I now know what my weight is in stone, thanks to NHS

An incredibly detailed and thrilling account of my WONDERFUL week in Tuscany is still in the works, but in the meantime I thought I'd tide you all over with this little entry.

For the past 5 days now I've had a very unfortunate illness that is painful, annoying, life-sucking, and seemingly impervious to any kind of medication. Fortunately the doctor said it's a virus and should be gone within a few days (and I got to make use of the healthcare system here...and man is it awesome!! Lab test for free!! Real doctors see you within the hour!! I feel like flagging down everyone who calls it "Obamacare" and saying "hey guys, look over here!"), and legitimately told me to just drink tea. Love England.

Anyway, as I've been coming in and out of consciousness for the past 5 days, I've had plenty of time to discover just how nerdy I really am. I think that illness makes you discover the real you. Bear with me here. If left to your own devices all day long and relieved of your responsibilities, what do you do?

I, apparently, read. Watch a couple seasons of Weeds. Research free agents in my fantasy baseball league. Listen to opera and musicals. And religiously read every answer on j-archive.com from the previous night's episode of Jeopardy! and fist pump and verbally yell "fuck yeah!" then "ow, my throat!" when I get the hard ones right.

I guess the only reason for this post is to share: I am a huge, huge nerd.

papers papers papers

My week in Tuscany was AMAZING, but my blogging on that experience has a temporary hold due to criz-azy amounts of reading and writing that has to happen now. So to tide you over, here's a little excerpt from my today.

Liquor store purchases: a box of granola bars and a pack of m&ms

Bangladeshi Man Behind the Counter: You go to Queen Mary?

Me: Yes

Bangladeshi Man Behind the Counter: So you go to library now?

Me: Yes

Bangladeshi Man Behind the Counter: Okay bye bye, I see you tomorrow.

chocolate win and jewish fail...then win

A few recent highlights:

On Monday, Cristine and I went to the London Chocolate Festival - aka the best idea anyone has ever had ever.

Chocolate! Free samples!

There were about 20 booths from different chocolate shops throughout England, all of them showing some seriously impressive displays of chocolate and offering some seriously impressive displays of free samples.

Chocolate shoes!

In addition to the booths, there were also "tutored tastings" or demonstrations every hour - we got to try and learn about a range of South American chocolates, and learn how to make raw chocolate "on the hob." Brilliant!

On what would turn out to be a completely different note, Mitch and I found a chabad house in South Kensington to go to for a passover seder Monday night. Neither of us were particularly jazzed about the evening, but we had to be good jews and better to have an uncomfortable passover than none at all.

False. The evening started out with us showing up at the rabbi's house when the seder was actually elsewhere, the hurried and half-dressed rabbi mistaking us for a married couple, and the evening only got more awkward from there.

The seder was enormous, and held in a college auditorium. The seder plates hardly deserved to be called seder plates - plastic plates with some lettuce and a questionable item as shank bone thrown on entirely unceremoniously. The prayers were mumbled through in typical Jewish fashion (with an odd moment of repeating the four questions twice...for no apparent reason). A mere 45 minutes later, the most poorly organized system for distributing food began, and we realized the telling of the story of passover had been completely neglected. Flipping through our haggadahs, we couldn't find it anywhere. The blatantly nervous rabbi hadn't failed to accompany the eating of the hillel sandwich with the full history of the etymology of the word sandwich, but not once was it explained why we're all being forced to eat matzo in the first place. To top off the bizarre evening, the vegetarian entree of the evening was half an avocado. You could have roasted potatoes, beets, and half an avocado. Really?

But it's okay, because last night Mitch and I decided to set things aright Jew-wise. We took a field trip to a Sainsbury's in a Jewish area, stocked up on kosher food, and got all the fixings for a proper passover feast. The rest of the day was spent in a manner that would make any jewish grandmother proud, making the flat kitchen smell like a jewish home with homemade chicken soup and other various dishes. Also, we encountered a Swede.

No, not that kind

That kind

Apparently, here in Britishland, eggplants = aubergines, cucumbers = courgettes, and rutabagas = swedes. Fun fact for you.

