Wagamamas....any thoughts??

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Monday: ugh, another day of school....hehe. It's great to be able to study abroad in another country but Monday mornings are the same no matter what country you're in.

Contemporary World--the topic of discussion today was Detente and the confusion or rather disagreement on the use and conditions of the term. Apparently the Soviets don't like to relax as much as the Americans do....but that's for another class.

After class I went to the library to return books, check out more books, read, photocopy paperwork for UC registration, etc. Wow....I've never spent so much time in the library since I've been in college. It's amazing how much time I've spent in the library and it's only the 4th week of class!!

I'm a nerd: So I couldn't figure out how to use the copiers because you have to enter a 4 digit pin number. Well I hadn't set the access code yet on my ID card so I went down to the Trent building, where I know I can set it at the access point without tons of people around looking at me like I'm crazy. Anyways, that didn't work so I asked the lady at the desk and apparently the code for the library is the last 4 digits of a number printed right on your ID card. Now why couldn't they have mentioned that at orientation?? Did I miss something?? Eventually I was able to copy everything which was great. Plus I got some excercise. Oh one last thing about the library: undergrads may only check out 8 books at one time (ie you may only have 8 library books in your possession at any given time). Well let me tell you this makes writing 3 ~10pg (3000 word) essays quite difficult. So...I get to research early! Yay me. I think that by the time final exams roll around in January I'll know the library inside and out....I don't even know McHenry that well.

After all that I was very hungry so I went home for lunch and to rest a bit then headed back up to campus to meet with Michael Cowan, our UC liason in London, to turn in our UC registration forms and chat for a bit. It was pretty simple and painless. Then tonight he took us (Taylor, Preeti and I) out for dinner all on the UC, aren't they nice? hehe. We went on a wild goose chase around England with Preeti driving which was pretty neat. She's a really good British driver by the way. We couldn't find the place that we were going to go to so instead we ended up in the city centre at a Japanese restaurant called Wagamamas. It was really good and we all ended up in a food coma. It's a pretty good portion of food and it's made fresh. The atmosphere is really cool too. Everyone sits on picnic-like benches so you become friends with your neighbor, kind of. And the people working there were really nice and helpful about how the restaurant works, etc. It was really fun. I had amai ubon (noodles with tofu, shrimp, leeks & such) for dinner and coconut reita (coconut ice cream with a sauce & coconut shavings) for desert. It was really delicious!!! I definitely recommend it.

Tonight was really an experience....new food (and delicious!), getting lost in England and getting used to not freaking out about cars coming at us (although they were very polite, hehe). Sounding like fun?? well it definitely was!

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Photos

UC girls
Preeti (Cal), me (UCSC)& Taylor (UCSD)