crazy costumes with all sorts of objects sticking out of their heads, it was wonderful! So we walked to Leicester Square and went into a club there. Downstairs was a bit crowded but they were playing pretty good music. But we started upstairs in this much less crowded room that was playing back to the 80's music haha including "Come On Eileen...," "I'm Coming Out," and that Eurythmics song. Excellent. Haha! So that was fun, but then lots of people started leaving so we went downstairs for a while and hung out there until we left. We walked back home, because it's really not too far, went to Tesco's, of course, because it's 24 hours and you get the best deals at that time of night, and then finally came home at 3:00 ish. But, of course, it felt like 4:00. Drank some water, ate some cookies, and happily PASSED OUT. until 11:00 AM.

Sunday - So today, I woke up and went to the British Museum again through work. They were previewing this exhibit about the Egyptian Book of the Dead that would normally be 12 pounds but for us was free because it hadn't technically opened yet. And went with two girls from work, Bola and Louisa, and also Louisa's boyfriend. It was pretty good, VERY crowded, which was surprising considering it's not even open to the public yet, and I definitely would not pay 12 pounds for it. It was definitely interesting, but it was slightly repetitive, and we were happy to leave after about an hour.

Then Bola and I went on to get coffe in a cafe in this GREAT store called Paperchase where they just sold lots of random stuff. So that was also good for xmas shopping. Then I just walked down Oxford Street and got some cardigans and leggings that somehow generate heat by themselves? I thought I needed those for winter, duh. It's coming you know! Also bought Rachel chocolate that contained Marmite, because she loves Marmite, and we tried it, and it was literally just so unbelievably nasty. It took a minute, at first you weren't quite sure if it was good or not, and then it became completely apparent that it was horrible. HAHA. Delicious.

Then Rachel had never actually carved a pumpkin before. Halloween really isn't a big thing over here at all...and I've come across many people who say, "Oh I don't believe in what Halloween represents." And I kind of really feel like Halloween doesn't represent anything except costumes and candy? It's strange. Earlier in the week I was pretty worried that I was not going to have anything festive going on for Halloween...that would have been highly depressing. So anyway, we carved pumpkins and made amazing jack-o-lanterns! I'll definitely put a picture of them up here.

And now we're all caught up! Going to try and go see Wicked this week with Maggie, and I'm not really sure what else is up. Except Friday, which is Guy Fawkes DAY!!! Oh it's ON. I have much planning to do. Next weekend Barcelona!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So excited!!!

Anyway, I should get off to bed soonish so I can be ready for work tomorrow because another week awaits!

Hope everyone had a good week, weekend and Halloween!

<3 Carina xxx



Jack-o-lantern masterpieces! Rachel's on the left (Elton John - note the earring) and mine on the right.

Me outside Canterbury Cathedral

Stunning Interior of the Cathedral

The Cathedral itself!

So Lazyyy

WOW I am getting lazy about updating this. It's hard to find the energy or will to actually write in here, I'm just so busy and out all the time. But I'm trying hard because I want to keep a record of this. Plus I'm sure it will be nice to look back on when I come back so I can read it myself later.

Firstly, I have been informed that many people cannot comment on this blog or anything. I think it only works if you use internet explorer for some reason, I'm sorry about that, I, in fact, hate internet explorer, and had I known that previously, I would have gone with a different website! So if you're trying to leave me a comment and it doesn't work, then try that :)

Let's update now.

OK last week. I think my largest accomplishment of the week was successfully making 35 smores for English people who had never had a smore in their lives! I bought the equvalent of graham crackers = digestive biscuits, and I put marshmallow fluff on one cookie, that I bought in the American food section at Selfridges, and I melted Galaxy chocolate (delicious) and spread that on the other half. Then put them together and I really was pleased with myself at HOW MUCH they tasted like real legitimate smores :) And they were a big hit at work! I'm quite sad that I used up all of the fluff and all the smores are gone now, I'm definitely going to remember that for the future though as an amazing snack. Even when they're cold and not melty.

I also had coffee with my old cousin last Tuesday who I haven't seen in probably 7 years or so, so that was nice! This is the beautiful part of actually living here, I now have the time to catch up with family I don't normally get to see!

