most awesome money?

Just got home from a trip back home....wait. Let's try that again. Just got back to London from a brief visit to Virginia. When I finally got all of my crap unpacked I discovered four different currencies in my travel purse. Pounds, Canadian whatevers, Euros and American Dollars. What am I going to do with 10 Canadian whatchamajiggers? I mean, it's pretty and all, but useless unless I happen to layover in Ottawa again. 

This begs another very serious question for the world traveler. Which money is the best? I'm taking votes here. The results will be judged on your best argument for categories other than exchange rate: 

1. cool-looking 

2. usefulness (coins vs. notes, denomination efficiency) 

3. transferability (where it can be used.) 

Here's your big chance to rant about how boring your money is or how totally awesome. 

Go.

wish list

Around this time of year, every year, it's the same rhetoric. What do you want for ______ (insert holiday)? What are you doing for ______ (insert holiday name) break? What are you thankful for?
I remember as a kid, I knew what I wanted for Christmas by the brand name, listed in priority order, by Halloween or earlier. My wish list featured all toys I had seen on TV or clutched in some other lucky kid's arms, and I was thankful when I got most of them. Or the BIG ONE on top of the list at least.

Every year of growing up has shrunk my wish list and lengthened my thankful list. This is strange and ironic, like a 'want' hyperbola. The closer I get to having all the stuff I want the farther I get from appreciating it. I don't know if something intrinsically changes in a person as he sheds his training wheels and braves it in the real world, or if it is simply the lens through which he views his priorities.

But I do know this: being away from home makes you yearn for home. Being away from friends makes you want to check facebook every few hours just to see what new silly thing they've posted about their everyday life. Being away from family makes you look forward to every video chat, every phone call, every e-mail.

I have barely thought about what I want for Christmas this year. Most everyone I know is skint on account of the crappy economy - even if they weren't, what would I ask for?  I just want to go home. I want to see my husband, pet my evil cat, laugh with my goofy family, drink some tea with my friends.

And my thankful list - well, it's pretty much the same as my wish list. Just one addition: I'm thankful for wine gums. Man those things are tasty.
 
Wishing all of you in cyberspace a peaceful Christmas, surrounded by those things on your list that bring you joy.

drinking cheese

Next to the yogurt in the Marks & Spencer today were these tiny containers of Petits Filous. Hmmm. Tiny French yogurt? I'll try it. 

It tastes like yogurt, only slightly grittier. 

Wiki says it is fresh cheese. Like drinkable cheese.

I feel violated.

the blue-eyed maid

Finding a job in London when you are an international student is not for the faint of heart. Even my modest quest for a part-time service job took almost 2 months and lead to several dead ends.  I talked to this one girl at a copy shop who said that for her position, they went through 89 applications. Wow.
This past Thursday I made a round with my CVs (like a resume but longer), papering pubs and retail shops with my American credentials. That very afternoon I was offered a 'try-out' at a pub called The Blue-Eyed Maid. For bartenders, try-outs are basically working 3 hours or so for no pay so that the manager can decide if you've got what it takes.
Friday was my first official shift (10 hours!) and gave me a crash-course in English pub-ology.
The Blue-Eyed Maid is a charming old pub with a hodgepodge of mismatched comfy chairs and wooden tables, ornate wallpaper dotted with (inexplicably) photos of Bruce Lee. Its clientele - a mix of salty regulars, groups of young 'mates', couples, a splattering of professionals, etc. What is unique to the pub or typical I am unqualified to say, but it boasts a manual dumbwaiter which is still used (!!!) to send food orders down to the bar from the kitchen upstairs. The menu offers traditional English fare alongside Indian curry dishes (this is typical) and despite having a limited cocktail menu, no one orders cocktails. The place doesn't even HAVE sour mix. I found myself itching to mix something, staring plaintively at the 'spirit' bottles all night. What offended my American bartender sensibilities the most was their recipe for a 'Margarita', which included GIN instead of tequila and sounded disgusting.
Clearly my mixology skills are going to rust over here. Guess I've got to get used to being a pub wench. And the low wages + non-tipping culture of London as well. Actually, not being motivated by tips takes a lot of pressure off a bartender to preform. The relationship with the customer is more relaxed, more friendly somehow. Expectations are low on both sides of the bar!
Oh, and sports? That's exactly the same across the pond. You'd better have that channel on the right football game on Sunday. (and it better be football!)
BTW - for those of you that don't follow football (soccer) religiously - today I watched a game for like an hour before EITHER TEAM scored a point. Yeah. I'd almost rather watch American football.

oxford!

