chocolate buttons

It was daylight savings yesterday and that means the sun was already beginning to set when I got out of class at 4 today. As I walked west along the strand the angle of the light was such that everyone in front of me was a black sillouette with a bright golden outline. pretty awesome. I am worried about the increase in darkness making me depressed when added on to the already grey gloomy weather of this place. But so far, so good.

I can't decide whether or not I want to go out tonight. I mean, I don't want to, but I can't decide whether I should anyway. I feel I am reverting back to my old, let's-just-hang-out-and-talk self. This is both comforting and scary. Boring is fine at home, but I don't want to be boring here. Well, I don't think it's possible anyway. For one thing, I don't have any friends that I am close enough to to just hang out and talk to for hours. And also, all the coffee shops close in the early evening. Which is completely unacceptable, in my opinion. But oh well. When in London, talk in a pub.

Tonight Sam and I made barbeque chicken and potato salad and zucchini (don't question it). It turned out prety good. I am proud of us.

Despite the small existential crisis I go through every time I take pictures recently, I uploaded a few new ones to picasa, complete with indirectly relevant wilco lyrics.

I am a shameless sampler

The Bourough market is an amzing, beautiful place. It's like going to costco on a sunday except way, way better. You get to have samples of all kinds of cheese, sausage, bread, jam, dried fruit, nuts, etc. And if you are still hungry you can buy an ostrich burger, a steak sandwich, fish and chips, english breakfast, or whatever. I bought oranges, pears, strawberries, dried apples covered in cinammon, dried pineapple, a giant fudge brownie, olives, and a cup of hot apple cider. Apparently this is where Jamie Oliver always goes to shop on his TV show. I can see why! It was awesome. We took the bus home cause we are lazy.

Yesterday I went to the natural history museum, and it was actually pretty lame. It was very kid-oriented and therefore the information was pretty basic and boring. Also, the place was swarming with four-year-olds. Gross. We got take-out from Indigo and ate it in our kitchen, which is way more fun, it turns out, than eating it in the restaraunt. Then Sam told us about some thing her friends were going to at the Victoria and Albert museum with lots of halloween storytelling and films and so on. So we went back on the tube to exactly the same stop we were just at to check it out. Turns out the Halloween-related stuff was all full slash sounded lame, so we just looked around the museum itself for a while. There was one really cool room about fashion with old dresses and shoes and things. It was kind of cool to be in a museum at night, but we were all pretty tired and we didn't stay too long. So far my weekend has been pretty siccessful. Now I am going to go do some laundry/reading in the laundry room.

im in ur londonz, watchin ur orchestraz

Tonight I watched the London philharmonic at the royal festival hall... for four pounds! It was brilliant. There's not much I can say about it because it was just really good in every way possible. Just imagine a really good orchestra, and you're watching them from a really good seat that you only paid 8 dollars for. Got it? Good.

This experience has confirmed my suspicion that Londoners have so much culture available to them at all times, they really take this kind of thing for granted. I mean, our seats were GOOD. And we bought them on Monday. And people weren't even dressed up! What is going on?? It's like all the grownups in the city got together and were like "look guys, we're all pretty worn out from seeing the lion king last night, and the opera the night before that, and then there's that film festival thing going on, and I was really hoping to catch a quick shakespeare play at the globe tomorrow... what do you say we just let the kids watch the london phil for 4 pounds tonight?" There was probably a collective yawn, and then the matter was settled.

So anyway, during one of the really quiet intense pauses, my stomach growled LOUD. I was super embarassed, but mostly just hungry. I spent the last couple movements thinking about that fact.

Afterwards we all came back to our kitchen. By "all" I mean me, the germans (friederike, urs, kathleen), the belgians (judith, forogt the other's name), my roommate sam and her american friend ashley. It was all very multicultural. We played cards and drank tea. Not me, though. I ate scrambled eggs-- my first meal since last friday. It tasted amazing, but possibly just cause I was so hungry.

Last night I was lying in bed watching The Hills (yessssss I finally found a website that lets me watch it here!). There was a scene where Heidi and Spencer were eating dinner at their favorite Mexican restaraunt in LA and it was almost more than I could bear. After the episode was over, I literally spent about 15 minutes just lying in bed with my eyes closed imagining that I was eating chips and salsa with my family, on my thrid refill of coke, or the amazing tortilla soup at On the Border, or the huevos rancheros I got at Peppers the week before I left, or the cheesey salad at Espiaus, or the nachos at Cotixans, or the tacos at Ramiros, or the carne asada fries at Robertos, or the chile relleno at that one place aunt carol likes, or a nice fat chipotle burrito, or El Mercado, or taco bell, or ANYTHING. The one image my mind kept returning to, though, was me dipping a nice salty, greasy chip into my refried beans with cheese, lots of cheese, that stretches as I pull the chip away. I swear I can taste it right now, I really can, and it's amazing. It's not just the mexican, either. I would love to have a nice big salad, or a sandwich with lots of vegetables on it or something. I would love to have some soup with recognizable ingredients. A nice big steak and a baked potato would be cool, too. This sudden food obsession is probably caused by the fact that I basically haven't eaten anything besides plain white things that make me gag since last Friday. I would try to console myself by going to get some Indian takeout or something, but I am still at the point where two pieces of toast with jam is a huge accomplishment. Woe is me. I hate you, body.

gastroenteritis

I am still sick, but a lot better. I got to experience the UK health care system today, which was pretty efficicent and satisfying. I only had to wait about 5 minutes to see a nurse, and then after talking to me she made me an appointment with the doctor, which I only had to wait about 10 minutes for. Both were fairly helpful, except for the fact that they basically told me that they can't do anything for me and that I will just have to keep drinking a lot of water and wait it out.

"Soooooo there's no medicine I can take to make me feel better?" I said.
"No."
"No, antibiotics or anything like that?"
"No; that would just make it worse." At this point there was a pause, and it was clear that I was meant to leave the room.
"So, I basically have to just wait it out?"
"Yes, basically."
"And there's nothing you can do?"
"No, unfortunately not."

After another long pause, I finally got up and walked sadly to the pharmacy to buy something called "rehydration sachets," which, let's be honest, I am never going to drink. At least it wasn't a wasted doctor visit like in the states, where you are not only disappointed but down a few bucks, because I get free healthcare here, even though I am foreign. Oh, I feel so welcome. Tomorrow I get to experience more UK banking fun, and also UK being-registered-for-the-wrong-classes fun. God save the queen.

I have nothing new to say about London this weekend. I didn't actually see any of it besides the interior of my bedroom, because I came down with the flu and have been in bed, but for the most part not actually sleeping, for the past 48 hours. This is a huge bummer because I was supposed to hang out with Sarah last night, but when the time came I found that I could barely even pick up the phone to cancel our plans. Luckily I got to see her on Friday, but I am still really disappointed. I dragged myself down the street to the pub to watch the rugby world cup finals last night, but had to leave after 45 minutes. All I was doing was sitting on a padded bench watching a TV screen, and I couldn't even manage that. They lost anyway, so oh well. Basically this was supposed to be a really fun weekend, but it turned out to be pretty much the worst ever. You'll have to excuse me now while I go back to sitting in bed trying unsuccessfully to read.