Then last Wednesday I went to a comedy show at Leicester Square Theater with a bunch of the girls who are on study abroad at Drexel. It was absolutely fabulous! The comic's name was Deborah Frances-White and the show was called "How To Get Almost Anyone To Want To Sleep With You," which, despite the title, was not as dirty as you would think. It was really quite funny though, and was basically instructing men on how to be more like George Clooney and instructing women on how to walk around being a "Scorsese movie in a hat"!!! haha Very exciting show, for sure. They have another show where they have comics read portions of celebrity autobiographies so I thought I might go and see that sometime too, that sounded like fun and is supposed to be hysterical! One day :)

Then Friday I went to a masquerade "party" with my friend Bola. I think we were both under the impression that it would be like dinner and dancing, like a masquerade. Instead it was more of meeting up at a bar and having drinks while being dressed up and wearing masks. So it was ok, but there was also a serious lack of food so we had to temporarily leave the party and run across the road to the chippery to grab some food in the middle of the party! Plus it was Friday, so I was absolutely EXHAUSTED after work. An entire week of work ,that is.

Saturday was fun though! Rachel's (my flatmate) boyfriend Sam was here for the weekend so all three of us went out Saturday morning. We went to the British Museum which was pretty awesome, and conveniently FREE and right down the road. Very good plan for a supposedly rainy Saturday morning. So, lucky for me, the museum had an exhibit of "Buddhism Across Asia," which I was SO excited about! I love those Eastern religions and philosophies, just excellent stuff. Then they also had a whole exhibit of Egyptian and Greek stuff, it was excellent. So we were only there for about 2 hours and didn't get to do everything, but since it's free, I think I'll definitely go back one day and check absolutely everything out (even the parts you have to *gasp* pay for!)

Then we walked all the way from our flat to London Bridge and we went to Borough Market which is a giant market of food stands with everything under the sun from all around the globe. They had loads of baked goods and cheeses and curries and wines and olives and meat and everything...so we actually didn't buy anything because it was very crowded and kind of crazy, but I'll go back one day soon. I spotted a gourmet coffee shop on the way out but since I was the only one in the group interested in coffee then I figured I'd save that for myself one day :) Fun stuff!

We then met up with Rachel's friend Pete and two of his friends who were very quiet so I didn't get their names... and, as a regular Saturday afternoon, we went to a pub in Leicester Square and watched rugby and football. Hooray! Then Rachel, Sam, and I left to come back to ours and make some food so we didn't have to pay for it at the pub, and of course, as soon as we go outside, it conveniently starts pouring! Haha so we got a bit wet, but yeah, it was a good night overall! I was too tired to do anything else after that.

So instead I stayed home and BOOKED A TRIP TO BARCELONA!!! haha so I can go and see Brian, my Kindgergarden boyfriend. Which will be lovely! And Barcelona of course. I'm off in mid-November so I'm so excited! Running around Europe is just dirt cheap when you're already in Europe!

Then on Sunday Alex and I went out to Winchester to go visit some family which was lovely! And then it reached 0 degrees C at night in London. Which is, in fact, the freezing point of water. I hear it was 70 degrees in Philly and A-town that day....that doesn't sound very fair!

Additional highlights from this week are that Elaine has booked a flight and is coming to visit me in December! And I have COMPLETELY fixed the tv and got a dvd player! I figured out, after much battling with the antenna, that there is a rooftop antenna on our building that I have a plug in the wall to, duh. Oh well.

Work last week was slightly boring because my boss was training to use a new machine, but this week will be better! I still love love love this job though, my lab supervisor is leaving on Thursday for a 3 week holiday so then I'll be in charge! Check this out, responsibility! I have also been given the responsibility of managing and being in charge of a database of 3000 patients for our research project, to the point where other centers involved have to check with me before they can use the database, it's pretty sweet! I love this place, I feel like if I had gotten a job in America then I could be cleaning glassware in the lab or something, but here, I'm a real member of the research team! Just excellent!

I think it's going to get warmer soon here....

Also, I'm going to attach pictures onto this because I forget that some of the people on here don't have access to my facebook so they can't see pictures! But for those of you that do, that's a good place to look for pictures of what I've been up to :) Remember that you can click on the pictures below to see them bigger!

Hope everyone had a good weekend and has a good rest of the week!

-Carina xxx



This one's a picture from last week's adventure to Brighton...love it! That's the royal pavilion behind me, I totally fell in love.


This one is a picture of me and Bola (who is also called LaShonda, word) at the masquerade


Bola, Me, and other party-goers in our masks

Part of the Greek Parthenon exhibit at the British Museum (Rachel and me)


Rachel and me in front of the British Museum


Finally, a picture of me in London to prove that this is actually where I am!

