Harry Potter is my Homeboy.

Loved this cute little boat at Hyde Park

One of my favorite parts of the Harry Potter books is his adventure with the crazy night bus. Now that I live in London, I can relate. Harry meets a crazy bus driver and eventually flies away on the bus with his trunk in tow. My experience last night pretty much mirrored that…except the Slovakian character we met was definitely not the bus driver and I was more concerned about the well being of my flat mates rather than my personal belongings. Don’t worry Mom…we made it home perfectly fine.

We had a great night out at Walkabout (do I italicize bar names?). It was some kind of Australian bar with live music and the 9 or 10 of us had a blast dancing and singing all the American music. So when the bar closed and they kicked us out we just had to sneak back in to “go to the bathroom” AKA talk to the band. The singer (Damien with an awful afro) let us stay to hang out but after we found out he was 33 we were a little less star-struck which worked out when he kind of ditched us…maybe for his 30 year old friends. So getting home became our new goal which is much more challenging than it sounds. During the day London is accessible to anyone, anytime because of the Tube, but after midnight it’s a whole different story. People are great here though…somehow we managed to find the right bus and the other passengers told us where to get off. Last night that meant we had another mile or so to walk, but we made it! Whew.

Yesterday—after my post and before the events in the above paragraphs—I set off for Hyde Park with Katherine and Liz. We had a great time walking around people watching and hunting for ice cream. It was just like we stepped into a postcard. It’s a 3-day weekend here so there are more people than usually and yesterday’s weather was absolutely perfect. It honestly was couldn’t-ask-for-better perfect. The park is absolutely huge and people just hang out and relax with no intention to accomplish anything. I’m still getting used to that way of life. I so quickly jumped from non-stop KOMU/Columbia life to this other world where people sit to sit…not to catch their breath before the next line on their to-do list. We eventually made our way to Hyde Park Corner. Because it was Sunday, there were about a dozen people standing on boxes or stepladders preaching…just like speaker’s circle on steroids. It was cool but maybe not as cool as I thought. The park was beautiful though and it was nice to get out and walk.

When we got back to the flat we finally booked our plane tickets to ITALY! Yay! I’m so excited. They’re for RyanAir, which I’m a little skeptical about, but it will be an experience…and a relatively cheap one. We are going the weekend of June 12 so if you will be there, let me know.

Okay so back to the days I haven’t blogged about yet…I’ll give you the highlights (lessons learned, sights seen, etc). It’s probably a little boring but it’s more for my benefit to remember months from now.

Wednesday
.Boring orientation in the morning
.Trip-Planning with 10 people=yikes. Costs, logistics, priorities, attitudes…learning experience.
.Forgot my Oyster card: Liz and I cheated our way in and then realized we didn’t have a way out. Bad idea. Fortunately she is the sweetest girl on the planet and got the tube worker to feel bad for us…as in he let us out instead of arresting us. :)

Thursday
.Meeting with Boyana and Alex Ruppenthal (Oh wait, I mean Rueben Stern!): I got CNBC! She said my supervisor is “very picky but he liked you a lot on the phone for some reason”. Back-handed compliment? I let it go…
.Got lost by myself. Maybe one of my top 10 favorites things to do in life.
.Zoo Bar: wow. My charming flatmates found the cutest guys to hang out with all night. Being the lucky girl that I am, I was cornered by 2 equally charming 5’3” Indian men who couldn’t get enough of the thumb dance and maybe the shopping cart? Jealous?!

Friday
.Class: Irish professor with suspenders (a requirement for my future husband)! Reminded us to ‘look-up’ when we walk around. Great tip.
.Covent Gardens: great area. Very young and trendy. We’ve been back already since then!


That’s all for now! I’m going to go to the Natural History Museum. It has an earthquake floor that moves. Can’t wait for that!

London love,

em

2/4 Girls on the most recent Night Bus Adventure