And just like the prodigal son, I've returned. (Anyone steppin' to me will get burned)

Well, I've decided to get back into the blogging game. I know this may come as a shock to some, and you may be asking yourself, why would you do such a thing, Daniel? I thought you just created this blog for when you were abroad, what are you gonna write about now? And don't you know that blogging is kinda gay? Allow me to respond to your various inquiries individually:

A) You're right, I did originally start this blog for my time studying in London. It was a good way to avoid having to answer the same questions over and over again. I could just direct anyone who was curious about my adventures to check out the ole blog to find out what I was up to, and I also figured it'd be nice to be able to look back on it in the future as a sort of memoir or journal of my experiences overseas. I planned to stop posting once I got home, but after a couple of months I've decided to bring it back (with a vengeance). I've kind of been trying to figure out what I'd like to do with my life, since I'll be graduating next spring, and I do enjoy writing. I've also been told that I'm fairly decent at it, so I figured I might as well get back in the groove in case I ever decide to seriously consider some type of writing-based career. It probably won't lead anywhere, but its a pretty good way to kill time when I could be doing more productive things. Additionally, I'm just pretentious enough that I think that what I have to say is worth being recorded so that all humanity, present and future, may drink deeply from the fountain of my wisdom. So question one... nailed.

B) What am I gonna write about now? I wish I knew. I have no real plans for this thing, I just decided to start writing again on a whim. I figure I'll try to take things that I notice or experience and connect those specifics into more general musings on politics, society, culture, whatevs.

For example, over the weekend I went to the Sox game with three comrades and before the game we were hanging around in the parking lot polishing off a case of beverages. As we were sitting there, a rather grimey looking fellow came up and started asking us whether we'd been questioned by any authorities regarding our drinking activities, considering the fact although we were all of legal age, we looked young enough to maybe arouse suspicion. We had not been, and the gentleman explained that he was constantly being harassed by The Man and had just the other day been maltreated for doing the exact same thing we were doing, even though he was obviously significantly older than us. However, because we were a few Polo wearing white kids from the suburbs, we were left alone, while an older, moderately grungy African-American guy is constantly harassed. We agreed that this was pretty unfair, but the best/worst part of the story was that as we were talking to the guy about his plight, a U.S. Cellular Field security guard (who need to carry guns, apparently) rolled up in a golf cart behind our new friend and began questioning him. The security guard proceeded to ask us if the guy was giving us any trouble, but the guard did not feel it necessary to ask if four drinkers of a youthful persuasion were of legal age. As the great lyricist Zach De La Rocha once said, "The structure is sick, can't change it with a ballot pull."

And Finally, as for the third question,

C) Blogging isn't gay.

That's it then, folks, the first non-abroad related blog post. Hope it was enjoyable. Also, here's a couple of songs and links I've enjoyed lately.

The Black Keys- Tighten Up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpaPBCBjSVc

-amazing song, amazing video.

From Foreign Policy, about China's growth: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/16/chicago_on_the_yangtze?page=full "In Britain, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, there are only two cities with a population of more than 1 million; in the United States, there are just 10 such cities. But already in China, there are 43 cities of more than 1 million, and by 2030 there will be 221, the McKinsey Global Institute predicts." Ridiculous. We're so fucked.

Last Few Weeks/Reflections/Home (Mega Sadface)

Well, after nearly 5 months in London, I'm finally back in the ole US of A. The time flew by, yet at the same time it seemed like I had been in London forever. Flat 41E in Pooley House had truly become home. It's so bizarre being back in Elmhurst after so long and realizing that nothing here has really changed. I can sit on my couch with my dog and watch tv, exactly the same as 5 months ago. I can see this quickly becoming boring, but as of right now, its pretty nice. Portillo's for lunch today.... yessssss.

Anyway, the last few weeks since my dad and Jen were in London were fairly eventful just doing fun stuff around town. I saw Ted Leo and the Pharmacists and Third Eye Blind in concert, which was sweet. I'm not particularly a fan of either of them, but if you've got a chance to go out and see a concert in the greatest city in the world, why the hell not? Also went to my second Premier League football match, between perennial powerhouses Fulham and Stoke City. Stoke City pulled out a 1-0 squeaker with a late goal, despite a stellar performance by everyone's favorite Yank, Clint Dempsey. Going out at night has been great as well (crazy night at Roxy definitely a great time), but I think the highlight of my final few weeks was the weather. Especially the last week, it was sunny and nice everyday and being able to hang out with a great group of people along the canal, playing some sports and having some drinks, is really all a man can ask for, though falling into said canal should probably be avoided. I also think I did pretty well on my exams, though I wasn't particularly worried about them.

So, thats it. I've been home for 12 hours (woke up at 6 am, damn time change), and I already miss London. I figure while its all still pretty fresh in my mind I should list all the things I can think of that I'm gonna miss about my time abroad, so without further ado, here it is in no particular order:

London, the Tube and Tube shenanigans, Doner, Nando's, British politeness and humor, the beer, Wetherspoon's, the Palm Tree, Flat 41, Flat 46 pong, the smell of Mile End, Regent's canal, Queen Mary, Cristina Von Hodenberg, running along the Thames, Dixie, random overseas encounters with people I haven't seen in years, Brick Lane, Low Cost, wandering around central London at night trying to get home, the 25 bus, the Bangladeshi's (sorta), getting in arguments with foreigners about how awesome America is, travelling, British accents, the beautiful women, Sainsbury's, exploring London, Draper's, and more than anything, the people I met. So in summary... I miss everything. Crap.

Well that's it then. I guess this is the end of the overseas portion of this blog. I might update it every once in a while, but I've got no real plans for it. Perhaps I should change the name. Whatevs. Thanks for reading everybody. If you're someone from home, I look forward to seeing you this summer, and if you're reading this from back in London town, I miss you already.

The Emerald Isle and Big Dan in London

Well this post is sorta old news, as its been a week since the events transpired, but you're gonna just have to deal with it. Anyway, this tale begins back in December as I was getting ready for my trip. My dad decided that he wanted to come over and visit, as he'd never been to foggy London town, and since my sister Jen would be graduating in May, a trip across the pond seemed like a solid graduation present. Additionally, since Jen had been to London in high school, we decided that she'd come over a few days early and that she and I'd take a little side trip to Ireland before rendezvousing with pops back in London. Jen was to arrive early Monday morning, then we'd catch a flight to Dublin that afternoon and have 2 and half days in Ireland (including a day trip to Galway and the West coast).