Ok Month 1 Update

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I'm completely junk about updating, I've just been really really busy with everything and hanging out and meeting people, so it's tough to find the time and motivation to actually write and update here!

Been here for one month now, and I must say, I am having the time of my life. I think co-op is the best thing that has ever happened to me, I just love having a job. This is so much more valuable than anything my classes have taught me so far, and I just really need this supplement to my coursework. Real life experience is the only thing that's really going to show me what I want to do with my life. I couldn't have found a better job, I'm still not sure how I landed this one. I feel like a real and contributing member of this research project, where I actually get to process samples and do the techniques and stuff. Just check me out, I feel AMAZING, I just couldn't ask for a better life right now.

Let's see what I did this past week. Alex and I went out for burgers on Monday for 30 quid! which is like 45 bucks, and they weren't even that good. INSANITY right? haha I don't get it at all. Not going back there again...

Then later in the week my new flatmate, Rachel, and I went out for dinner, and she is just super nice. She is 21! HAHA people my own age in my flat? It's unbelievable! So yeah, we did dinner and tea, lovely stuff. I'm such a real person actually craving tea, it's so strange. Haha.

Thursday night Drexel had a banquet event in London which was pretty crazy, kind of hilarious too, to go to a Drexel event in London at the Royal Thames Yacht Club, yes, I am THAT sophistocated. So I got to dress up and curl my hair and burn my neck in the process, it was fun! The event wasn't too bad, there were maybe 8 or so current students at the event which was pretty nice, just meeting other Drexel students who are hanging out in London. It's funny to think there's actually a little gang of Philadelphians in this city 3000 miles away haha. Drexel, of course, felt that potato chips were an adequate h'our derve (yeahhh sorry French was a while ago) for us American kids...even though we were expecting dinner. Didn't happen. But of course, there were free drinks, none of which were non-alcoholic. Haha. But we got to meet the new president firsthand and she shook all of our hands and stuff, it was really nice. He seems like a good guy who has a good idea about the realistic flaws of our uni and has decent plans to make changes. All in all, very fun.

But I think my favorite part of this reception, and meeting all of these people, was that they were impressed when I told them where I worked. Just being able to say I work at the best children's hospital in the country just makes people really impressed, and makes me feel really important. It's excellent, I just feel like I've really accomplished something, even though I'm not getting paid a penny haha.

Then Friday night I went out with Rachel and explored the city and walked around which was good. I still find it hard to believe that I can actually walk down to the river and explore LONDON. I love it. Had some hot chocolate too. Which I have discovered, if you ask for your coffee to NOT be a million degrees, then it's actually drinkable as soon as you get it! What a novel concept!

Anyway, so Friday night was fun.

Then Saturday I woke up early and went with some of the Drexel girls from the banquet to Brighton for the day which was just amazing. Got to see the ocean for a bit, had breakfast in a French patisserie, saw the pier, went to the Royal Pavilion, and went shopping in the Lanes. I fell in love with this Royal Pavilion, it literally looks like the Taj Mahal, just so beautiful, it was like taking a trip to India for a couple of hours! Just excellent. After having pasties for lunch, then it started raining despite the weather forecast. Also note that my phone at this point told me it was party sunny in Brighton. haha. YEAH. So caught the train back.

Then came back and had a nap for an hour, had some dinner and went out with Rachel and some other nurses, a good portion of which were Scottish, oh yes. Very exciting. Had some vodka + cokes at their place and then went out to a pub in Camden for some dancing and loud music. And a Jagerbomb, which is delicious. HAHA and hilarious.

Fun night all in all though! LATE night too...

Then today Rachel and I went out to petticoat lane market to look around and I got some very stereotypical London posters to put on my wall so it looks less like I'm living in a prison cell. haha, it's important! Then had dinner with family which is always nice.

Off to another day of work tomorrow! With more delicious Italian food for lunch... can't wait!

Please leave me comments, it makes me happy to know people actually read this! :)

Weekend

Hi Guys,

Ok GREAT weekend, I have a SOCIAL life!!! Haha

So Friday night after work myself and 6 other people from work went out to a pub for Carina's first legitimate pint. So I was bought a pint of Kronenburg, which wasn't super delicious, but that's ok. I got to try everyone at the table's drink too so that was nice. My one friend Neesa had this pear flavored cider stuff? That was pretty good so I think I'll have to have that next time. Then another girl, Bola, decided that we also needed to have shots. So against my protesting, of course, I was given one anyway. Haha! So I had this shot of this blue stuff that was kind of minty and slightly mouthwashy/cough syrupy. Oh well... And I swear, I must be the biggest lightweight ever, because I was a little spinny and awfully giggly after one shot and one pint. Dear god. So we were sitting around a round table and then we basically spent 2 hours playing those lame icebreaker games that you would play at orientation. Like "I'm going to a picnic and I'm bringing ..." where the first person says something beginning with A, the next person does B, and then you go through the alphabet. We just changed the category about a dozen times but this whole thing was hilarious for no apparent reason. Good times though.

