Reflections and whining.

9/16/09

Dear former residents of Crossings 404, (minus Lauren)

I understand you all must be terribly busy and important people, otherwise you would have taken the two minutes to throw out your old food. I just had the pleasure, nay honor, of inspecting and tossing your moldy cheese steaks, questionable ethnic food, and jellified take out spaghetti meals. I also understand that you may not be happy with me as I left a good 20% of my personal belongings in random corners of the apartment, and basically did everything but leave a note on top of it saying “screw you, I’m in London.” This does not justify the pungent stench wafting from my refrigerator and trash can. I know Lauren was the first one to leave the lovely abode, and anything that was not tossed/left in ruins is a direct result of your complete apathy towards the good people who reclaimed the residence mere weeks after your departure. It’s a small campus, and I understand that the majority of you are in sororities. This means we are bound to meet in some dark basement corner, and I will inevitably be in some altered state of mind and most likely demonstrate some horrible lack of judgment. To put it bluntly, I’m going to pretend I slipped and dump Natty or Beast all over you.

See you in hell,

Sarah

Other than the rude surprise I found in the fridge, moving back into Crossings was surprisingly easy with the help of Natty’s car and some strapping young lads. Granted I moved in three days earlier than allowed and beat the thousands of people coming on Saturday but that doesn’t make the unpacking and redistribution of items any easier. It hit me like a brick, as I was folding tank top after polo after cardigan, that I don’t fit into my clothes anymore. Why am I holding onto my high school wardrobe? I am not a 00 or xs anymore, I’m awkwardly tall and don’t look like jailbait anymore. I’m fucking twenty and a junior, and that scares the crap out of me. I need to stop living the dream and looking like some overgrown hooker working the mall in front of Abercrombie. That may have been cool three, four years ago when I was pissing off math teachers and pretending to care about homecoming, but the gravy train is over. There are no more proms or swim meets, just bar/frat hopping and trying not to cry over school work because that would get my precious keyboard wet. Life is better but now everything has a consequence. Looking back to freshman year at Drexel, I didn’t have a fucking blessed clue about what was going on. I was a walking train wreck but at least I was an eighteen year old train wreck, and didn’t have to worry about what happens in six months or a year from now.

Basically I just want to go prom dress shopping again.

Optimism at its finest.

9/5/09

Well, it’s a Saturday night here in lovely Sharon, and I’m sitting here in my room, alone, in the dark, because I have to wait 75 minutes before Megavideo will load another episode of True Blood. Basically I’m listening to some raucous middle age party down the street while I’m waiting for an online service that I refuse to pay for stream an HBO show that my cable service does not provide, concerning the love life of vampires. At least I had some social interaction for the night, my parents came home from a night out in Providence and they questioned me about the seersucker shorts I helped my brother purchase in order that he may look like the preppy bastard I aspire for him to be. All the while my mother complaining loudly in the background about the dishes that were used BECAUSE I CAN’T STOP EATING. However, I am going to try and maintain an optimistic view about everyone already having left for school, and being taken off of the car insurance.

A) Without a car, I cannot leave the house to purchase things.

Except for when people take me shopping, ie every other damn day.

B) I get to spend quality time with my parents at the gym, because I can’t go on my own time.

Going to step aerobics with a bunch of crazy menopausal women who think I’m the most sullen and bitter child they have ever seen. It’s seven in the morning and you’re making me do barbell pushups to badly remixed eighties music.

C) My brother needs the car, so that he may go to work without any scheduling conflicts.

At the YMCA that until recently had been the JCC. Once again, thank you Madoff.

D) I get to actually relax and enjoy the things I no longer have time for, like reading and sketching

…and watching an entire missed summers worth of Adult Swim.

E) I couldn’t care less, I’m going back to school in a week.

/my best friends’ free open bar birthday.

It’s not like I haven’t had any entertainment at all, my friend and her family came over last night for dinner, and it was lovely. They got to witness an even lovelier heated conversation between my mother and I about whether or not my dress was low cut, while I drank as much wine that bordered upon socially acceptable. After, another friend who spent his summer in the Ecuadorian rainforest came over and watched The Tudors with me. We traded stories about our summer; how he had helped a poverty stricken group of people better their lives, and how I smuggled water bottles of liquor into clubs because I was too cheap to buy British drinks.