Unfortunately, her flight from the Chi was delayed over 4 hours and we missed our original flight and had to pay a ridiculous fee to get on one later in the day (the entire Ryanair corporation is made up of douches). So instead of getting into Dublin at 2 pm, we arrived at like 8. After checking into our hostel, we walked around for a bit and grabbed dinner (realizing that Dublin is paradoxically more expensive than London) and met up with another studying abroad old friend, Katie McLean, for some drinks (read: Guiness) before turning in. Jen was wiped out from her absurd travel day, plus we had to get up early for our bus to the west coast.

Now I'd been a little skeptical of the merits of taking a 4 hour bus ride (at 730 am) to the coast when there was so much to do/see in Dublin, but the tour we were on was amazing. Our hilarious/awesome/perverted old Irish guide was the man and the sights were fantastic. Millenia-old Celtic forts and tombs, castles, medieval cathedrals, and the Cliffs of Moher, which are in competition for my favorite things I've seen over here. Ireland is probably one of the greatest places on earth and the Irish people are fantastic. I'm really not a fan of guided tours, I'd rather just figure stuff out myself, but given our limited time I was definitely happy with this one. We also stopped for lunch at a great little pub in the coolest/tiniest little town where I had one of the greatest meals of my life consisting of Irish Stew, chips (fries), and a Guiness. After that full day of sight-seeing, we got back to our hostel in Dublin pretty late and hit the sack for our full day in Dublin.

The next morning we wandered around the beautiful campus of Trinity College and went to the National Gallery of Ireland, as they were both really close to our hostel. Next, on our walk towards Dublin Castle and St. Patrick's Cathedral, we ran into a kid we went to high school with, Brooks Smith, randomly while walking down the street. Now this is not the first time this has happened during my travels, but it's still absolutely astounding. What are the odds of running into someone you haven't seen in years, completely unplanned, while just walking down the street in a major foreign city? Anyway, he was in town from Budapest visiting a friend, but since she was in class, he joined us for the rest of our sightseeing. After the cathedral and the castle, we headed towards what I perceived would be the highlight of our day, the Guiness Brewery Tour. After my disappointing experience at the Heineken Brewery, my hopes weren't too high, but it was definitely pretty sweet. Plus, after 2 and a half pints of Guiness, wandering around is just that much more enjoyable. We bid Brooks adieu afterward so he could go meet his friend, and Jen and I went to have a picnic at Phoenix Park, which is apparently the largest enclosed park in Europe. It used to be the private grounds of the English royalty/their representatives in Ireland before the Irish kicked those bastards out. Anyway, after that we had to head to the airport to catch our evening flight back to London, and after some more travel difficulties, we finally made it back to my place late Wednesday night.

After an invigorating nights sleep on the floor, as I had gentlemanly allowed Jen to have the bed, we went to meet the padre at Heathrow and got the two of them checked into their hotel (lesson learned: if a hotel seems surprisingly cheap for London, don't expect much). After lunch at the pub, we did one of those lame, super touristy bus tours of the city, which was actually sort of interesting, though as a London quasi-resident, I have trouble admitting that. After a nice English dinner of bangers and mash by Liverpool St. (nice to have someone with money around, I ate better the 5 days my dad was here than I probably have the rest of the trip combined), we hit up the pub for a few drinks and caught the end of the Liverpool/Atletico Madrid match on tv. The next morning, we went to the Tower of London, which I haven't been to these past 4 months. I think I've become sort of immune to the cool-ness of seeing really old stuff, but I think dad and Jen really enjoyed it, and the Tower was still pretty sweet. Next we went out to Greenwich for the rest of the day, one of my favorite places in London, to check out the Royal Observatory and Royal Naval College grounds. Also had lunch at the Trafalgar Tavern on the river, which apparently big shots like Charles Dickens used to frequent back in the day. After Greenwich, we went to Covent Garden for the ultimate in London touristy-ness and had a nice Italian dinner in Soho before grabbing drinks at a bar in Covent Garden.

Saturday, Jen and dad had the pleasure to experience the great Danny Schufreider London walking tour, as described in previous posts. However, as Big Dan was present, an amazing lunch at the top of the National Gallery was included, as was actually going inside Westminster Abbey. Also, since it was May Day, there was a wacky Anarchist/Communist protest going on outside Parliament, so that was neat. After deciding against going up in the London Eye, we headed back to Mile End for dinner at the Greedy Cow, probably my 'hood's best restaurant, and a night out at the ole Palm Tree in Mile End Park, the capital's finest night spot, which my dad really seemed to enjoy, though Jen may not have. Sunday, after a breakfast trip to Brick Lane for some famous bagels, we judged it best to make it a museum day as the weather was pretty shitty. Despite having been to the Museum of London and the British Museum before, I definitely enjoyed the return trip, being the history nerd that I am. For dinner, we went to Rule's near Leicester Square, billed as the oldest restaurant in London. I got the venison, which the menu boasted may contain lead shot, but alas, no such luck.

Monday, their last day, I got to sleep in as they were going to the Wartime Cabinet Rooms/Churchill museum and I'd been there twice already. I met up with them for lunch (at Nando's, YES) before they had to head off to the airport for their flight home. It was awesome having them visit however. These past months have been the longest I've ever been away from home (by far) and though maybe I should grow up and get used to it, it was nice to have some family here for a visit at least. As great as it was to see 'em, it's also gotten me thinking about the bittersweet moment coming up in a couple weeks (only 2 more weeks, holy shit). I really am getting ready to go home and see everybody, but at the same time I love London and am going to miss the people here. It is definitely going to be tough to leave, and at the same time, I know that when the time comes I'll be ready to go (though after like a week home, I'll probably be ready to murder my family and bored out of my mind). So on that lame/sappy note, peace out hombres. Look for at least one more post before I go home, as May has included/will include some neat London happenings. Schuuuuuuf OUT!