Last Sunday I joined some fellow adventurers from my residence hall on a day trip to Oxford. What a photogenic day - graceful trees littered with golden leaves, stately buildings glowing with the little bit of sun that shone that day - and 13 frozen students huddled on the top of a (roofless) tour bus snapping a zillion pictures.

As you can see from the photo, they gave us headphones so we could hear the tour guide describing all the historical sites, but I wasn't paying attention and just took a bunch of pictures.

Which means now I have loads of pictures of buildings that mean nothing to me. But they're pretty!



What impressed me most about Oxford were the vast opportunities to nerd-out.
For instance, we ate lunch at this tiny pub called The Eagle and Child , which was where Tolkien and C.S. Lewis hung out together. I could really imagine a hobbit living in that pub. The ceiling was all cadywompus - it would slope at different levels, and was drafty and cozy at the same time. They had a lot of meat pies. A LOT OF MEAT PIES.

Oh, and then there was Hogwart's, AKA Christ Church . As I stood before the church, I could imagine all of my Harry Potter friends squealing in nerdtastic glee. The inside was incredible - it had the very cafeteria area featured in the movie. Or so I'm told. I was too cheap to pay the £3.50 entrance fee.

Are you obsessed with The Lord of the Rings and/or Harry Potter? Did you like Alice in Wonderland? Come to Oxford and give the nerd in you a holiday to remember.

el presidente & porky pig

So the President of Ecuador just happened to be in the neighborhood and dropped by LSE for a speech. I can't believe the billing they have for speakers here. I harbor a secret fascination with celebrities of all types, but in particular political leaders, and jumped on this event like white on rice.

Whether or not you agree with his "21st-Century socialist" policies or the direction he's leading his state, you've got to admit, the man can hold an audience. He's passionate, eloquent and he's got great hair. And a sense of humor.
So in the middle of explaining how structured reform exacerbates problems for Latin America, Pres. Correa takes a sip from his glass.
"Salud," someone says from the audience.
"Sin alcohol." he retorts.
{copious amounts of laughter from Spanish-understanders}

Amid lofty thoughts of socialism, imperialism, nationalism, and various additives to these isms (ethnonationalism, technopsuedofascism ok i made that up), I find myself entangled in the every-day-ness of ex-pat life. And with it, the increasing awareness of my United States-ian culture of which I have been apparently clueless.

Case example: in the bank today, this guy is giving me my password for my bank account and somehow gets to talking about Porky Pig. His colleagues have convinced me that he does a phenomenal Porky Pig impression, and with some encouragement, he performs for me.
It wasn't even close. It had the 'be-debba-be-debba' but it was all enunciated properly and lacked something I couldn't put my finger on. This made it even more funny. I did a Sylvester impression that earned me a free Nat West piggy bank.

O juxtaposition! How I love you.

some little slice of beauty

It was such a beautiful moment, walking by the Thames, that I felt compelled to stop my routine walk & record it. The sun, which at 5:30 had about finished its descent into the water, has divided the skyline into half-golden light and half-shadow. Eaves and columns, torrets, all those bits of architectural fancy half-gleaming and half-obscured in shadow. And the boats, whether resting blithely upon the water or gliding slowly by, brilliantly recasting the last bit of golden rays. Clouds layered and scattered as if in a creative frenzy - some smooth and calm and some ripped in chunks or pulled like heavenly fiber across the sky - at once softly glowing and bathed in shadow.
And the lucky passerby who thinks to raise his head - clicking a photo, then staring, then clicking again.

America in a Box!

