Run, Lola, Run!

Ta-da!

Here I am again, full of updates on my not-so illicit activities in this British archipelago. Alright, so I know it's not really an archipelago, but isn't that a wonderful word?

Alright, so on Saturday night we didn't go to the Tate Modern, because we were all tired by the end of the day, and a trip to the computer lab to write essays was instead engaged in. Of course, I got an e-mail from Mat with the first seven pages of his blog of his travels in Japan attached, so I ended up doing more reading than writing. :-)

On Sunday morning my alarm clock was really confused (it was somehow set two hours ahead). I had planned on getting up at 7 to run, but when the alarm went off, it was really 5, so, still extraordinarily tired, I rolled over and reset the alarm for 9. This of course meant that when my alarm went off again, it was the actual time I had meant to get up in the first place, and thinking at first that we needed to get going, I got up. So, despite my rampant lazyness, I did go for a run. I'm really loving how flat this city is, as well as the low altitude!

Later on Sunday morning, Mel, Diana and I braved the crowds and went to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. The best part was this mounted policeman who was talking to the people in front of us. He was very cheerful and made conversation as everyone made much of his horse. We laughed in surprise when the marching band, during the changing of the guard, started playing the song "Yesterday."

We hopped on the tube, then, and met Matt at the Imperial War Museum. We wandered around in there for a while, though I feel like if you've seen one war museum, you've seen them all. Well, that's an exagerration- I enjoyed the case devoteed to relics of Lawrence of Arabia, because I wrote that paper on him back in high school (plus, he was just plain cool!), and also the video on crimes against humanity that they had, which was really powerful, and I think I really learned more about the events covered in the video, such as the genocide in Rwanda.

In the evening, we celebrated Mel's 19th birthday with chocolate cake and a moderate amount of drunken revelry in the flat next door. It was actually really depressing listening to the tipsy Mel a liberal bisexual such as myself who's ideas are similar to mine, talk about religion with Coleman, who's a nice guy, but very, very Baptist. Overall, it was a pleasant night, though; Matt hung out with me so that I wouldn't be sitting there listening to Mel and Coleman.

On Monday morning, we enjoyed the bank holiday in leisure. After we got up, Mel helped me dye my hair "Hypnotic Red," which is a wonderful, bright red- the closest I've come thus far to "Run Lola Run" hair. :-D It's a lot of fun, especially when it's flipped out. And of course I have a soft spot for that movie. ;-) Ooh, and then we went shopping for a little while at H&M. Yay girly, shallow activities!

In the afternoon we met our class by Green Park, and took the "Oscar Wilde Walking Tour," which would have been much more interesting if the buildings referred to were a)still standing, or b)not covered in scaffolding whilst they're being remodeled. What a character, though. It gave me a slightly different perspective on his play "The Importance of Being Earnest," which we read for class. IT was fun- I kept thinking of the movie with Colin Firth. ^_^

I spent the evening bumming around the computer lab and in the pubs, the highlight being with this guy named Alex who lives in the flat next door. He's a cool kid, I discovered; I'm trying to encourage him to do something about the crush he has on one of the girls upstairs- you know, it's the whole thing where they like each other and everyone knows it, but they're both too shy to do anything about it. Anyway, we found out that the archaeology camp that I went to when I was in 6th grade, Crow Canyon, was actually founded by his parents! It's a small world we live in, still.

Teusday rocked. Not so much for having class in the morning, nor for going ot the Tower of London, which I've been to before (plus it rained hard), but for the fact that almost everyone I know here plus myself, got cheap tickets and went to see "Les Miserables!" It was incredible- I'd never heard the musical before (I'd only seen the movie), so I was vey, very impressed. And of course, it was London, so it was very, very well done. Go Team Barricades and Cobblestones! It reminds me of Mehlbach, lol.

And here we are on Wednesday evening at the computer lab, me listening to "Elechan;" the cd Mat made for me before I left. I'm enjoying this techno, and finally having some 311 in my collection. (Tristan, shouldn't you have taken care of that? ;-))

Alright, I'd better go; I told Mel I'd read over her presentation on Oxford before we go back to the flat. We need to leave plenty of time for figuring out how we're going to find the Globe Theater; we're going to see "Much Ado About Nothing" tonight, apparently done by an all female cast. This should be interesting. And so I go, excited about my dinner-to-be of canned Chicken Tikka Masala. God I love London supermarkets!

P.S, I miss everyone! I called my mom, Lee, and Shaun last night, and though the conversations were very brief, it was nice hearing certain voices. Ooh, and I got a letter today! (You were right, I felt special ;-))