Euro Spring Breaking Part 1: Peeing in the Mediteranean, Smelling Like Ass in the Prado, and Other Spanish Shenanigans

Well, the big day had finally arrived. After a moderately boring week in London after the end of classes, it was Thursday and I was ready to start my 10 day sojourn through Barcelona, Madrid, and Amsterdam. Unfortunately, my flight was actually on Friday, which I luckily realized just before buying a bus ticket to the airport (those of you who read the Amsterdam post, will recognize this travel difficulty as a nice foreshadowing of greater issues to come). Anyway, I finally got to Barcelona on Friday evening and was promptly greeted with some alcoholic beverages, as everyone else had already begun pregaming for the club. In Barcelona, I met up with Ryan Rauh, who had come down from Madrid for the weekend, at the apartment of his friends, Tom Sullivan and Eddie O'Connor (shout out to Tom and Eddie for being awesome guys and letting a dude they just met stay at their place for 2 full days after the mutual friend had left, and showing the aforementioned dude a great time). I forget the name of the club we were originally going to, but its really not important because our group ended up going somewhere else since stupid Ryan wasn't allowed in after getting in a fight with the bouncer about drinking a beer in line. Anyway, the club we ended up going to was called Catwalk and though, as mentioned in previous posts, clubs really aren't my scene, being idiotic, drunk, dancing Americans can be a good time (for an image off the club, picture expensive drinks, beautiful/douchey spanish people sweating all up ons each other and ignoring the dumb americans, and hot girls in lingerie awkwardly doing model poses on a stage at the club and refusing to give a lap dance to Tom even after his impressive offer of 2 euros).

The next day, I had probably one of the greatest days that a man can have. It was absolutely gorgeous out, 75 degrees, and without a cloud in the sky; weather I had not experienced in quite a while, having spent the majority of the past 4 months in London. Thus, we headed to the beach, full of beautiful Spanish women (with and without tops, crazy Europeans) and the clear blue waters of the Mediterranean. One of my goals for the trip had been to take a dip in the ole Roman Lake, and though the water was a bit chilly, I'm happy I got to accomplish that goal, something I'll remember for the rest of my life. Plus, I peed in the water! Suck it, Europe!

After the beach, we went back to Tom and Eddie's apartment (ran into 2 girls from Fenwick on the way back, Europe is crazy small), where every Saturday they apparently have a barbecue on the awesome terrace of their apartment for their friends in Barca. Now this day apparently, with its combination of awesome weather and El Classico later that night, led to the greatest, best attended barbecue they'd had thus far, and I must say, it was awesome. Grilled meats all over the place, live music courtesy of the hosts, beer, mimosas and scotch flowing like wine, and though I hate to admit it, Ryan Rauh makes a mean patatas bravas. After the barbecue, we all headed to a bar/former warehouse to watch El Classico, which is the nickname for the match-up between Barca and Real Madrid, and as you can imagine, it's a huge deal. The game was amazing, with Barca winning in a commanding 2-0 shut out, and the atmosphere of the place was out of this world; hundreds of Barca fans singing and just going nuts. Back at the apartment, people worn out from the sun, excitement and drinking all day crashed all over the place after a failed attempt to watch one of my new favorite movies, In Bruges. I, myself, ended up sleeping on a comfy pile of dirty laundry...

The next day, Sunday, Ryan peaced out back to Madrid, and in the afternoon I met up with Darcy Johansen, a fellow Wildcat studying in Barcelona, for some much needed sight seeing. I got to see the famous and beautiful, work-in-progress, Sagrada Familia Cathedral, the neat old Gothic quarter architecture, and some ruins of the wall that used to surround Barcelona's ancient Roman predecessor. After bidding the Darc adieu, I went back to Tom and Eddie's, where they were preparing to celebrate, as it was Eddie's 21st birthday. Now apparently they perform and have become regulars (like in an, awesome "Cheers" sort of way) at an Irish bar called McCarthy's in Barca. So we went there for the celebration; just a great time, singing, yelling, old Irish men, and even a complimentary birthday bottle of champagne.

The next day, after sleeping in (I managed to secure a couch) and going to a pretty good pizza place for lunch (Eddie had won 5 free pizzas in a drawing since he correctly guessed the score of El Classico, I tell ya, these kids are living the dream), I think we just hung around the aparment playing video games. This may sound like a waste of an afternoon, but I have been unable to just sit on a couch and play video games for going on 4 months now, so it was definitely a worthwhile experience. That night, I met up with Sarah Gallo, another Wildcat in Barcelona, for a dinner of Tapas and Sangria before going back to the apartment where Eddie and Tom were sustaining their first night sober since they'd arrived in Barcelona (living the motha fucking dream).

The next day, I headed to the airport for an afternoon flight to Madrid, to meet up with Rauh. Upon arrival, we immediately headed to the basketball courts for some ball against a couple of his buddies before a night of drinking with his friends in his apartment and Ryan getting yelled at by his crazy landlady's sister who lives in the apartment (this will have some significance coming up). The next day, after Ryan had returned from class and I was just waking up, the sister informed Ryan that the landlady was coming to talk to him and his friends about their shenanigans. I waited outside once the landlady arrived, as visitors crashing at the apartment was not permitted. Anyway, turns out the landlady informed Ryan and co. that they could no longer drink in the apartment, and after a brief argument, RyGuy was evicted. 2 weeks to find a new place. The only reasonable course of action we foresaw after this was to pick up a bottle of Scotch and go sightseeing. We went to Retiro, a huge, beautiful park in Madrid once reserved only for the royal family and had a couple drinks there before heading over to the Prado to check out what Goya, Velazquez, El Greco, and the rest of the gang had to offer (because Ryan had gotten into a fight with his landlady, I was unable to shower at his apartment, thus by the time we got to the Prado, I was smelling pretty rank, hence, the title of this post). That night, after polishing off the Scotch, we met up with Ryan's crew and went to a crazy tapas bar called El Tigre, where with each relatively cheap drink you buy, you get a shitload of delicious tapas; just an amazing place. We had to peace out early so I could grab my stuff from Ryan's apartment and get on the metro to the airport before it closed for the night. Upon arriving at the airport at like 1:30, I napped for a couple hours on some comfy benches before jumping on my 6:50 flight to Amsterdam. Little did I know what kind of shitty luck I was in for....

Euro Spring Breaking Part 2: Amsterdam...Solo?

Well, before I get into what actually happened, let me tell you how the Amsterdam trip was supposed to happen. I was to arrive in that fair city from Madrid at 9:50 am on Thursday morning, having booked a cheaper flight earlier in the day than everyone else. I had to book a hostel by myself for Thursday night, as the sweet boat hostel we found only allowed bookings in multiples of 2 and there were 3 of us for Thursday night. I didn't see this as too much of a problem, as I figured that it was only one night and that because we'd all go do whatever it is kids do in Amsterdam these days, and then I'd be able to fall asleep no problem in my cheapass hostel bed in a room with 11 strangers. Ryan and his friend were supposed to arrive in Amsterdam from Madrid late Thursday afternoon, and then when our 4th arrived on Friday, we'd all be in the same hostel for Friday and Saturday night. The way it was supposed to work out, I had a few hours Thursday to kill by myself. So once I arrived Thursday morning, after grabbing some food, wandering around for a while (stumbled upon the I Amsterdam sign and a schnazzy little market), and eventually finding my shitty hostel, I decided to take a nap, as I had only gotten a couple hours of sleep on a bench at the airport the night before. When I awoke, I saw I had a couple missed calls from Ryan, and the astute amongst you may have guessed what those calls were in regards to. Yep, everyone else's flights had been canceled because of the goddamn Icelandic volcano, and thus, I would be solo in Amsterdam until at least Saturday morning.