O the timeless Care Package. A true Rite of Passage for the college student. Got my first one on my birthday, yesterday, and let me tell you there was some joy in Room 202 with each discovery. There's just something about getting a package in the mail, and finding bits of home in there. Twix. Bubble Yum. Burt's Bees Lip Balm. Slim Jims (I almost shed a tear over these). Hostess mini-cakes. All the things that made growing up in Southwest Virginia a *unique* and *special* experience.
And I can tell you, reading about the French Revolution and what it meant to the centralisation of the national military is thrilling, but so much more so while gnawing on perfectly spiced beef jerky.

medical phenomenon

Just now I looked down at my fingers, and noticed that they appeared to have a blue, grey-ish hue. Flipping my hands over, I noticed with growing alarm that my knuckles were, indeed, a peculiar deathly shade of blue. Immediately I thought of the symptoms of meningitis or sepp-whatever and couldn't remember if turning blue was on the list - "Why did I pitch that helpful calendar!! I could have meningitis and now I can't know!"

Then I washed my hands.

And remembered that my new-ish jeans have this special indigo dye that transfers if say, you shove your un-mittened hands in them.

Ridiculous.

health and accident stuff

For those of you who've asked, or haven't and don't have anything better to read, although I'm not fully recovered from my accident in August, I'm taking precautions and doing what I can until I can see a doc.
Honestly, dragging my bags around London set me back a bit from the progress I was making back home.

I know Jitsu doesn't sound like a great idea after having a car accident, but I'm sticking to the cardio part of it, avoiding exercises that put my neck/back/shoulders in compromising positions. From what I've heard, keeping active is important as long as it isn't painful - and so far, what I'm doing is at least keeping me from feeling stiff all the time.

Hopefully the 'progressive' healthcare system here in the UK will prescribe some awesome massage! One can hope.... :)

holy crap they have a lot of speakers come here

So today I sat in on a speech by Dr. Justin Lin , the Chief Economist and senior vice-pres of the World Bank.  I'm not going to say it was fascinating, but it was an honor to be in the audience. The future economists and economic advisors in the audience sure found it fascinating. They asked like a million questions. My favorite was when a student asked him: "what were you thinking when you swam from Taiwan?" and he said, "Keep floating."
It's true, according to Wiki:

"As an up-and-coming captain in the Republic of China Army (the army had already paid for his MBA) in Taiwan, he defected to Mainland Chinaon May 17, 1979, reportedly by swimming from the island of Kinmen, in Fujian Province (Chinese: 福建省) under the control of the Republic of China (Taiwan), to the nearby island of Xiamen in the Fujian Province (Chinese: 福建省) of the People's Republic of China (Mainland China)." (Wikipedia)

 FIRE DRILL! This blog was interrupted by a fire drill. Good times.

found a 'chippie'

A 'chippie' is a beautiful place. It's a personal thing, finding that *special* chippie to call your own. Mine of the moment is Fishcotheque - near the Waterloo Underground Station. From what I can gather, a chippie is just a place that serves good fish & chips. This one is cheap, close, and the fish is buttery and delightful.
A few sketches for you guys that indulge me:
The Thames at night, all lit up in its Lite-Brite glory

This is just a pub in the neighborhood. The bartender had a head in actuality.

SMACK! reality.

oh.
my.
gosh.

I have over 150 pages to read for my first week ALONE.
150 pages with terms like "premodern constitutionalism" and fun ponderings such as, "what was the casual mechanism of the dependent variable?"
GAAAA! What am I doing?! I want my bartending job back! No one ever asked me lame questions like that at 202!
No, no. Don't panic, Gilee. You'll be juuuuust fiiiiiine.

Time for a crunchie bar.

Really????

This poster came in my 'Welcome Box.'

Cuz what I want out of my calendar is a constant reminder of meningitis.

poli sci meets jitsu

I never thought it could happen. But I've managed to find a club that out-nerds even me: Jitsu on LSE campus. Martial arts meets political science. To give you an idea of just how nerdtastic this club is, when we went out for drinks after the first meeting, I got into a conversation with one of the guys about the World Trade Organization's effects on local business. Wow. I feel so...different here...so this is what being normal is like! Normal is relative! I never knew!
Anyway, last night was quiet for a Saturday. I found myself curled up in front of my window, with the rain beating down, sipping tea & reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Quite a world away from the frenzied weekend scene at 202 Market mere weeks ago.