So then everyone wanted to leave at 7:30 because I guess they don't all live super close and needed to go home or something, unlike myself who lived 5 minutes walk away. So then, of course, I did not know how to get home, so my friend Darrell kindly walked me home and was taking great enjoyment from my giggliness. Haha! I was complaining how I thought I had left my water bottle on the table at the pub, which was a big deal, for those of you who understand my attachment to water bottles. haha

OK so then I got home and it was about 7:45 or 8, and I was actually pretty tired. But I thought it would be super lame to actually go to bed at quarter to 8 at night. So luckilly, my friend Tom texted me and told me to come meet him up at the pub at University of London. See this is how epic England is, there is a student pub, in the student union. Whereas in America the most exciting thing in a student union is a fast food joint. So I went to this pub and had a cider, which was much better than this beer nonsense. But yeah I had a great time! Just walked around and met people and had a great time!

So that was Friday night.

Then yesterday morning I went off to Westfield Mall which is like this brand new shopping center that is legitimately like an American shopping mall, which is kind of revolutionary for England. So I went and walked all around there which was pretty...huge. And I didn't buy anything unfortunately, but it was fun to walk around and see everything. They even have a Hollister there, because now they have American things in England. So I went to walk into Hollister and there was one of the employees at the door greeting people who I thought would be like "Hey Guys what's up???" (haha Danika) but he was NOT. Instead, he directed me to the back of this large LINE of people who were queuing up to enter into Hollister! At least like 20 people. It was crazy, so of course, I was not going to LINE UP to go into Hollister. I thought this whole lining up business was a very un-American approach to managing a Hollister. Part of the experience is not being able to hear or move in there, right? Haha I thought it was funny.

So then I came home and skyped some important people :) And then I GOT MY BROADBAND INSTALLED!!! So now I have wireless broadband and it works so so so well! The speed is so much faster and it's so reliable, it's excellent! So I'm thrilled and really excited about it!

Then my friend Bola, who has been renamed LaShonda by those of us at work, and I were suppoed to hang out last night and do dinner and a movie. But she got held up with something and then couldn't come and pick me up at 6:30 like planned. So then I took the underground over to her and she picked me up from the station because she has a CAR. Which is such a novel concept in London. So then we went to this "American" Italian restaurant which was pretty good. Except there were 2 birthdays and this restaurant's idea of celebrating a birthday is blaring "Happy Birthday" over the loudspeaker with some additional music tacked on at the end of the song that was specific to this restaurant. Haha so in the happy birthday part, they shut off all the lights, which was dumb, because then we couldn't see our food and eat. Then in this additional part, they started flashing lights on and off in the rhythm of the song, which was highly annoying and unnecessary, I'm surprised they don't get more seizures in there! Haha

So then it was pretty late so we didn't want to see a movie and went bowling instead! Neither of us are very good at bowling...I think the high score was like a 65 or 70 from either one of us. A lot of gutter balls in there...haha. But so we wanted to do 2 games, but then the third game was only 1 pound, so OF COURSE we had to do that. But then by the last game we were both completely exhausted and neither of us were doing a very good job anymore. Haha! So then after that she drove me around a bit to see Greenwich, including the Greenwich Median Time line or whatever it is called, so we drove past that real quick. And she also showed me what the Millenium Dome had been turned into which was pretty nice. I'm surprized that they didn't knock the whole ugly thing down though... Oh well.

So then today I'm not sure what I'm doing to do. Definitely going to head off to Fortnum and Mason this morning to go and check out all of the exotic foods and stuff, maybe go to Harrods as well if I"m really bored.

But here's the most exciting part of my weekend, SOMEONE NEW has moved into the vacant room in our flat! And she's like young like could potentially be around my age! She seems very nice and friendly, and is from where all of my family is from down south. So I think I'll ask her if she wants to do dinner later tonight or something.

Back to work tomorrow! Great weekend so far though...