The first day/night were by far the worst, as during the day, myself and my would-be companions tried to figure out what was going on and whether they'd be able to get on another flight. Ryan found out that he could get a flight Saturday morning at the earliest (though that too was eventually canceled), while the other two gave up hope. That night, I went to bed sober and though I was exhausted, I barely got any sleep because shit-faced Europeans kept coming back and being loud at all hours of the night/morning and also because the dude on the bunk below me looked like the French version of Charles Manson. After that restless night, I checked out of that miserable place and headed to the place that everybody was supposed to stay at for Friday and Saturday, but which in reality I was the only one who would get to enjoy it. After convincing the wonderful manager that I should only pay for myself, even though we had booked 3 nights for 2 people and 2 nights for 4 people, I decided I might as well go out and enjoy Amsterdam. I judged it best to forego the coffeeshops for now, as partaking in their goods and then wandering around by myself might have ended with me waking up naked in a field in Belgium or something, so instead I did some nice, wholesome touristy things; went on a free, 3 hour walking tour of the city, which was actually pretty cool and then headed over to the Anne Frank House. Even though it was really crowded, it was actually pretty intense/interesting.

That night, I sat around and drank with some of the other guests in the hostel, which wasn't too bad. Now, mind you, these are the kind of people who stay in on a Friday night in Amsterdam rather than go out, so not the wildest bunch, but it was still rather enjoyable. I also arranged to meet up with a few of em at a coffeshop the next day, which was exciting. So Saturday, after sleeping in nice and late in my comfy single bed (I at least ended up with a single room, which was nice), I hit up the Rijksmuseum, which has some neat Vermeer's and Rembrandts' (Nightwatch ftw) before heading over to the Heinken brewery for the tour/tasting. Although you do get 2 and a half beers out of the deal, the tour ("The Heinken Experience", as they call it) really was kinda stupid and not really worth the 15 euro. Anyway, next, after over 48 hours in Amsterdam, I finally got to enjoy some of the city's famous "coffee" with the group of Americans I had met the night before (thank you, david, mark, heather and sarah, wherever you may be, for taking pity on me). So that was nice. After that, I just went back to the hostel and crashed, ready to get back to London after 10 absurd days on the continent. Now that may seem like the most boring weekend anyone has ever had in Amsterdam, but all in all, I had a pretty good time just chilling and enjoying the actual city, rather than just its lax drug laws (though by saying that, I may permanently forfeit my already meager f-r-a-t-s-t-r credentials).

So Sunday, rather than have to worry about finding some way home because of the stupid volcano, all I had to do was worry about getting on the ferry, as I was able to outsmart the volcano by booking my Stena line ticket almost two months before the trip. This was no easy task however as, door-to-door, it took me 14 exhausting hours to get back to London. After waking up at like 10:15 (9:15 London time) and walking to the Amsterdam Central Train Station, I caught an 11:10 train to the ferry port at Hoek van Holland, where I arrived at 12:45 and waited around for my 2:30 ferry. After laughing at all the stranded Brits waiting on stand-by as I got on, I hunkered down for the 6 and a half hour ride to Harwich, on the east coast of England. It's really not a bad way to go if you got the time, though probably more enjoyable with a group... So upon arriving in Harwich at 8 pm (London time), I had to take an hour and a half bus ride to central london. Then after a quick jaunt on the ole Tube, I was able to get back to my room at like 11:30 pm and sleep for like 12 hours after the ten day trip that can only be described as "absurd". It was definitely a success, the 6 days in Spain were just insanely fun, and despite the retarded-ness that the volcano wrought, even touristing solo in Amsterdam was enjoyable enough.

So, though I'm happy to be back in the relative calm of London, I'll still be busy in the coming weeks. Got some big time school work and job applications to work on (a little late?) and then next Monday, sister Jen and I head off to Ireland for a few days before meeting Big Dan back in London for the weekend; should be a spectacular time and I'm looking forward to seeing the partial fam. After that, I've got a week or so to relax before I've got to start prepping for exams, which start on May 13. Then only a couple short weeks, later I head home (May 26, barring any volcanoes or other natural disasters).

It's absolutely absurd how quickly the time has flown by these past few months, and the fact that I'll be home in just over a month is just mind-blowing. It seems like I just got here, and even though I still have a ton of exciting stuff going on before then, I'm already beginning to think about what I'm gonna do once I get home (eat everything even remotely resembling food in my house) and also about all the things I'm going to miss about London. Expect more on those thoughts, in future posts, but for now.... thats all folks.

The Epic March Post

Well, its been a while, team, but I've finally sacked up and returned to the wonderful world of blogging. The past few weeks have definitely been eventful, even though I haven't traveled outside of London. Then again, as Samuel Johnson once said, "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." (Bonus points for appropriate usage of intellectual literary quote!) Anywho, if I may start with some recent news before looking back in time at the rest of the month, I've finally admitted that my nearly two year old, brown, Nunnbush loafers are done for; the sole is falling off and completely worn down and they are starting to hurt my feet when I wear them, in addition to the fact that they just look like shit. Sad day. So I figured I might as well head over to Harrod's , the world famous department store, to see the place and check out their selection. I kinda anticipated that their selection would be out of my price range, but the prices completely blew my mind. The cheapest pair I saw was 110 pounds ($165ish). I have always felt that paying more than a hundred bucks for some kicks is dumb, so this scenario was mind-explodingly retarded. While I'm on the topic, I don't see why anyone would buy anything from Harrod's; you could almost certainly find the same thing of equal quality somewhere else for cheaper. You're just paying for the name to show that you can afford their over-priced stuff, which is a pet peeve of mine. Rich people are dumb. Rant over.