After finding a haggadah online and making this seder plate

This seder plate is, believe it or not, better than the one at chabad

we proceeded to have a damn good seder. The passover story might have gotten a little colloquial, and some prayers may have been said in English rather than Hebrew, but in the end we proved that we are well on our way to becoming some quality jewish grandparents someday.

THERE SHALL BE A SCOTTISH PARLIAMENT

This past weekend I went to Scotland to visit Julie, the ever excellent hostess, at the BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN, and HELLA OLD St. Andrew's University. We were mostly triumphant in our wanderings, with the one notable exception being the cadbury easter egg hunt in some cathedral ruins that we arrived minutes too late to...and ended up empty-handed. Most distressing.

On a more exciting note, we got to enjoy some toys from Scottish children of days of old at the Childhood Museum in Edinburgh, traipsed down the Royal Mile to see the ever so controversial new Scottish Parliament building and Holyrood Palace, the Queen's official residence in Scotland. We also acted all cultured like and viewed some Scottish art at the National Gallery, and went on a slightly involved hunt for a Barclay's atm. All in all, we were pretty Scottish.

Also, Scotland has bunnies! Everywhere! frolicking in fields and footpaths! Magical.

On the train back from Scotland I met some delightful seatmates...one of whom being a bearded sailor named Angus. Nope, not kidding. He was confused about the lack of pubs in America, and informed me that he believes it's much less healthy to drink "in house" because the walk to the pub is good for your constitution. I tried to convince him of the existence of bars, but he just laughed. I still don't know why.

Back in London town, I spent last night reuniting with the second half of Dream Team #2 - Adam came to visit! Although Mitch and I are the ones who've been living in this city for three months now (whoa, strange, I'm practically European), Adam took over as tour guide and guided us through Mayfair and showed us where to peek into Palm Court at the Ritz (where high tea can be yours for a mere 40 pounds a person). As fun as wandering around all that high society was, I had an equally good time knocking back some Old Rosie (you'd be proud, Claire and Brianna) and watching mice run across the floor at a wetherspoon's pub. It was indeed an Arts Win of an evening.

I'm now entering my last week of classes, immediately after which I will be hopping on a easyjet flight to VENEZIA, ITALIA with Julie and Emily! If the capital letters and exclamation mark doesn't express enough my enthusiasm for this trip, maybe my signing off in Italian will.

Ciao!

Highlights from the Tower of London

Beefeater: How many of you here are from the States?

(a lot of general mutterings)

Are you excited to hear all this history?

(more general mutterings)

And to think, it all could have been yours if you'd just paid your taxes.

Also, I need a castle with spiral staircases and a ceremonial sword.

fresh air and factories

My little day trip to Surrey last weekend was absolutely lovely -- Emily's mum was an excellent hostess (and perhaps provided the highlight of the day with "bollocks!! Oops, sorry girls, excuse my language").

Emily, making a guest appearance on my blog. And dude, look how British her village is!! They have a village church!

The Silent Pool in Surrey, where loads of supernatural legends have taken place and super cool authors have contemplated their next great work

Aside from that little excursion to the countryside, I've been doing some more metropolitan explorations as well. Namely, I've been scouting out free galleries and museums within walking distance. This has happily lead me to learn a lot about the East End, as well as engage in some delightful conversations with old cockney men in pageboy caps who actually use the word "guvna" when quoting themselves as boys.

This weekend is more about reading and hibernating, though, because next weekend I'm heading up to SCOTLAND to explore the beauty of St. Andrews with my favorite erstwhile occupant of 230 Miller. So cheerio for now then, lads.

a weekend

I'm never exactly thrilled to leave London at any given time, but this weekend's jaunt to Oxford included all the pleasures of West Wing Drinking Game, dance party to Lady Gaga and On a Boat, tea and scones at tea time in staircase 15, and being bullied by a chocolate shop worker into being a proper lad and ordering the strongest hot chocolate, so I am not complaining.