This is life - lull and swell, curl and crash. You ride whatever wave you're on.

I like this one so far.

life by the River Thames

Life in a residence hall when you're a graduate student is...different. I'm surrounded by hoards of replicas of my past teen-20s self and it is exhausting to watch. Sometimes I wonder if I jumped the gun a bit by accepting this hall so quickly. I mean, I don't want to be homeless in London, but seriously...I passed a kid in the hall on the way to the lounge (where the microwave lives) and this was our interchange:
he said, "What, you're not going to Crush?"
Me: "Crush?"
Him: "Crush!"
Me: "What's that?"
Him: "{something British and undecipherable} in the Quad!"
Me: "Does it cost money?"
Him: "5 pounds."
Me: "I'm broke."
Him: "{something else, maybe Cheers? who knows.}"

Then there's the trashed lounge after a party. Gingerly removing bottles of liquors from the sink to wash my paltry load of dishes. And the smell of feet in unventilated hallways. Stepping over some pool of gross outside someone's door. Ah....college life.
But it's all worth it - all of it - for the walk to LSE.

I live in a borough south of the River Thames. I have to cross it on my way to school. It's pronounced "temz" by the Brits and I can't bring myself to say it out loud. Temz. Thames. Tames? Anyway, it's beautiful - brown, noisy, but beautiful. By day it is littered with boats and the bridges are bustling with double-decker buses, cabs, bikes and cars. By night it is Lite-Brite picture perfection. Small globe lights are strung between ornate light poles (torch poles? they call flashlights torches. why not?) and benches a-plenty for sitting and watching the world float by. I heart you, River Thames!

After crossing the Millennium Bridge today, I passed a 3-piece boy band playing for pocket pence just outside of the Tate Modern museum. Two acoustic guitars and a keyboard blower thingy that sounded a bit accordion-y. No love from me - I had like 5 pence and that seemed a crummy contribution.
No classes yet - so I had time to buy a small fridge for my grocery treasure-hunting, and do laundry. I saw this crazy thing in the store - ironing water. I gave it a try - it's quite a lovely experience. I was ironing things just to iron.

everyday adventure

Comfort is finding the nearest grocery store. Don't have a fridge yet, can't cook, but I went grocery shoppin'! Tea biscuits (cookies), fruit (slightly bruised - 1/2 price!), and of course Chili Coriander Flavour potato crisps. It's the little things.

Also signed up with a bank. Banks aren't nearly as generous with free stuff as they are in the U.S. I'm paying 4 pounds (~$7) a month just for a savings account. But without a bank account, it's hard to get a job, and other key stuff.

And I sure need a job.

I signed up for 5,000 clubs at the club fair, or 'Freshers Fair.' Jitsu, yoga, food appreciation society, debate club, hummus society, Dubai club (why not?). Hummus society? Really? Really.

The clubs cost money but hey - it will be money well spent when I'm all zenned out and baking something amazing for a debate event over hummus.

So according to my events info, classes start tomorrow, so I went to my department to get some help signing up. This lady with perfectly red-pink hair informed me that we are to have 'inductions' tomorrow in which all would be explained. Which was apparently announced on some website that I'm psychically tuned to. And that possibly classes for us won't start until mid-October. Wow! This school is so different from VA Tech. I don't know what's coming at me until it's there.

After all that, more shopping - one mug, one plate, one bowl. I bought an electric tea kettle. With a funny British plug!

O brave new world! I'm ready for ya.

fish 'n chips!