So this month, I've actually had a lot of school work to do, which is disheartening, but I've also had more time to explore London, which is nice (appropriate Carl Spackler quote, not as many bonus points). I've explored different areas of town, checked out a couple of London's other markets, though Brick Lane is still my favorite, and saw a couple more of London's awesome free museums, including Tate Modern, the modern art museum. I've never really enjoyed modern art, and though I did actually like some of the stuff at Tate Modern, I think I appreciate the talent required for more traditional style art over the free-thinking, adventurous style required for modern art. I've also started running again, and even tentatively agreed to run in the Milwaukee marathon in the fall, though that will require a lot more intense training over the summer. Running is a great way to explore the area around Queen Mary, and the path alongside Regent's Canal is great, either north up to Victoria Park or south towards Canary Wharf and the Thames. Last week, I was supremely proud of myself when I manged to run from Queen Mary to Tower Bridge and back, a trip of about 8 miles. All this has been on top of your standard going to class/drinking routines, though I've definitely cut back on my going out, as my finances begin to dwindle.

March has also brought a couple of visitors to jolly ole, which also forces me to do/see things I haven't done yet in London. For instance, when Alex Roth, who was one of my best friends in grade school, and his buddy crashed on my floor a couple of nights, it gave me the opportunity to go to a football match, which I somehow hadn't done yet. The match was between Fulham and Tottenham, at Fulham's Craven Cottage, and it, of course, ended in a 0-0 tie, but the amazing atmosphere at the stadium, and the pre-game pints, still made it an awesome experience. Later on in March, a friend of mine named Darcy Johansen was visiting another girl from NU, and I was tasked to show her around one day while Angela was in class. This allowed me to perfect the patented Danny Schufreider walking tour of London, which allows one to see several of London's most famous sights in a relatively easy couple hour long walk, without paying a dime: Hyde Park-Buckingham Palace-Trafalgar Square/The National Gallery-Parliament/Big Ben/Westminster Abbey-The London Eye-Shakespeares Globe.

So although the first few weeks of March were good, they paled in comparison to last week. Last week brought the arrival of two of my best friends to foggy London town, Ryan Rauh and Kegan Daugherty. Kegan arrived on Tuesday evening, as part of his European spring break tour, and after some beers and food at a local BYOB Lebanese restaurant, we joined the Queen Mary crew for some more drinking and the ubiquitous Tuesday night trip to Piccadilly Circus and Sports Cafe. While there, I managed to make best friends with an Albanian, Kegan managed to "find" a pitcher, and a couple British mates managed to defeat us Yanks, a couple of crazy Frenchmen, and the rest of the competition to take the Sports Cafe Beer Pong crown. Truly a glorious day for the United Kingdom. The next day, I gave Kegan the aforementioned circular tour, and after a quick nap, we went to go see St. Paul's Cathedral and the Museum of London. The Museum of London was something I had not been to yet and it was very cool. Gives a very interesting and detailed history of the city from pre-Roman times up until the Great Fire of 1666 (the post-1666 section was under construction). That night, after the usual heavy pre-gaming in Pooley, we met up with a couple of Kegan's friends from U of I at an Australian bar called Walkabout (1.50 pints of Fosters on Wednesday), where I also randomly ran into a couple Elmhurstians I had probably not seen since grade school/early high school, who were visiting London from Italy. Craziness. The bar was also cool cuz it was right on the river; nothing better than taking in the beautiful panoramic views of Central London drunk at 2 in the morning.

Thursday was probably my favorite tourism day of the week. After Kegan and I went to the Tower of London/Tower Bridge, we took the River Boat (a much more enjoyable form of public transport than the Tube or Bus) to Greenwich to see the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Observatory. Firstly, the area was awesome. Very London-ish, but much less busy/crowded/touristy, and the grounds of the old Royal Naval College, where the stuff is located, are beautiful. The Maritime Museum was neat, but the Royal Observatory was the highlight. After walking up a supremely steep hill in the middle of an awesome park, you've got the whole Prime Meridian situation going on, which is pretty schnazzy, and even the Royal Observatory itself was cool and had a great astronomy museum. Check my facebook for pictures of all this stuff, words (and even pictures) really can't do justice to how cool all this stuff was however. After the ferry back from Greenwich, we had just enough time to hit up the Imperial War Museum, which I've been to before but enjoyed enough to go back with Keegs.

That night, after Kegan and I cooked some delicious burgers and grilled potatoes/peppers for ourselves, Rauh arrived later than expected and thus began drinking immediately. Our crew, (myself, rauh, kegan, Queen Mary Brits and other Americans) then went to O'Neill's, which is always just a blast. Say what you will about how its just a bunch of Americans, and Brits looking to hook up with Americans, but I love the place. The live band just rocks and its always a good time. I ran into those same Elmhurstians again, and also a girl from high school who is studying in London. Those random encounters just add to the greatness that is O'Neill's. After wandering around quasi-lost for a while, we caught the glorious 25 bus back to Mile End at 3 am, and I introduced Rauh and Kegan to one of God's greatest creations, Dixie Chicken. Mile End's very own 24 hour fried chicken shop is the BK of the East End, when you're there shit-faced at 4 am, you will undoubtedly run into loads of people you know; just a jovial atmosphere.

After passing out in the middle of trying to watch the Big Lebowski at 5 am, we were ready to start Friday at the crack of noon. The plan for Friday was to take the Tube across town, and then take a long walk to a cheap golf course I had found. Rauh wanted to play golf while in the UK, and though it was no St. Andrews, Richmond Park Golf Course seemed as close as we'd get. The plan began to unravel however, as we decided to take a detour through a sort of nature preserve, which was awesome, and then it started to pour. We realized that our golf dreams were crushed, so we fell back on that eternal English fall back, the pub. After a couple drinks and some chips, we got back on the tube and headed back home for dinner...at the pub. After continuing to drink with the Pooley crew, we went to the greatest place in the world, The Palm Tree. Now, I had ran past the Palm Tree a couple of times, as it was randomly located smack-dab in the middle of Mile End Park, and when I googled it, I came upon this review http://www.timeout.com/london/bars/reviews/13135.html. Everything I'd ever wanted: an authentic East End bar I could walk to, cheap by London weekend standards (no cover, 3 pound pints), and with a band of 60-70 year old dudes playing Sinatra and the like, so I got the crew to check it out on Friday. When we got there, it was everything I had hoped for. The clientele was a little strange, a mix of students and eccentric East End types, but it was awesome none the less. We got the geriatric band to play My Kind of Town, by Sinatra, and I must say, the mixture of London and home, plus the plentiful drinks I'd imbibed, made this one of my favorite moments I've had overseas.