In actuality, I have been enjoying myself, trying to forget there is a Nesbitt and figuring out some sort of super secret game plan for co-op. Taking whatever I can get. My portfolio needs a serious makeover but it could be worse, I could look like K-Fed. I don’t understand how he could get that big that fast…he was a backup dancer…

‘

More vapid ramblings.

9/1/09

Well, I’m safely back in the US of A. Unfortunately that means I’m not legal anymore, and had to pass up the duty free liquor deals in the airport. Oh Absolut vanilla…my dear dear friend…

The seventeen hours of traveling back to the states wasn’t too horrible. A couple of the Drexel girls started bawling once we were in the air, and I congratulated myself on my stoic appearance and steel resolution. That was until I started watching Star Trek, and cried when Kirk’s father bravely piloted his ship into the Romulans. Those bastards, leave the Enterprise alone. Any movie that casts Harold from Harold and Kumar in a serious role, and resurrects Leonard Nimoys’ career gets an A+ in my book. Afterwards, I watched Mulan and realized I am going to die alone. Probably surrounded by cats, which is going to be especially painful considering how allergic I am to pet dander.

I had to say goodbye to everyone at baggage claim, and then got to wait another three hours for my connecting flight back to good old Bean Town. I was quite excited to be able to turn on my precious Juke again, as I hadn’t had a decent phone for the entire summer, or even a phone at all for the past week. The bastard Orange phone I was forced to purchase died an honorable death in Dublin. A girl on my trip ended up dumping her pint on the table, and the poor thing drowned in Guinness. I was glad I risked it and decided not to “top up” (add minutes) right before I left Britain. Do I really need to fuel my drunk texting problem? No, those horrible decisions are restricted to my American phone.

I’m pretty sure everyone in the immediate area hated me for talking on said Juke, but Tasia had just acquired a new bread maker and I’m buying Snow Leopard off of him. How can I be an elitist bitch when I haven’t upgraded my Mac? The rents kept their word and actually picked me up from the airport, and I wasn’t forced to hitchhike back to Sharon. A decision I’m pretty sure they regret now.

I’m supposed to be finishing up my work for the term (Three essays? What the W?) but instead I went outlet shopping with Anj because it’s our damn Patriotic duty to help America out of this recession. The stores were sparse to say the least, either nothing was on sale (what kind of welcome back was that J Crew? Huh?) or everything was complete shit and thrown into discount bins. (Arden B, shame on you) BCBG had bastardized itself by throwing together all of its brands into one store and Saks wouldn’t give me a discount on a dress even though it was stained and a button was falling off. They told me to wash it and sow the button back on. I stared at the saleswoman for a good twenty seconds before it registered this wasn’t a joke and they were indeed serious. My friends, we have reentered the dark ages.

Where were the damn leprechauns?

9/25/09

Because I’m a glutton for punishment (and it was the cheapest time available) we left for our flight to Dublin at four in the morning to go to the bus that would take us to easybus that went to the damn middle of nowhere airport. The Ryanair flight was surprisingly fine, they use the same Boeing jets as most services so I wasn’t terribly concerned. The flight attendants just had tackier outfits than normal, and we had to walk up steps to the plane. Maybe I was just bitter about the four in the morning thing. The flight took around an hour, and when we got off of the plane it was positively freezing with blue skies. Think October-ish weather in Philadelphia. Luckily I was wearing my North Face and not my usual skanky October wear (I live for Halloween) so it wasn’t that bad. A lot of girls on the trip had Irish backgrounds, so they were especially excited for this, and considering I am probably the furthest thing from Irish I was just thrilled to be in Colin Farrels homeland.

Our damn hostel wouldn’t allow us to check in until 2:30 so we paid the damn two euros to store our bags and went to go explore Dublin. I was rather surprised by how generally dirty and old looking it was. We walked down their main street and after the Russian head shop selling “snow” and other fine drugs that I’m sure weren’t laced with anything was a cute little breakfast place filled with cute old and tired Irish men. It may have been authentic, but nothing compares to the smiley face chocolate chip pancakes at Ihop. It looks so fucking happy, it’s almost morbid when you cut into it.