Tomorrow is pretend-like-one-day-is-enough-to-finish-all-my-reading-for-Wednesday's-seminar time, because on Tuesday I'm accompanying my friend Emily (the British kind) to her hometown in Surrey (where The Holiday was filmed!!) for her birthday. Her mum is taking us both out for tea and then we're hiking around a lake haunted by the ghost of a girl named Emma! Touch what it won't that I don't fall in...

well I met you at the...central line

Those who know me know that I have a thing for hipsters. Not a big thing, but it's just that you'll probably go up in my estimation if you wear plaid.

I found my best friend for ten minutes today. Plaid shirt, skinny jeans, converse, legit '80s-style headphones. I was fortuitously listening to an-obscure-band-you've-probably-never-heard-of on my ipod when I got in the car next to him, so I thought for funsies I'd test the waters and adjusted the volume so that the song name was in plain view. He glanced down and acknowledged the choice. Immediately after I put my ipod back in my pocket, he took his out and adjusted the volume, tilting it so I could see he was listening to Blood Bank by Bon Iver. That's right, the EP, not even the album.

Ten minutes later we parted ways at Holborn, never to see one another again.

Make new friends, but keep the old...

...one is silver, and the other gets yelled at with you in the Tate Modern when you both blow on an 80-year-old Alexander Calder mobile.

As most members of TBE could probably guess from that sentence, the lovely Laura is visiting London for a few days.

Paris: Where even the children are cooler than I am

This past weekend I went to Paris for a beautiful and delicious 2.5 days. Here is my serious attempt at presenting my holiday in a brief and hopefully entertaining manner:

Yes, Parisians act as though they're better than you. But this really didn't bother me, because they are better than you. They look more tasteful than you do, eat better than you do, live in houses more beautiful than you

rs are, sound better than you do when they talk, and will age be

tter than you will (I did not see a single grundgy looking old person in the entire city. Maybe t

h

ey're banished when they start needing help putting on lipstick or develop a cough). In Montmartre, the gorgeous and relatively non-touristy area we stayed in, I felt like I was in a magical land where people literally walked around with baguettes, Evian was the cheapest water bottle, and little girls with tailored coats and ribbons in their hair chased one another down cobblestone streets laughing and shouting in French. Couples drank espressos and ate small cookies in cafés, watched on by a tremendously chic woman in her twenties casually leaning on her wrought iron balcony with open french windows behind her, smoking and looking damn cool. Everywhere I went I felt like I was on a movie set - do young women really bike with flowers in their bike baskets to the fruit market? Do old men really wear berets and order glasses of red wine with huge cigars in their mouths? Does that really happen? In Paris, apparently it does.

Cristine and I went to the Louvre and to l'orangerie to see some of Paris' artistic treasures (and thankfully we had Laura along to wear a huge scarf, know art history, and speak French, so we looked a little like we belonged). We did the main stuff - hit up the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and walked briskly down the Seine.

Things Paris is better at than London is:

• Having trash cans

One of my British friends told me that London doesn't have "rubbish bins" practically anywhere because they're prime places for terrorists to put bombs. So maybe I feel safer, but I come home at the end of every day with more crap in my bookbag than I would prefer.

• Feeding its citizens

Okay, so this may not be entirely fair to London. As cities go, I'd be willing to bet London has some of the finest food in the world - realizing that all English cuisine has to offer is bread and a host of questionably prepared meat byproducts, Londoners have given the full responsibility of food preparation to their ethnic population. This means that is you ever want Indian, Chinese, tapas, etc., you're so, so set in London. But if we're comparing, I mean, it's Paris. At the end of the day this is a competition between the birthplace of pain au chocolat and the birthplace of blood pudding. All you have to do is get a whiff of a Parisian patisserie and the competition is over.

• Looking cool

Brits are kind of dorky. In an incredibly adorable way, but when you look at the old man in the newsboy hat and tweed jacket on the tube you just want to pinch his cheeks (or maybe that's just me). Parisians, on the other hand, are cool. They smoke, with seemingly no ill side effects, wear lots of black and huge scarves that you could never pull off, and all seem to work about 2.45 hours a day, leaving plenty of time for frequenting cafés and walking around looking generally satisfied with themselves.