Saturday, Kegan peaced out early in the morning and Rauh and I went to get haircuts. These haircuts were lovingly provided by one of the most interesting dudes I've ever met. He was an extremely intelligent Moroccan man with an awesome beard, who spoke 4 languages. Did you know that Arabic has over 100 words for lion? Well now you do, deal with it. I then took Rauh on my now infamous circular tour, with one tiny exception. I had been craving a big, greasy slice of American pizza for a while and having done some internet searching, I discovered a New York-style pizzeria over by Hyde Park, which would fit in perfectly with the circular tour. Upon our arrival, being hungover and starving, we ordered a 20 in. pepperoni pizza without really thinking. We quickly realized that this was way too much pizza and asked for a to-go container, only to see them come back with two big pizza boxes. We panicked at first, as we didn't want to waste the pizza, but it would be ridiculous to carry around these two boxes all day sight-seeing. This ridiculousness then evolved into awesome-ness, as we realized how hilarious it would be to have a photo album where the pizza saw all the sights. Facebook gold ensued. After a full day of sight-seeing, including a stop at the pub, the pizza served its purpose by providing us with another delicious meal for dinner.

That night, another visitor arrived, Ben Glicksman, having spent spring break in Ireland, had a 10 hour layover at Heathrow, and rather than boringly sitting around the airport, he asked if he could meet up with me in central London. I thought this was a grand idea and told him to meet me at the Leicester Square Tube station at like 1030 or so, as I figured we would be heading to that area to celebrate my friend Jake's birthday. Now knowing Jake, I should have seen this coming, but rather than go out to some club to celebrate his birthday, he wanted to just stay in and "play beer pong and smoke blunts". However, as Ben's phone didn't work in the UK, Ryan and I still had to go out and meet him at Leicester Square, which I quickly realized was a dumb idea unto itself, as at 1030 on a Saturday, Leicester Square station was a cluster-fuck of thousands of people. Luckily, after only a few minutes of wandering around Leicester Square drinking beers, Ryan and I stumbled upon Ben and we headed back to Queen Mary for the centuries-old English pasttime of drinking in a dorm. At the end of the night, after having Ben experience some Dixie at 3 in the morning, he had to catch a bus to make it back to Heathrow. Unfortunately for us, the bus stop we needed was literally like 50 yards from the one we were waiting at, and he ended up having to take a cab. He ended up making it to the airport on time, but didn't make his flight, you'll have to ask him for that story.

Anywho, the next day Ryan and I went to Brick Lane, which of course was fantastic, and then to mass at Westminster Cathedral. After mass, we went to this schnazzy little pub/restaurant on Brick Lane called Apples & Pears for dinner, good English food with like a modern twist (Thai chook dee pot pie with mashed potatoes and peas and a pint of Asahi? Delicious). The downside of Sunday was that the power/internet/water had shut off in my building early in the morning (it wouldn't be back till Monday evening), so we couldn't shower and there were no lights at night. Our plan to just relax that night was thus thwarted, so we started drinking by the light of my battery-powered reading lamp and playing chess on Rauh's computer. After the battery on his computer died, we took our remaining two liter bottle of Strongbow and finished it while wandering around the East End from like midnight till 2. After a final Dixie stop, we were able to pass out. The next day, after a final fish and chips for lunch, Rauh headed back to Madrid, and thus ended what was probably one of the craziest/most awesome weeks of my life. One last thing I should say, I did have a mustache at this time (began like the first week of March), and although it was hilarious/awesome, it was probably the most disgusting thing of all time. Thus, on Saturday after my haircut, I decided that Steve (as I had named it) had served his purpose and shaved. It was a sad day, but I feel that I'm a stronger man for it. Now I must retreat back into hermitude for the next week in order to save money as I wait for my trip to Barcelona/Madrid/Amsterdam for spring break. Peace out, hombres.

Obrigado Porto: Portugal part 2 (plus Uncle Jack comes to London)

So where we left off after my last post was we were just getting on the train from Lisbon to Porto, and thats where things started to go haywire. The train ride itself was miserable, all three of us came off it feeling sick. I dunno what it was, but it was just misery. Not the best start to our journey. It also didn't help that upon arriving in Porto, it appeared to be just a shittier version of Lisbon. Liza had apparently been feeling sick the night before and the train ride pushed her over the edge. She felt too sick to finish out the trip, so for the next two and a half days, it was just me and Adrienne, kicking Porto's ass. That night though, we did go to a pizza place, which was a very welcome change of pace after all the seafood. I even got a free half beer out of the deal when our waitress knocked mine over when I had already finished half of it. Huzzah! Our hostel wasn't particularly nice, but it was much more sociable than the other places I've stayed in Paris and in Lisbon. All the guests kinda hung out together watching tv, eating, drinking, etc. which was pretty cool.

The next day, with Liza gone, Adrienne and I set out to take on Porto. We walked around the riverfront area, which was actually very cool. Narrow old alleyways/streets filled with slightly creepy, though friendly, Portuguese people. Next, we climbed up the 250 steps of a church tower for some fantastic views of the city. We then walked across the Duomo River and did a Port wine tasting. Port wine, if you hadn't guessed, is named because it originated in Porto. It is actually grown and made up the river from the city, but its stored and shipped out of Porto. We went to Taylors and got two free glasses of the stuff, along with some Coach Connor worthy Did You Knows. For instance, did you know that Port wine was created/made popular by English wool merchants in Portugal in the 17th century? Because their constant wars with the French cut the Brits off from their supply of French wine, they turned to their Portuguese allies as an alternate source for their vino. However, because the trip from Portugal to England is longer than the trip from France, the wine would go bad along the way, so those crazy Brits added more alcohol to the wine to make sure it could last the trip. They also added sugar to make the stronger alcohol content more palatable. Voila, you have a stronger, sweeter type of wine used as an apperatif or as a dessert wine, called Port. Share that with your friends at parties, they won't care. It also isn't very good in my opinion, too sugary.

Anywho, Adrienne and I decided to save some cash and stop at the grocery store to buy food for dinner, as many of our fellow hostel-stayers seemed to do, rather than go out. We made a delightful spaghetti bolognese. I also picked up some beers, as I was determined to get drunk at least once in Portugal. Luckily for me, some of the other hostel folks planned to go to a blues/jazz bar to see a live band. So we joined them, and though it turned out there was no live music that night, everyone just ended up just getting drunk. It was Adrienne, a crazy German named Tobias, two Americans who lived/worked at our hostel in Porto, two Australians (one also crazy, more on him and the German later) and then two French people who didn't really speak English. After everyone was sufficiently drunk, one of the Americans decided that since it was 2 in the morning, that was as good a time as any to move on to another bar. Unfortunately, Porto's night life scene does not quite match up to Lisbon's, especially on a Wednesday night. So after an hour or so of wandering in the pouring rain, we decided it was time to give up and make the trek back to the hostel.