After the not so substantial meal and the Limited Edition European Cadbury’s Caramel Milkshake at McDonalds, we started to look around and in my opinion this was just a really poor version of London. Instead of Primark they had Penny’s, and they had a Marks and Spencers (with clover leaves all over the bag) and I saw girls walking around with Topshop and Zara. These were also the least fashionable people I had seen all summer, and their high end department store had crap clothes in the window with laughable displays. But maybe I’m just being a pretentious bitch, it’s not like it hasn’t happened before. L wanted souvenirs so we stopped in a football store and I for the most obnoxious shop, and they pointed us in the direction of Carrols.
Considering there was a Carrols on every two blocks it wasn’t that hard. It sold a variety of T-shirts and anything associated with sheep, leprechauns, beer, or clover. Just to give you a clue about the atmosphere of the place, they played cheesy Irish music with interruptions every three minutes saying if you spend one hundred euros or more one would get this very CD that was playing, a fifteen euro value, for free. I think I was forced to go into that store on at least three different occasions for at least a half hour at a time so I’m not its biggest fan. We continued to wander and after nearly passing out in a bookstore went back to beg for the room key.

Lauren and I had come a day earlier than everyone else because we are ballers and don’t have class on Fridays, but there were five of us staying in a six person room. After secretly judging the rando filthy European backpackers lounging in the hostel (I’ve given up on the no-judgment rule, I have concluded that I am allowed to judge lack of hygiene) we were a little worried. Luckily it turned out to be an American girl who was our age, and her family friend had bailed and she was stuck in the hostel with the rest of us schmucks. We gratefully passed out for a few hours, grabbed dinner and pre-game materials at Tesco, and checked out the bar area we wanted to hit up that night. Aside from the random pubs, there are a few streets called the Temple Bar area that only consists of bars, restaurants, and drunk munchie food places. Not bad.

Lauren, Molly and I ended up going to three pubs that night and it was the expected Irish pub experience. Most of the pubs were really packed, and they were filled with a middle age crowd. Guinness was the cheapest thing they served, so Guinness was what I got. I have never really minded the taste, considering it has a tinge of coffee flavor and caffeine runs in my veins, but they get so heavy and I’m not a big girl. I just have a big… heart. A lot of the bigger pubs played American music and I felt like some of the Boston bars were more Irish than the ones we chose. Some did have live music in the corner or basement, with random blacked out people doing jigs. We went back to the hostel to greet the rest of the room who had just flown in and called it a night.

The next morning I woke up early as the hostel had promised a free continental breakfast. Normally this is my favorite part of vacation, which is kind of sad but you can’t really change one’s undying love for a breakfast buffet. It’s what dreams are made of, and maybe what Christmas feels like. What I came downstairs to were a couple of loaves of bread, two toasters, and little pats of butter and jam. Thank you Hostel Issacs, thank you. I grabbed some instant coffee (the necessary bane of my existence) and went back upstairs to the rest of Drexel who had just flown in and was sprawled out on the floor. A few hours later we bought tickets to take the tram to the Guinness storehouse, which was unfortunate because it seems no one pays for public transportation in Dublin. Maybe it’s because they spend all their money on beer, which I had just started to realize. I can’t really blame them, the pints aren’t cheap and the lowest of the low (Tesco liquor) was double what I pay in London for half the size. I’m certainly not a scientist, not even a contender, but I believe this all boils down to the laws of supply and demand.

The Guinness factory was pretty damn awesome from a design as well as a historical perspective. It was basically a museum about beer. They take you through the mechanics of making it, from the specific hops and barley, and the use of yeast in the fermentation process. I just thought the waterfall was pretty. There were historical sections about Arthur Guinness and examples of the family’s philanthropy (good peoples) and of course a taste testing section where I definitely didn’t take three or four samples. Continuing upstairs, they had an advertising section which was actually quite witty and had a lot of older examples of the Toucan and “My Goodness My Guinness!” slogans. There was also an instructional booth on how to pour Guinness (For the head to be right you need to wait two minutes for the beer to settle and then cap it off) as well as a bunch of Irish step dancers. At the very top of the storehouse was the Gravity Bar, where you turn in your ticket stub for a pint. It was all glass, and had a 360 degree view of Dublin.