I'm just getting to the point where I'm ready to go back to the US, but I'll get over it. I'm having a great time here, and it's going to be a little bit of an adjustment making myself realize I still have over 5 months left here. But it's going to be excellent!

Hope everyone else is having a good weekend too!

Almost Friday...

Hello Friends,

So it's been a good week at work. It looks like I'm going to be focusing on just the project for developing a non-invasive alternative to amniocentesis, and spending less time doing other stuff. But I'm happy about that, I can get really involved in this project, and use all of this cutting edge technology, and then when the paper is published soon then my name gets to go on it too! They're going to let me work over in the university hospital soon too, so then I get to see all sides of the project all across the board. So then I'll be really involved. Yeah I really love this job. The people are so nice and friendly and crazy!

I went out earlier in the week for my first non-full pint of beer, it was called a something -top but I have no idea what it was. Something involving Heineken, which wasn't too bad. It's strange being old enough to legally drink. I went out to dinner today and they asked me if I wanted wine with dinner! Haha WHAT? WINE? I must be getting old :)

Oh and this week at work I saw a real storm trooper walking down the street. In his full costume and everything, legitimate storm trooper. And I pretty much died laughing, so much that I didn't get a chance to take a picture before he was whisked away into a building. I suspect he was actually there for the purpose of entertaining and visiting the children at the hospital, and wasn't just a Star Wars fanatic.

So tomorrow is Friday! Thank god! Tomorrow after work I think a bunch of us are going out for Carina's first legitimate pint for real, which should be an adventure.

This weekend I think I'll try and head out to this mall called The Westfield and maybe invite this girl from work who is 22, close to my age! It's supposed to be really sweet and brand new. Now they have Hollister in London? What's going on here?

Tonight I went out for dinner to this little place called Ciao Bella which I was told by my co-workers that it has the best pizza in London. I went out with another girl from Drexel, Cassandra, who is also on co-op abroad in London, but she's a fashion design major. We actually never met before, but she was super nice and we had a great time! So see? Making friends all over the place.

Everyone at work keeps giving me a hard time about my super enthusiasm, I can't see it wearing off too soon though :)!

Please everyone have a good weekend!

Next week: Free dinner at The Royal Thames Yacht Club courtesy of Drexel :)

PS - If the website won't let you comment, I think it's because it really only likes Internet Explorer. It won't let me comment in Firefox, but leave me some love!

AND I SHOULD BE GETTING BROADBAND TOMORROW!!! FINALLY!!! :)

Update

Hi Everyone,

Sorry I haven't updated in a while, it's been really busy this end and it was hard to actually get internet in Bournemouth. Stupid dongle, I should have broadband on Friday though!

So last week was actually really good. Thursday I decided I needed to get my student railcard so that I could get decently priced train tickets to go down to Bournemouth for the weekend. So a lovely guy Tom from work walked me to the train station and helped me get my picture, card, and tickets all sorted out. He then gave me a walking tour of London and showed me where all the good pubs are around out area, and even not in our area. So we walked all around London, and down to the Thames, and he was a history buff so I pretty much had my own personal tour of London which was excellent. We went to Nando's for dinner, which is like a KFC, and where I conveniently get 20% off with my work ID. Very good.

There is talk of going out for Carina's first beer soon as a big event, since I really haven't had this experience of going into a pub and physically ordering beer for myself! Haha. And next Friday we're going out for Indian food in the lab, that should be exciting!

But yeah, then Friday night after work I rushed to Waterloo station and hopped on the train to Bournemouth to go and see the family. I haven't been down there in over a year and a half so that was really nice to see people. Only got to see a few family members, but was still very nice anyway. Got my Gran a cordless phone! And went out for Chinese food with my darling godfather and Ellen. Went to the shops on Sunday which was nice because going shopping on a rainy Sunday morning in Bournemouth is MUCH less crowded than going in London anytime at all. Haha!

So came back this morning, and ALMOST missed the train but made it with about 10 seconds to spare :) Then came into work by 12 which wasn't too bad, except for the subway strike hooray! Hopefully that fixes itself soon! Then got out of work at 4:30 and met with Alex for dinner.

Not a bad week! Things are going well and I'm settling in fine! I have survived 2 1/2 weeks and still going strong!

I still slightly feel like I'm on vacation and I'm going back to America soon, but I'll get used to the change soon enough. It'll sink in. Eventually.

Haha how are all of you doing? Hope everyone had a good weekend and stayed dry! I think it rained in the States too...