Things London is better at than Paris is

• Devising an underground subway system

God bless the tube. Sure, its weekend closures and impossibly high fares are a pain, but when you enter an underground station you know your train is going to be clean, fast, and efficient. The Paris metro, with its colors and numbers and labyrinthine halls, was impossible to figure out (granted, it probably didn't help that combined Cristine and I had a working knowledge of about 10 French words). Also, it smelled like pee and you had to manually open the car doors if you wanted to get in or out. Now that's just silly.

• Being affordable

Kind of a silly thing to say considering that the words "London" and "affordable" don't generally go together, but actually in the East End things are hella cheap. 9 pounds can easily get me a week and a half's worth of groceries...wheras it will cover one meal in Paris. Cristine and I, shocked and appalled by French prices, survived off a pastry + 1 meal a day during our stay. Fortunately the frequent hot chocolate purchases kept us going.

• Writing literature

Maybe as an English major I'm biased, but did William Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf, John Donne, or even Philip Pullman come from France? Not so much. Sure, France can claim trendy authors like Muriel Barbery (and I did feel cool and cultured for seeing someone on the metro reading l'elegance du herisson right after I've just finished reading the English translation), But it's just not the same. Also, we have the French to blame for Albert Camus and Samuel Beckett, as well as some seriously atrocious surrealist poetry. Maybe the guillotine wasn't such a bad thing to have in Paris after all...

In conclusion (at last), Paris = awesome. London = awesome. Studying abroad = the best.

you thought I was done...

While procrastinating, I looked up some wikipedia facts on Bethnal Green. It's a winner of a neighborhood!

1. Jack the Ripper lived there (and in Whitechapel next door - the neighborhood where I get groceries! Holla!)

2. A large amount of unexploded bombs remain in the area from the Battle of Britain in WWII, but because it's a slum the city can't be bothered to excavate them

3. The band the Libertines lived there and used to throw "Guerilla Gigs" in their flat with lots of sex, drugs, and (obviously) rock 'n roll

4. The only people listed under "notable residents" were gangsters, musicians, and Jack the Ripper.

That was fun. Maybe I'll do Mile End (my neighborhood!) after I write a few more pages...

"there aren't many salons around here, dearie, so I dunno why I hadn't heard of that one"

Today was a Big Day.

I ran out of my magical hair product that I use every day a few days ago, so I've been sporting ponytails and googling salons that carry my brand. Fortunately, they're all over London (a quick pop in at a Toni & Guy on Liverpool Street taught me that apparently only the smaller, independent salons are carrying that brand now, though) so I was planning on walking the two miles or so to Bethnal Green Road after class today to pick up a few bottles. Seemed simple enough.

I was largely enjoying my jaunt down Roman Road/Bethnal Green -- it's a pretty grundgy neighborhood with government housing and countless halal fried chicken shops, but it's currently going through some kind of hipster rebirth (I passed more than one used clothing store that looked like something in the Haight and spotted a group of twenty somethings with large black glasses frames and striped retro sweatshirts carrying a dismembered mannequin) so it was a fun walk to take.

But then came the part where I was supposed to find the salon, and found instead that it did not exist.

I'm not kidding -- I paced the the place it should have been as well as a five block radius on all sides, and found nothing. I asked inside two stores -- they'd never heard of it. It was getting dark. And started to rain. And the salon did not exist.

I was just about to give up and take the walk of shame home, when I by the grace of god saw a tiny plastic sign next to a buzzer on a building that said "for Beauty Island: ring 242A." I was too busy rejoicing to think that was sketch.

So I rang 242A and waited a few minutes for a nice young Portuguese girl to let me in and lead me up to the salon. Upon entering the one room salon devoid of any clientele whatsoever, I realized they only had my product as a part of a set and would only sell it to me along with two other useless products. This would not do at this point. I begged her to let me have it individually -- this, of course, leading to half an hour of her and her brother? boyfriend? speaking to each other in Portuguese, calling their manager? mother? on multiple cell phones, speaking in more Portuguese, inviting me to sit down and have a cup of tea, calling more people on cell phones, then finally conceding and letting me buy my one stupid bottle of hair product and get the hell out of there.