That night we wandered as a group over to Temple Bar area, and everyone split up by accident but thankfully I was with the group that preferred bars over pubs. I can only take enough quaint. Molly bought us all car bombs, which I guess is equivalent to calling something “A Two Towers” in America, but the bartenders put up with it because they get paid thirty euros an hour. However, in another bar, Kelly was told to leave when she asked for one but ending up describing the drink in the next bar and the bartender was the one that called it by its name. Some random soccer hooligans kept buying Molly and I drinks and they explained that most Irish start out in a pub, go to a bar, and then head off to a club. They were also amused by Lee’s outfit, which was a collared shirt underneath a nice sweater. They asked if that was how Americans dressed, and I was proud to stand up for my country and answer with a resounding yes.

Downstairs we met the acquaintance of a diva trannie (Mom, this means transsexual) and she told me I looked Madonna fabulous. We spoke with her for a while and she said people treated her well in Dublin, but she got looks when she went out in London. I believe London is quite accepting, and I think it probably had something to do with her outfit choices. We got back quite late, but I still set my alarm for the damn breakfast.

After breakfast (I was the only one that got up for it) we all left for an all day bus tour of the Wicklow Mountains. It was definitely the highlight of the trip, and well worth the twenty-five Euros. The bus driver was quite witty, and she gave us a lecture on the history of Ireland while she drove us out among the rolling hills and bogs. I don’t think I will ever see something as beautiful as the Irish countryside. Miles upon miles of unending purple heather with green every where else. The weather was also poor, and the sky was gray and overcast with low clouds that just added to the romanticism of the trip. She let us out on a cliff overlooking a lake and one of the Guinness estates. This is where I took the above picture, and the area is indescribable. We broke for lunch and then were let out again in an old cemetery adjacent to a lake. Quite emo if one asks me, but there were some old celtic headstones and crumbling buildings that made for great pictures. We came back after an hour and were given a shot of Jameson upon coming back to the bus, which I promptly gave away. If freshman year taught me anything, it’s that whiskey is Satan’s piss.

After the tour we checked out Trinity College, and Saint Patricks Cathedral and went to fucking Carrols again. The night was quite fun, some previous study abroad students had found the bar where they had filmed the band scenes from PS. I Love You, and most of us had seen (and cried after) that damn movie so we didn’t mind that it was an extra fifteen minutes past Temple Bar. They did have live music, and later in the night played some good American music. It’s always nice to hear MGMT and Kings of Leon when not at Drexel. Unlike London, Dublin's pubs and bars did not play a wide variety of techno music. We got back at 3 and then woke up at 4:45 to catch the bus to the airport where I had my first and hopefully last Burger King breakfast. Luckily the plane landed on time and we arrived for our three hour class. After which we wrote essays for said class. Needless to say I’m a little tired but it was a good weekend.

How quaint.

8/13/09

Today we visited Hampsted to visit the home of the famous modern architect, Goldfinger. Yes, the Goldfinger the James Bond movie was named after. Ian Fleming lived down the street, and named the crazy egotistical character after the architect. Why? Because the real Goldfinger was batshit crazy. Hampsted was adorable, nice little shops and cafes and restaurants with quaint houses and shrubbery. It was a suburban town, and very reminiscent of home, except a cop didn’t tell me to move along when I decided to take a breather.

“I’m going to need you to walk a straight line and count backwards for me.”

“Sir, with all do respect, it’s the middle of the day and we’re having a picnic.”

“ON THE GROUND NOW.”

*Desperately searches for marijuana, and upon finding none decides to hit up the emo kids outside of Starbucks. End scene*

8/17/09

I'm already beginning to become nostalgic and I still have another two weeks left to go. Like for instance, the maids. I'm really going to miss having a maid. From Tuesday to Sunday it looks like a bomb went off in our flat, but on Mondays the entire place is spotless. If only I could bring back one as a souvenir, but I think that would go over my fifty-five pound weight limit. Then again, they are the waif thin, in a Russian Oliver Twist sort of way. I’m officially going to hell.