Sunday.....MOVING DAY! The tube line that goes to my residence hall was 'under maintenance' this weekend, making the journey extra intriguing. Dragging one's worldly possesions around London isn't anyone's idea of a good time. Moving generally sucks. But it sucks much less with a fellow adventurer. Traveling through London means getting on intimate terms with its network of buses, subways (tubes) and cabs - and now that I live on the other side of the River Thames, I'll get to know the ferry system too. After cramming all my heavy bags into the room, Stuart and I played tourists. Initial impressions of our exploits:
- The Changing of the guards at the Buckingham Palace - over five billion people stretching their cameras over their heads to record the spectacle, we caught a glimpse of maybe a guard's fuzzy hat. But it was worth it. Especially when - and I kid you not - the royal band started playing a Ricky Martin song.
- Fish 'n Chips - every bit as lovely as advertised.
- Shopping - nerd shopping, that is. Picadilly Circus has a 2-story Apple store! I thought I'd never get Stuart out of there.
- Took in a show - a muscial, in fact. About New York City and zen. It had muppets.
- Strolled about a park - St. James's Park. Even the ducks look different in London! Black ducks with little white faces. The trees are changing colors here, which made me happy.
- Had tea with a sort of pastry. Not sure if it was a crumpet or not. Some French custard thingy.
It was hard to see Stuart off today. I'm a little more homesick than I thought. Thank God for planes, and trains, and Skype.
Tomorrow I fight the masses to stake my claim on classes. And student discounts cards.

Westminster - one night in the Queen's backyard

 Stuart, my friend from Germany, will be here any minute! He's helping me move into my residence hall and will be galavanting about London with me for the next few days. We're staying one night in Westminster - a posh borough that boasts Buckingham Palace , Big Ben, Westminster Cathedral, and pages of other tourist sites in my guidebook.

I brought the wrong cord for my camera, so until I get that 'sorted out', I won't be able to post photos so I'll share my sketches.

While waiting for Stuart to arrive I wandered around Westminster Cathedral. Here are some renderings of it - impossible to get everything. It's a ginormous and incredibly detailed masterpiece of architecture.

ups and downs

I'm getting used to baked beans for breakfast. They're pretty good with toast. 

O Registration Day! I forgot what a pain in the #$#% registration day was. The line went up four flights of stairs. Wow. 

Now that I've got an address (!!!) it's a race to get ready by move-in on Sunday. I had to find sheets and towels for the room - and discovered Primark. If Wal-Mart and Target had a baby, it would be Primark. Shopping here was not for the faint of heart or tired of feet. I was so wiped out that when I got home I fell on the bed and passed out for an hour. 

All the great ideas I had about the public transportation system in London were dashed today by delays, hot, crowded buses and tubes, and 50 billion stairs.

It was an up-and-down day, frustration and quiet, exhaustion and furious activity. Thank God for tea. 

Another summer day
Has come and gone away
In Paris and Rome
But I wanna go home
May be surrounded by
A million people I
Still feel all alone

As I walked through the tube station this song was echoing down the halls. The street musician's electric guitar reverberated down to my shoes. His voice hung in my head all the way home.

jet lag is for wussies

Wow. I'm actually here. It's hard to fathom - that right outside this little window is a whole new country. It's 10:30 pm my time, and quiet. It's been a long but good day.

I arrived at 11 am and managed to work in some initial essentials:

-rode the 'Tube' - London's underground subway system

-bought a 'bacon butty' in the Ireland airport Burger King (bacon, catsup, and a bun???)

-drank something delicious called H2Oh! 

-took a nap :)

-went grocery shopping and paid in pounds

-didn't get pick-pocketed, despite the high level of paranoia generated by my guidebook (and my mom) on the subject

-tried out my pluggy thing that's supposed to make my laptop plug work and it didn't

-managed not to break out my map in public so as not to arouse suspicion of my tourist status

-did not, even one time, say "Righto" or "Cheers" (it was hard.)

I leave you now to collapse into bed and regain some of the five hours I've lost. 

Cheers!

Getting all my Nachos in

This morning I picked up the package from the UPS delivery station. I took it to Hardee's and ripped it open gleefully over my biscuit. Feverishly scavenging through the contents, I tossed aside my diploma, marriage license...where's the Visa???? Then I found something stuck inside my passport. It was a sticker. 

No new badge, maybe with a cool hologram? Or a portal?

$250 and 2 1/2 months of document archeology and all I get is a sticker?? Really?

Still, I held it in my hands, not believing it was real.  Over the weeks it became a sort of holy grail of travel, that which we seek with earnest fervor but never obtain.

It's official. I'm goin' to London.

Better suck down the nachos while I still can.