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Published: November 29th 2007
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As soon as I flew back from Belgium I was expected for a fun-filled weekend in London. Actually, I got into London around 10:30 but couldn't check into the hotel until 2, so I had some time to kill. since i had been up since 2:30 in the morning, I was feeling a bit tired. I had predicted this and made prior arragements to hang out in the IFSA-Butler London office building. They have a big common room there with lots of couches, and I emailed to make sure I wouldn't be in anyone's way if I just hung out there and napped for awhile. Thankfully, I was granted clearance to crash on the couches by Lynne, the queen of IFSA-Butler in England, but she didn't inform all of her underlings of my arrival. Thus, after going to sleep for a little while, some staff member who had been hired in the past month and thus didn't know me woke me up. I was really really tired and this made me really mad. new guy at the london offices--I'm still mad.
Now, to explain about what London weekend is. It is the one weekend per semester where IFSA-Butler carts all
the non-London based kids down to London, puts them up in hotels, gives them good food, and provides some sort of entertainment.
Butler ended up putting us in rooms at the Thistle Barbican, which is a nice hotel but not very close to a tube stop.
on friday night we had dinner at Mestizo, which is the only authentic mexican restaurant in London, according to the London staff. It was good, but it was no taco bell. geez, this is turning out to be a really uninteresting entry...
Despite the fact that this was my fourth trip to London, I've hit up a relatively small number of the major sights. This time around, I wanted to get to as many of the totally awesome and totally free museums London has to offer as possible. Number one on the list was the British Museum, number two was the Tate Modern, and number three was The Victoria and Albert.
We only had until around 5:30 on Saturday to do our sightseeing, so Julia and I got up early and headed to the British museum. So far this is my favorite museum in town. It has an extensive collection
Lucy was an FBI agent
she doesn't look very intimidating, does she? of really really old stuff like the Rosetta Stone and mummies, but it also has an interesting assortment of basically everthing since Egypt. We didn't have time to look over the whole place, but I spent a lot of time looking at the Japanese gallery and their newest acquisitions, which were very very contemporary and about as different as you can get from the Rosetta stone. There was also a special exhibit about whales in art. While looking at one of these pictures I noticed that there was a monster looking thing in the corner. I thought to myself "huh, that monster looks flemish." I checked the information to find that I was totally correct. I felt really smart.
the british museum also has a really nice assortment of postcards for sale.
Tate modern was vexing b/c it was very disorganized. i think there were quite a few really famous paintings there, but i only saw a couple b/c it was so hard to navigate around that place. to be fair, though, we only had about an hour allotted for the tate modern, and that's just not enough time at all.
we had lunch at mcdonald's. that
London eye
all my boat pictures are blurry b/c 1) it was night 2) we were moving and 3) i was trying to take pictures through a window as there was no deck area was the first time i've had american fast food since i've been here. it was awesome, and i don't care at all if you're judging me.
after the tate modern we had to rush back to our hotel so julia could change into her "fancy dress" (costume) for the night festivities. i had no costume b/c i didn't have any room in my backpack for anything besides the essentials (I didn't check any luggage for Belgium and had not returned to york, yet). I told people i was a "traveller" but i don't think anyone was impressed.
anyway, we had dinner on a river boat on the thames. a lot of the staff members got really into it and had fabulous costumes. dinner was good and we got cheesecake for dessert. it wasn't very good cheesecake, but it made do. the bar was really expensive, as in drinks were about £10 a piece (that's $20 for a drink!!! ugg!), so i was sober, sober, sober that night.
there was a dancefloor and a dj who played remarkably good music so i danced the night away to Gangsta's Paradise, Jump Around, and I Like Big Butts.
the
Oran as a staff member
Oran is one of our staff members. he's from Ireland, and I guess this is his interpretation of Americans. next morning we woke up and ate the complimentary continental breakfast provided by our hotel. This is not very interesting and I only tell you so you will be impressed at my determination and committment when I tell you that about an hour after I ate this breakfast I had a brunch consisting of about the same thing at the hilton. Why IFSA-Butler decided to set up a brunch instead of a lunch, I don't know, but I was not going to be kept from eating free food just because that free food was almost exactly what I had eaten an hour before. Oh, no. I also stole a few mini-muffins and a pot of jam for later eating. In all, I had 5 mini-muffins that day, and they were all delicious.
Yep, that's about the most boring entry I've ever written.
oh, here's a somewhat amusing incident. so, right before we left julia and i went to the british library. its got a bunch of neat stuff on exhibit, like the magna carta and handwritten beatles lyrics. anyway, in order to enter the british library, you must allow your bags to be searched by security guards. the
lady who searched my bag was, to say it delicately, not trying to not put out a lesbian vibe. she asked me how i was, which i thought was weird b/c nobody's nice in london, but being an arkansan i made chit chat back with her. part of my friendly chit chat was to say, "i promise i don't have anything dangerous in my bag" (i had my backpack with me and it was full and hard to look through). after i said that she paused, coyly looked up at me while trying to make deep and meaningful eye contact , and said "you promise?". maybe this sounds like nothing to you guy, but i was there, and i promise, this lady was trying to put the moves on me.
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Grannie Annie
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Loved your London Blog
Sarah, I loved your notes from London. I can vividly remember how wonderful it was to have a Big Mac in London after all those fish and chips! Sounds like you are having a blast, and I am so glad. Your Belgium bicycle ride was awesome! How did you ever find the energy to do that?? Youth!!! It is wonderful to be able to keep up with your doings. Keep the news coming.