I'm also really going to miss the area, it's beyond beautiful and I realize I’ve been taking it for granted. As I was lugging my suitcase full of laundry to wash (yes, laundry is two blocks and twelve flights of stairs there and back. Believe me, I’ve counted.) I thought back to when I first got here and was shocked by how low all the buildings were and how sparkling white and clean everything is. Now I get nervous if the window boxes to the town houses aren’t coordinated. Good thing I’m pretty sure my mother turned our entire damn yard into a garden. All I’ll really need is to import some of the locals chugging pounders as they walk home to their flats from work. I don’t think the Leibowitz’s will be up for it.

In other entirely useless news, twas a lovely day. I ended up having lunch in the Whole Foods café which which overlooks most of High Street Kensington. It also allows me to check out the hipsters as they enter Urban Outfitters. I resisted the urge to scream out the window “it’s half price in America, you fools” but I just sat back in peace and ate my potato salad.

I think I hit a new Facebook low.

8/15/09

I just finished season two of the Tudors, and I knew it was coming, but I still cried when they lopped Anne Boleyn’s head off. I felt some affinity with her character, considering we’re both crazy bitches, and I loved her hair accessories. And when it comes down to it, that’s what really matters. Right after the shot of her demise, they showed Henry feasting upon a swan, just reaching right in and grabbing huge chunks while laughing.

A) You’re eating a swan. A lily-white fucking pure swan. Asshole.

B) That definitely goes over your 2000 a day calorie allotment. No wonder you begin to resemble Fat Bastard in a couple of years.

C) Anne is so much hotter than that hussy Jane Seymour. Just because she’s blonde doesn’t mean she’s a good time. It means she has Chlamydia.

If Henry wasn’t played by the beautiful Jonathon Rhys Meyers, who stole my heart in the multi-cultural masterpiece Bend It Like Beckham, I might stop watching the show altogether. Good thing I don’t have any will power to speak of.

Our flat is covered in book shelves, and with the novels and textbooks left over from previous residents. They range from the usual trash-fiction, to the occasional good book, but usually they’re just guides about London and its history. Today while I was perusing the shelves (and curling my hair, I’m not that sophisticated) I came across Merriam Webster’s Vocabulary Builder. What a great way to improve my vocabulary, and sound like even more of a pretentious asshole. Hurray! However, my excitement quickly dropped to more of a “meatloaf in the Hans tonight” level. The words are so basic, even my half-retarded brother or a business student could flip through it without learning a substantial amount. Cosmetic? Conspicuous? Deity? Really people, really? Once again I blame public school.

Last night we went back to Cargo because of free entry Friday, and it was pretty awesome. Granted we had to wait in line for about forty-five minutes because of fire code restrictions but I had my trusty jean jacket to brave the cold. Once again GAP, I am forever indebted to you. Britain has far less fire code restrictions than America, but instead of shoving everyone in and having a million fire exits and/or hoping for the best, they can only have a certain amount of people per fire exit. That means we have to wait for a certain amount of people to leave before we can get in. Once we did get in, there was a huge screen looming over the dance floor that had trippy lights and spirals and colors that complimented the techno quite nicely. They had a live DJ spinning, and it was classic European techno. Basically a room full of people just bouncing around with no rhythm whatsoever. Picture a European frat party with the guys having even less game than normal.

Today we journeyed to the Marylborne and Portobello Road markets, and because I’m a good child I didn’t buy anything. Just a reduced Ploughman’s sandwich at Tesco’s. Shame isn’t in my vocabulary. Marylborne was quite expensive and didn’t have that many stalls, there were a bunch of higher class clothing and accessory designers and an array of good food. Considering Sarah and I are design students, we spent the majority of the time bitching about how we could make the various pins and such for about 80 bucks cheaper. But let’s face it, I don’t have the energy and I ran out of glue for my glue gun after bedazzling my backpack. Just trying to live the dream people.