The next morning Adrienne and I took a historic looking old electric street car (full of obnoxious German tourists) to the beach. It wasn't quite swimming weather, but it was sunny and I could even wear short sleeves! The waves were huge, and we walked up the beach and grabbed a drink at a cafe. It was all very nice until a random 20 minute thunderstorm ruined it. We also toured an old fort built in the 1500's to guard the mouth of the river. Pretty schnazz. After watching the Winter Olympics for the first time and once again making our own dinner. I stayed in and drank with the crazy Australian and German and one of the Americans who worked at the hostel. After some drunken conversations involving 9/11 conspiracies, our respective nations racist jokes (the German thankfully stayed silent), and the particulars of Australian wildlife (kangaroos taste delicious). The Australian pulled out a bottle of Scotch he had picked up in Scotland, and proceeded to tell us about the crazy parties they had in the bush. Outrageous fun!

The next day, Adrienne and I bid Porto adieu, and finally made it back to London after a 2 hour flight delay thanks to the goddamn French and their stupid airline workers strike. After some initial problems, Porto turned out to be pretty legit, and I really enjoyed it. It is sort of just a shittier, smaller version of Lisbon, but its definitely got some things going for it.

Finally, this past weekend, my Uncle Jack was in London so I hung out with him and showed him around. You may think that he flew 5000 miles from Denver just to see me, but actually he was making one of his regular business trips to Switzerland and decided to make a quick stop in jolly old. So the first day, I showed him around some of the major touristy stuff (Big Ben, the Eye, Trafalgar Square, the Cabinet War Rooms, etc.) It was also nice to have someone with a little money around to pay for meals. Then on the second day, he came out to my hood to marvel at my flat and the glories of Mile End: the chicken shops, the canal, the Pakistanis! I also took him over to Brick Lane to see a slightly less touristy London attraction. After dinner at an authentic English pub, he headed back to his hotel before his early morning flight to Switzerland. It was nice to spend some time with Jack, especially since he's lived in Colorado since I was a little kid and I've never really known him particularly well, though he does love Northwestern athletics alot, probably more than I do.

Well, thats all for now kids. It seems that March will be the month of school work and visitors, as I have three huge papers due in the next few weeks, and there'll be several people coming into London all month, so that'll be stuff. No trips planned for this month, though I did just book Barcelona, Madrid, Amsterdam and Dublin for April, so that'll be awesome. Ta Ta for now though, thanks for reading.

Lisboa? You should goa!: Portugal part 1

Portugal, a land on the Western fringes of Europe that clings to Spain for fear of falling into the Atlantic. The huge loser in me wants to tell you about Prince Henry the Navigator, Vasco de Gama, Bartolemeo Dias, and even ole Pedro Cabral, but I'll restrain myself and stick to simply my experiences there. Firstly, the crew consisted of me and two girls named Liza and Adrienne, a much smaller contingent than my previous travels, which was nice since its tough to do stuff when you're rolling super deep. So we flew out of London's Gatwick airport and arrived in Lisbon at about 8 or 9 on Friday night. Our cab driver from the airport to the hostel actually expressed a desire to go to Newark. Crazy!

After checking in at the hostel, we went to dinner at an apparently authentic Portuguese restaurant which was not very good and walked around the city for a couple hours before crashing after a stressful day of travel. Apparently the Portuguese national past time is standing around in small circles and drinking till 3 or 4 in the morning. The ages of people we saw out drinking in the streets ranged from about 15 till 60. I would imagine it might be awkward to run into your grandparents out drinking at like 3 in the morning, but thats just me. Additionally, this was the calmest group of drunks I've ever encountered. Hundreds of people out drinking in the streets in the States or London would probably entail yelling, stumbling, puking, fighting, etc. but the Portuguese seemed very subdued, which I suppose is both a good and a bad thing. I mean, who doesn't like some solid raging?

The next day, we woke up and decided to just walk around for a while and save the major touristy stuff for the next day. After walking along the River Tejo, we apparently turned into a very boring residential area, because there wasn't much to see, so we decided to take a ferry across the river to the suburb/neighboring town/whatever of Cacilhas for lunch. We encountered some old Portuguese men cajoling us to come into their establishments and a neat old wooden ship (see facebook picture). As we walked along, we kept noticing people dressed in pretty outlandish costumes, so at lunch we asked the cafe owner dude (one of the not so numerous Portuguese who spoke good English) what the deal was, and he informed us that the towns carnival parade was that afternoon, so we hit that shit up. Lots of crazy costumes, live music and food stands; it was pretty neat. For dinner, we hit up a much better Portuguese restaurant, and after dinner it was raining pretty hard so there weren't as many people out in the streets. We just went went to a bar for a few drinks. The girls tried the

port wine, Portugal's famous export, and after a couple beers I decided to try the agua d'ardenne that the Portuguese guy next to me had(I really have no idea if thats how you spell it, but I think thats what the guy said). Anyway, I basically got a big glass of moonshine distilled from the leftovers of wine making that tasted like shitty vodka.

The next day we went to Alfama, which is the oldest part of town and was built by the Moors (or the Moops, as they are sometimes known). The streets are all narrow and windy and there were old ladies carrying fish around and what not. Another Portuguese past time seems to be standing on the stoops of their homes or businesses and staring at people (or maybe just American tourists) for uncomfortably long periods of time. We stopped at the cathedral, which was cool looking and had orange trees on the outside, but when we opened the door, we awkwardly interrupted Mass, so I didn't really get to see the inside. Our next stop was the castelo do sao jorge, at the highest point in the city, but on the way we stumbled across a museum/excavation site of an ancient Roman theater. It was really pretty schnazz, especially since we were the only ones there. Its just crazy to think that people have been living in that location for at least two thousand years. Thats one thing I'll concede the Europeans do better than us...being old. We did finally make it to the castle though, which had some great views of the entire city. It was also the first castle I've been in even though I'd been in England for a month and a half. Wacky. After that, we hopped on the Metro (even the Lisbon public transportation is better than the L, get your shit together CTA) and went to the Lisbon Oceanarium, which is supposed to be one of the best in the world. I think the Shedd is better, though Lisbon's wasn't too shabby and significantly cheaper at only 7 euro. The sea otters were my favorite! I really considered deleting the previous sentence for the reason that its the gayest shit of all time, but they were my favorite and the world needs to know that. We went to my favorite restaurant in Portugal for dinner (out of like 4) that night. Portuguese cuisine is basically bland seafood, nothing special. I was kind of disappointed. Speaking of being disappointed with bland Portuguese things, the women were nothing special as well. I only bring it up because I have been very impressed with the women I've seen in London, Paris, and even the skanks in Wales were attractive. Portuguese women do have some junk in the trunk, which I'm usually a fan of, but other than that, they didn't really offer much. Moving on.

