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!