Portobello Road just had a bunch of the same things we’ve seen in Camden Market and Brick Lane, except it was even more overpriced because it was in Notting Hill. It’s pretty over there, but I like my area better because we have the gardens. I actually hadn’t been back there since Penn left, and it was nice to walk around once more and remember getting lost every damn time I tried to find their house. Which is next door to Stella McCartney’s mansion. Who did our schools sleep with to get these leases?

8/16/09

I am such a baller, I just won a prize pack from Whole Foods Kensington. With it came the strangest mix of excitement and sadness. Excitement because I’m getting an array of their body lotions for free, and sadness because I won by responding quickly enough to a query on facebook. Tomorrow I have to go to their information desk to claim it, thereby admitting I’m facebook friends with a fucking store. It gets worse, I saw their question come up on the newsfeed and I googled the answer instead of actually knowing about the product. I am a failure of a facebook friend, and as a person. However, come to think of it, I should be less embarrassed to be friends with them than some of the Drexel trash I’m forced into acquaintance with. Do us all a favor: go build a fort out of your old Natty Light boxes and stay there.

Last night a club promoter that knows one of the girls on our trip got us into a members only club with no cover. We had to rush and barely made it because the deal was we had to get there before 11:30 or pay the usual twenty pound entrance fee. I forget the name of the club, but it was down a side street in Piccadilly where the higher end clubs were located, and it was next to a club called Beautiful People. Sounds like someone didn’t make it onto the cheerleading team in high school and is desperately trying to make up for it now. Let it go, some things weren’t just meant to be. It was pretty in there, but the drinks were expensive (think 18 or 20 American) so I was glad I had pre-gamed like a damn camel. Unlike Whiskey Mist we knew we were going someplace fancy and had actually dressed for the occasion. It seemed to be a mix of awkward older white men trying to hit on really skinny Indian girls who would only dance with themselves, and the near blacked out white gold-diggers who were amusing the club promoters. It was fun, but everyone was blatantly a good decade or two older than me.

Unfortunately today was my last Sunday in London, as I spend next week in Dublin and the Sunday after that I jet back to the great and beautiful airport they call Newark, New Jersey. And then to Logan airport where I will be greeted by my loving family who will then proceed to give me as much fruit and cookies as they possibly can. Right? Right. I guess I always took fruit for granted, I know it’s expensive but it’s absolutely ridiculous with the exchange rate. The only ones that are moderately priced are green grapes. I hate green grapes. Fucking loathe them. But anyway, today we went back to Brick Lane for the Sunday Up Market, and all of the stalls were different. I went with the intention of buying presents for my family, but considering my mother is a whore I think I’m going to keep my meerkat totebag for myself. That’s what you get for not picking up the phone. The screenprinter I got it from had a lot of great work that made me want to kick myself for not thinking of better designs for screenprinting class. But then again, I’m not the one selling shirts in a stall. Yet. I’m so scared.

When I was taking a breather in one of the stall areas, it finally hit me that this kind of stuff would never happen in America. First of all, everyone was a hipster there. Everyone. Every other person in the market was wearing that white straw hat with the black brim and scene glasses. The atmosphere is also very different, no one really rushes about here sans the business section of London on a weekday. And then rush hour is those same people going to happy hour. I know Europeans live longer than Americans, and I don’t think it’s because f the food or exercise (I have yet to see a gym, but they eat fast food like it’s their job) so I’m thinking it has to do with stress. I would love to know their secret, but I’m just going to throw it out there and say they just don’t give a flying fuck. Minimum wage is around eleven pounds, and with universal healthcare anyone can easily live off of that. I absolutely love it over here, but I don’t think I could ever see myself permanently living here. First off there’s the whole family and friends issue, and second it’s a completely different way of life that I’m not used to. A lot of things are worse in America, but it's still the land of the free and the home of J Crew. Basically, it’s the devil I know and I’m sticking with it.

Mmmm Burberry.