So now I'm home, a few hours later than I was anticipating and a little damper than I would have hoped, but excited nonetheless to finish this essay tonight and start packing for PARIS on Saturday! I'll update on that next week!

Fact of Life

If you're fighting the urge to nap because you have two books to read before tomorrow, changing into sweats and making a cup of tea is not advisable.

Well, there went my productive lunch hour.

Wales, Opera, and Toilets

This past weekend Arcadia took us to Wales. It was Welsh. There wasn't a lot to do, but the scenery was absolutely gorgeous and our host dad made us sit and watch a bootleg of Hairspray because he thought we'd enjoy a "girly film" so all in all it was a grand adventure.

One awkward moment did arise when our host mom served beef lasagna and fries for dinner...and two out of the four of us staying with them were vegetarians. I didn't want to be rude, so I ate a few polite bites. After a few minutes she left the kitchen, at which point all four of us turned into five year olds and the two meat-eaters thrust their plates in our vegetarian direction and we started transferring lasagna as quickly as possible - as our forks shoveled it onto their plates, their forks shoveled it into their mouths. That activity, coupled with living out my nine year old fantasy of having fries and rolls for dinner, really brought me back to single digits.

Today I'm having another grand adventure, but with more of a metropolitan tilt. It's a very triumphant adventure, because it includes 4 goals I've had since coming to London.

1) Make a trendy British friend

2) Go to the Royal Opera House

3) Buy something pretentiously European for 48 Sunset

4) Get handed a rose by a British boy

Okay so the last one is a bit misleading. But basically I've made friends with a Brit from Surrey who thinks the American revelation of grilled cheese and tomato soup is the most magnificent thing in the world, and who is taking me in two weeks to her hometown, where The Holiday was filmed (!!). We, along with an American boy, got tickets to go see Cosi fan tutte at the ROH tonight (10 quid standing room tickets..I feel so British), so that's two checks down. On our way back to QM from the box office I purchased a small metal sign that says "Toilet" for the bathroom at 48 (you're gonna love it, E, E, and J, I swear!) so that's number 3 down. Then, as we were nearing the tube stop, a Brit standing in the road with two pink roses handed them to me and the girl from Surrey, muttering something about breast cancer. I don't quite get the connection (here's hoping he's not some soothsayer or something...touch what it won't), but I'm thrilled all the same.

I leave you now with a list of British phrases I have begun using and am not apologetic for:

-lovely

-keen

-touch what it won't (instead of knock on wood you say this and touch your head - I find that incredibly adorable)

-d'you reckon?

-an excessive use of "quite"

That's the list so far. And on a completely random note - does anyone know how to put photos up on this darned modern blog thing? Because I know as much as you all must love staring at a block of text, pictures may make your blog reading experience more pleasurable (as well as likely to happen). Thanks!

School Disco and Eggplant Parm

I've generally been dividing my time here between being a tourist extraordinaire (look, Big Ben!) and being an oh so studious uni student (not college student. College means something else entirely here, and that has lead to mad confusion). When not reading and underlining, I've been examining mummified cats at the British Museum with Team Beehler, hitting the markets with some people from QM, spending an inordinate amount of time walking to and from the supermarket, and stumbling upon the disturbing practice that is the British School Disco.

Here is the scene. It's Friday night, and me and some American QM students want to go out and experience trendy London clubs (aka not only ever go to East End pubs, delightful as it is to hear the round-bellied cockney men talking about their "missus'"). We think about going to Leicester Square, then take a peep at entrance fees and feel too cheap for actually trendy London clubs. So instead we go to the campus bar, which is having some kind of big theme night and a lot of people are going. Awesome, we think.

The theme is School Disco, which is apparently a thing here in the UK. At a School Disco (and before I go any further I should clarify that disco refers to perfectly modern and hip dancing that would properly scandalize John Travolta) one dresses in one's old high school uniform. For boys, this means white button up shirt, school crest tie, and perhaps a grey sweater if we're really feeling the theme. For girls, it means this. Think Halloween, only British and possibly even sluttier. It's some kind of trend to put up your hair like Baby Spice and draw on freckles too, thus really clinching the whole fetish orgy vibe I was already getting from the place. I felt either severely overdressed or underdressed, and couldn't quite decide which. Even the Woo Girls I'd gone out with were uncomfortable. Dude. Brits can slut.

