Let's try this one:
Once upon a time in a land very far away called London it was July.
Through a series of events that I don't totally understand, the University of London Union was privatized (yes--a union was privatized). As one final sign off, on July 30th they had a fundraising for Palestine concert that I went to with my friends (please note, I don't care how you feel about the Israeli-Palestine thing and the comment section of my blog is for sure not the place to discuss it). It was a lovely night.As one final-final sign off the students had a meeting the next night and ended up occupying the building. I have no idea what happened but taking into account the previous times ULU has been occupied, I imagine it did not go well for them.
The next night I went to a party at Maria and Sara's new place. It was very lovely! I couldn't stay late but it was so wonderful to see my friends! Now that dissertation season is in full swing, I don't get to see them often.
The 6th was my birthday. I won't post all of the pictures here since most of you follow me on Facebook, so here is just a brief description:
I started my day by going to Cookies and Scream, an amazing gluten free and vegan bakery in Camden. It's really small and kind of hidden, so it wasn't too easy to find but WOW was it worth it. I didn't know what I should treat myself to, so I just had something called the Ginger Ninja Ice Scream Sandwich. Essentially it's what in the States we would call Molasses Cookies with frozen icing that tastes JUST like vanilla ice cream in the middle. It looks like this:
And tastes like heaven
It is SO FUCKING GOOD. It was very rich and sweet and molasses-y. I fucking love molasses cookies so much. After that I went down to the Tower of London to see the poppies that they put out for the 100th anniversary of WW1. It's kind of strange to me to see that because while I understand that WW1 was massively important, they always downplayed it in history classes at school. Things always went Industrial Revolution-->Civil War/Slavery/Bleeding Kansas--> Something????? A bit of fighting maybe???-->WW2. So my knowledge of WW1 is unfortunately really minimal. But I've been learning more about it because it's all over everything here, so I guess that's good. After that I rode on a routemaster bus:
I'd been on one before, but it was nice to get to ride one on my birthday. They're really cool.
And also either they're free to ride or I'm not paying correctly on them. So saving that little bit of money was nice as well.
FINALLY it was time for dinner with my friends. It was this restaurant called Circus. It's one of those places that if you don't know it's there, you probably won't find it (even if you do know it's there you still probably won't find it). It's just a tiny little doorway and its only markings are that it has its on a little stool by the door. I didn't see a sign with its name or anything. Then you walk down a dark hallway, talk to the person standing there, and they take you into this huge room with disco balls and a big white table in the middle and metal spikes on the wall.
Circus is a restaurant yes, but it's also a Cabaret theatre. The acts perform on the table while you eat. We weren't lucky enough to be sat at the table they perform on, but it was still really cool! It was worth the price I think, but it's not the sort of place I would go often since it is very expensive. Here are some photos:
A cabaret dancer does a handstand on stilts on a table
Me and my lovely friends
All it all it was a lovely night! I am very lucky to know such great people here :)
I also had my first day of training that Friday. I am working as a customer representative for a small start up company. I don't want to name any names because I don't want this blog associated in any way with their company, but I'll tell you via email if you want.
It's worth noting that this will NOT be a full time position and thus they will NOT be able to sponsor me for a visa.
But it will give me extra income and will help me stay here a bit longer than I'd be able to otherwise, which is nice.
Last week I also won tickets to this crazy event called CityDash, which is essentially this massive scavenger hunt. Sean and Amy agreed to be on my team and so on Sunday we met up with the other players and started the game at a pub near Fleet Street. It was SO MUCH FUCKING FUN. Seriously. I never thought I'd enjoy getting chased through the streets by strangers as much as I did.
I do think that if I do it again I want to run a couple of marathons first. We had the sneaking around part down, and we were able to figure out all of the clues, but if you were spotted by guards who were guarding the checkpoints they would chase you down and then text your player number to headquarters, who would then ban you from finding clues in certain areas of the city.
We didn't do too well (we came in a solid last place), but we had so much fun. We were the best at losing, which I think is something to be proud of (I mean, if I'm going to do something I am going to do it the best).
It was really, really enjoyable. After that we went to a gin bar that we found while running around. It was fun and they had board games, so we played Monopoly.
I learned something:
MONOPOLY GAMES ARE COUNTRY SPECIFIC.
THIS IS AMAZING TO ME FOR SOME WEIRD REASON.Anyway, I ended up doing really well in the game:
Like, super well.This weekend I'm working at LonCon, which is the World Science Fiction Convention. They're going to present the Hugo Awards and everything! Should be good fun.