8/11/09

Right now I’m in a bit of a moral dilemma, between a rock and hard, conceited, self-fulfilling place. Yesterday, Sarah and I trekked to the Burberry warehouse (why they would put it in the rough bit of London is beyond me) and it would have been a religious experience had it been dollars, and not pounds. The only real “deal” that wouldn’t leave me eating frozen peas for the rest of junior year were the iconic winter scarves for thirty pounds. They had some nice, plain silk ones for the same price, but I saw myself age another twenty years when I put it on and silently placed it back on the shelf. Basically, I left without the scarf because I felt like everyone has it, and a good 50% of the Drexel trash are walking around with fake ones. I don’t need more reasons for people to judge me. They already have more than enough material to work from. Then I had a sudden, groundbreaking epiphany: I fucking want one. In conclusion, I just realized I have talked about nothing but shopping for the past couple of blogs. What kind of existence is this? A damn fabulous one.

As I was saying before my tangent, they really did put the Burberry warehouse in a 40th street West Philly sort of area. Even though it was broad daylight I felt myself grow quite panicked, and all I could think about was how sad I am if I still can’t handle rough areas. For Christs sake I’ve been living in one for about two years now. Maybe the whole eighteen years in Sharon thing screwed me over, where the most dangerous things one had to worry about were rabid squirrels and alcoholic soccer moms behind the wheels of their SUV. Keep on living the dream and going to Hadassah meetings you classy bitches.

Right now I’m trying to switch off between watching two minutes at a time of the Tudors, and writing this piece of shit. The internet is so patchy here, it’s a miracle if I can watch a youtube video without letting it load for about fifteen minutes first. But how can I go that long without my Kanye? It’s called patience, one of the many virtues I have acquired over here. Yes Mother, I have become a fucking saint. In other news, I can’t stop listening to The Fray cover of Heartless. It sounds odd to hear them use the slang from the original song but they gave it an eerie and haunting quality that I find quite fetching.

Speaking of eerie and for lack of a better tie-in, one of the cooler exhibits I’ve seen is Telling Tales: Fantasy and Fear in Contemporary Design at the Victoria Albert Museum. There were three sections to the exhibit, The Forest Glade, The Enchanted Castle, and Heaven and Hell. You walked along a corridor with a printed black outline of tree branches, and wallpaper motifs. Among the things I recall was a ceramic tree that opened to reveal a wardrobe, a taxidermed fox with gold maggots coming out of it’s ears, and tiny slippers made from moles. Awesome, I know. The coolest room they had was one with creepy, warped, modern furniture mixed with classical furniture from other parts of the museum. My favorite piece was a carved marble chair, and hanging lamp referencing Dante’s Inferno . The chair had images of hell, with the tiny sinners barely reaching into 3D, and the lamp had images of heaven. There was also a rug on the ground called “The Lovers”, and it looked like a huge, shiny pool of blood that supposedly amounts to two people. I would have thought it would have been more, but this is coming from the person who couldn’t even look at her own toe when it got caught underneath the door. Instead I called my mother (back in MA) and texted everyone in the vicinity of crossings to come help me. Then I went to stroll about an hour later and my toe reopened when assholes walked on my foot. The moral of the story is that’s why I couldn’t wear close toed shoes for the second half of spring term. Anywho, this section of the wing was rather dark and had red mood lighting. I tried to look up some of the pieces on the museum’s website, and in the process stumbled upon the Beatrix Potter exhibit. Yo, Benjamin Bunny is totally my shit. All over that when I have a free minute, and don’t feel like I’m melting into this damn couch. The above image is something I made when I was overtired and tried to make stupid shit for my website that’s still in production.

After the Burberry voyage, Sarah and I took a stroll down Covent Gardens, which was just outdoor shopping reminiscent of Fanueil Hall in Boston. Someone told me before I went over here that I wouldn’t have to worry about shopping, because it’s only something one does when they’re bored. Wrong, we kind of do nothing else but sightsee, shop, go out, bitch about the internet, and read crap romance novels in the gardens.

Monday night we went back to the Queen’s Arms for a quick couple of pints after we sent in our papers for the week (yes, that's all of our homework. Feel free to hate me) And Tuesday we went back to Sports Café, where I was told I look like Maya Rudolph from SNL. I honestly think we keep going back there because it's the only bar that will play “I’m on a boat.” Why? Because they know we’re all American. And complete tools.