Anyway, that's the update for now. Other moments of note include finally finding a nearby open air Arab market from which I purchased...wait for it...FRESH FRUITS AND VEGETABLES!! After two weeks of cereal and ramen I was able to avoid scurvy and make a delicious and fresh eggplant parm tonight. There was so much rejoicing. And I think my flatmates finally respect me as more than That American Who Lives off Nine Pence Ramen From Sainsbury's.

See? Told you I suck at brevity. Ending this now before I get too out of control.

Day 1 of Week 1

Well today was your typical Bad First Day. Some highlights include:

-showing up to an English seminar where you are the only one who hasn't read the book everyone else has and gets shit for it from your intimidating professor (seriously, dude, I got this class two days ago and the library wasn't even open until today. What do you want from me?), and then finding out you have to give a fifteen min presentation of a close reading next week because that's the only slot left.

-Coming home from that terrible class to find a note from facilities telling me I have bed bugs and they've treated my mattress yet provide no helpful hints about where I'm supposed to sleep while the chemicals dry.

-Trying to figure out how these European laundromats work so I can scrub my bed bug-infested sheets and accidentally turning my beautiful white scarf brown despite my 7 years of laundry experience. Then locking myself in the laundromat. (You think I'm kidding. Ask the dude who let me out.)

-Queuing for 45 min to get a new ID card, then finding out I need to print a form before I can get a new one and still have no clue how to print anything. Ditto for purchasing my course packet. Sidebar: I've come to the conclusion that Brits get their politeness from the sheer amount of time they spend standing in line. I wish I knew exactly what percentage of an Englishman's life is spent queuing. It's like the constant waiting has beaten them into gentility.

But on the bright side I spent a lovely, touristy day on Saturday with fellow jumbo Mitch (hi Mitch!). We hit up Trafalgar Square, Westminster and Millenium Bridges, a slightly sketchy arcade by the London Eye, and the tesco express next to Big Ben. At the National Gallery we played a rousing game of "find the Jesus."

Some were easy...

Others were more difficult .

Tomorrow I'm being touristy again with Claire (yay!), but for now I'm off to play catch up with the reading. As they say here in the East End, ta ra, lads!

We're here!

So I finally manned up and made a blog. Because I've been here for a week and have about 4000 pages to update, I won't be that guy and make my friends and loved ones suffer through an annoyingly long blog post but instead post a few high (and low) lights:

1. British signs are incredible. British people talking is incredible. A Welshman at orientation was talking to us about "London transport," and literally shivered when he described "these new horrid bendy buses." I'm just delighted by anything anyone here says.

2. The Brits don't a) share rooms or bathrooms (what upppp), or b) use the internet for registration. The first is far better news. I queued for just so long yesterday. I queued at departments, at the enrolment office, at the computing services, realized my schedule didn't work and had to queue again at departments...it's really a kind of terrible system that they are bizarrely proud of. Makes no sense.

3. Went out to my first East End pub last night and lived to tell the tale! Although I was far from drunk I still lost my newly minted Queen Mary ID (I guess it fell out of my pocket? Unclear). So now I'm going to be that dumb American and go back to the pub asking if it turned up. Good.

4. Apparently I need to read about 4 books per week per class. But hell if that's going to stop me from leaving my room ever - this city is awesome!!!

5. I saw Sporty Spice play Mrs. Johnstone in Blood Brothers in the West End. It was every bit as terrifyingly horrible as one might expect. Why must erstwhile pop stars try to assert their legitimacy by invading good theater?? It's just not fair to the theater-going world at all.

Anyway, that was my stab at brevity. It's mostly complaints, but anyone who knows me know that complaining is what I do regardless of whether I'm happy or not. And I am very very happy! I miss you all so so so much, and maybe I'll update at least one more time before the semester is out!

E

PS Extra credit points to the person who correctly identifies the quotation in the title of this post