So I met this guy a while back named Taleb who has become a pretty good friend of mine. he is Lebanese, which is pretty cool. He lives in London with his younger brother and works for Harrods. I met him at sports cafe...he is kinda older (27ish i think?) but great to talk to because he studied and is now working in the sectors of business that interest me--International Management. Anywho, when I got back from Wales he called and asked if I wanted to have dinner. Nothing special or anything, just dinner. So I said yes. I think it would be awesome to have a contact over here to just talk to and go to for advice if I need and also he is a really cool person. So Monday night, after I finished classes and the gym and some homework I had to work on, he picked me up for dinner (yay I have a friend who has a car). We drove to a Lebanese restaurant. Here is the other cool thing about him: I love to try new foods and experience new cultures, and he is extremely Lebanese. He grew up there and moved here and so he has maintained a lot of the culture. I think he enjoyed introducing me to the food as much as I enjoyed getting to try a new cuisine. I had no idea what to order, so he decided to be a vegetarian with me and got us hummus and all of the other regular dips and stuff, but then this Spinach kind of pastaish dish and these Spinach pastries that were ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS. Seriously? I need to figure out how to make these/find them closer to our place at the Crofton/find some in Boston. They will quickly become an obsession of mine. I also feel really comfortable around him because he isn't a creepass interested in a girl 7 years...maybe more...younger than him that he met in a bar, but that doesn't mean he is disregarding me. Since when did people decide that a guy and a girl can't be friends? We are being friends :) After dinner, he drove me home and I did some more homework and went to bed.
Tuesday night went to Sports Cafe with Rani and Jessica and Jennifer...I'm getting tired of the Sports Cafe though because it is an american bar and I love my friends from the program, but I am here to meet British people. This will probably be the last time I go there. Oddly enough, saw Taleb there. He was there with his cousin, so I got to meet him. They wanted to play pool, but (in the words of cousin) the "dumb americans are hogging all the pool tables playing that dumb ping pong drinking game." Haha they were using the pool tables (covered up of course) to play beer pong. He was not too thrilled about this. But Rani and I were tired, so we left pretty early with Jen and Jessica and called it a night.
Wednesday...pretty uneventful. Studied for my quiz...went to class..took my quiz. Then I took Pratik out to Imperial. Lots of fun ...that is until this group of really rowdy girls from UF showed up and started being obnoxious. It is a wednesday night girls. You are at a British University pub. Come on. Lets not be THOSE americans. Oh I was also informed that everytime I thought I was saying "peace" with my hands as I often do when I leave somewhere, I was giving a rather nasty hand gesture. Yes see apparently when the British were fighting the French they used two their index and middle finger to pull the bow, while the French only used their middle finger. So the British would show the French their two fingers as an obscene gesture waving and taunting as if to say "look what I still have" (because when the French captured them they would cut off those two fingers). So anywho. Palm facing outward= peace. Palm facing in....just don't do it.
Thursday was pretty much some of the same. Went to class, came back. NAPPED (it was amazing), went to the gym, and then went out to Oneil's. I had never been before but a bunch of people had been raving about it. Gotta say? Liked the setup, not too expensive. but in the end it is just another big bar that a lot of Americans in London go to. And it isn't that we didn't try. Jen, Gabby, and I did stop by another pub earlier that had NO americans. We also tried to go to a Club party that we found ourselves that nobody from our program was going to, but the cover was 20 pounds. Umm....no thanks. So Oneils it was. Its ok though. Im going to start looking early for British things to do next week :) Upside? Oneil's is in the middle of Chinatown. So when we left....and after I took care of a certain someone in an alleyway (I love you)...I got to get some chinese food before we headed home. I'm getting pretty good at this whole navigation thing too! I found the Nightbus and everything.
Friday morning I woke up and went to the gym (yay me) and then when I got home Jen and I went to the Natural History Museum. I haven't felt like such a little kid in a long while. We went through a "Creepie Crawlies" exhibit (bugs), a Dinosaurs exhibit (there was a huge T-Rex at the end that they had created that scared the crap out of me and Jen cause it was lifelike and RAWRed at you), and then through the human biology exhibit. The last one was really neat because it had fun interactive things and games that show you how the various parts of your brain and muscles and things work. Could have spent all day there but, alas, didn't have all day. After that, we walked down Cromwell road in search of a new restaurant to eat at (again, my foodie tendencies coming out). We stepped into this Italian restaurant and immediately I was excited because the customers in the Restaurant were speaking Italian. If you want to know if a restaurant serves good food, find out if the people of that ethnicity like to eat there or not. So we ate there. I had a great italian pizza...with artichokes, which I LOVE. I had the itis immediately after we left. But I also had a team meeting. Thank god Juan and I got through the stuff we needed to for the meeting pretty quickly because I passed out as soon as I got back to my room. But that was only for a little bit. Taleb called to see what I was doing and if I wanted to bring some friends over to his place because he was having a house party. We had spoken previously about my obsession with Sheisha (the one part of lebanese culture I am familiar with) and his brother was setting the hookah up for the night so he told me that my friends and I should go. We made arrangements for him to come pick up me, Jennifer, and Gabby at 10:30. In the meantime, we went to go watch the French v. Uruguay game at Imperial. The place was packed and it was a very anticlimactic game. Definitely don't want to go watch games there anymore...just not the atmosphere I'm looking for. There weren't enough seats and people were standing in the way so you couldn't always see the TV. Anywho, after the game, I came back with Jen, we had dinner, and then Taleb came and got us. It was a very relaxing night of hookah (for me).....and a rather fun night for Jen. hahahahaaaa. Turns out one of Taleb's friends is half Columbian, so Jen met her cousin. Also...his brother gets rather rowdy after drinking half a bottle of whiskey (yes. half a bottle) and so he and Jen had a blast dancing around. The rest of us had a blast laughing at them :) (love you jen). Finally I had to get Taleb to drive us back because Gabby was going on a trip at 9 am in the morning. Came home and went to bed :) I love relaxing nights.
Saturday woke up for an adventurous day of sightseeing! I went out with Pratik and a bunch of his friends from the Conflict Resolution Program to go see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the Tate Modern Museum, and the Globe theater. I saw this one piece called "Exploding Shell" by Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson that legit had me staring for about 30 minutes. I'm not a huge art buff or anything, but it really got to me and I'm not sure why. Still has me thinking...I might post on it later. It was a TON of fun...we saw a blockade, took pictures with a police officer, pretty sure we saw the car the queen was in on its way to the airport from Windsor...you think I'm kidding but I'm not. We had a yummy lunch together at this chain cafe place called EAT (clever guys). And then headed back to South Ken to watch the England v. USA game. We watched it at a pub/restaurant called Archangel. Note to self. If you are ever in a bar full of British people and the USA team scores a goal against England, DO NOT (I repeat, DO NOT) yell obscenities at them in dead silence. They can hear you. And they won't be too happy. Pretty tired. Called it a pretty early night. Had a BLAST though. Solid weekend in London.....loving it. The weather is actually pretty great. None of the British gloom and doom yet....lets hope it stays that way :)
WIth love from London,
Radhi
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