For our last day in Lisbon, we took a 50 minute train out to the town Sintra, which I guess you could describe as the Versailles of Lisbon, since its a kind of suburb with a bunch of palaces and what not. We got off the train and went to the tourism office to get a map. The dude said we should take a bus to the top of a giant hill to see the Moorish/Moopish castle that dated to the 9th or 10th century. We decided "fuck that noise" and started climbing. When we saw a woman pushing a stroller up the hill, I was offended that the dude thought we would need to take the bus. The path did start to get steep and rugged however, and I worked up a sweat, but it was pretty awesome, probably my favorite thing in Portugal. It went through a forest, which was very cool since I've been a city slicker the past couple months and it was nice to get some nature. The castle itself was also awesome. It was in ruins, but that just added to its awesome-ness in my opinion. The view from the top also kicked ass. I'm definitely glad I didn't spend 4 euro to take the damn bus, instead I decided to spend that 4 euro on beer at lunch. We ate lunch at the base of the hill with a dude from Missouri who was training to be a Baptist preacher (a good, friendly dude, but I think he was judging me for having two beers at like 2 in the afternoon) and an obnoxious Canadian. The Canadian met his girlfriend in Texas playing a computer game. He also sucked. I'm being especially harsh on him because he made fun of me for pronouncing the city of Regina, Saskatchewan like Mrs. Cahill's first name, and not as a rhyme for vagina, which apparently is how they pronounce it. Anyway, I don't like being made fun of for being wrong about geography facts, ipso facto, Canada sucks. That night we went to bed early, since we had to travel to Porto the next day. My Portugal crew was not an especially raging bunch, which is probably good for my wallet and my comfort during the sight-seeing, but it made for a lack of interesting night time stories (thus far, stay tuned for my next post about our stay in Porto which involved some more exciting night time activities).

The next day we hopped on the train for a 2 and a half hour ride to Porto.... but for that thrilling tale, you'll have to wait for the next installment!

Various shenanigans: some frisbee related, some not.

Well hello everyone,

The past week has been fairly busy, which is always good, and thus this post is a bit long. It includes frisbee tournaments, being a complete screw up, a mini Northwestern reunion, over-eating, and Ash Wednesday (woo!).

Lets start with the frisbee tournament. How did I get mixed up in all this frisbee business you may ask? Well one of my friends here is pretty intense about ultimate frisbee i.e. plays on his college's team and takes it all very seriously, which I respect, and he met up with an English guy who is also a good player and really into it and they formed a club team here at Queen Mary. Now they were fairly desperate for players, since the regional tournament took place shortly after they had formed the team so Jake asked if I wanted to play. I was all like "why not?, it'll be fun."

So theres the origins, now on to the actual tournament. We woke up at 6:30 am on Saturday (ugh) to catch a train to Chichester University, where the regional tournament was being held. Chichester is this tiny little town about an hour and a half by train from London. From the little of it I saw, it seemed to be a very nice little English town. As for the tournament, I was a little blown away by the magnitude of it all, since most of the other teams had full on uniforms and what not, so our team kinda figured if we won one or two games, it'd be a success. We were seeded last in the entire tournament since the team had just come into existence, and in our first game we ended up winning 13-1 (say whaaa?!). It seems we probably shouldn't have been seeded last, since Rob and Jake (the British and American co-founders of the team) are absolute frisbee studs. The rest of us were at least moderately coordinated/athletic and I was fairly happy with my play for the first couple games before I got super tired and cold, but those two would basically pass the disc between themselves while the rest of us tried to stay out of their way and not completely screw up on defense. That formula seemed to work, as we won our next two games against increasingly better teams. Now, remember when I said earlier that we were desperate to find players? Well, I have failed to mention thus far that we didn't quite scrounge up 7 players (the standard number of players on the field) so we didn't have any subs and played a man down the entire time. Thus, by our fourth game of the day we were absolutely obliterated (tres fatigues, as the French would say). I could barely move my legs, and my determination to never again touch a cigarette has never been greater. Despite our condition, we still managed to stay close to an absurdly good team, and ended up losing 13-11, I think. Finishing the day at 3-1 was better than any of us had anticipated, and we were feeling pretty good.

After the fourth game, Jake and I headed back to London for the night, while the rest of the team looked forward to a restful nights sleep on some random floor. We wanted to get back because it was one of our friends' birthday, and they were hitting up a cheap all you can eat sushi place that couldn't be missed, and it would also be nice to sleep in a real bed. So after dinner, I get back to my flat, completely exhausted, ready to hit the sack, and what should I find? The Brits are having a bit of a party in our kitchen, and I was convinced to stay for a couple drinks. Well, as tends to happen, one drink turned into multiple games of Circle of Death and before you know it I'm drunk and going to bed at 2 am, having to wake up at 7 the next day to get back to Chichester. And this is when I completely screw up. I apparently forgot to turn on my alarm and didn't wake up until noon. I had several missed calls and angry texts from Jake. Luckily, another girl joined for Sunday, so the team still had six people, but I still felt like a complete douche. The team ended up finishing tenth out of 23, which is amazing considering our situation, but it woulda been nice if I was there and maybe helping the team do a little better. (Afterword: The next couple days after Saturday, I could barely walk I was in so much pain. My whole body ached. It really makes me consider exercising more regularly.)

So after hitting up Draper's once again for 1 pound pints (glorious deal), Tuesday rolls around and the plan is to meet up with a couple fellow abroad Wildcats, Jessie Cai who is studying at the London School of Economics and Emily Winant who was visiting Jessie from Paris. We hit up Ice Bar, which is a pretty schazzy place made of ice (a little internet research tells me its in the location of the former royal wine cellars) where you have to throw on a goofy parka/poncho deal and pay too much for girly drinks in cups made of ice. It was really pretty cool, and it had been recommended to me by a couple people who'd been in London. After that, we went to Sports Cafe, which is basically an American college bar, to meet up with a few of my Queen Mary friends. The night quickly devolved into a shit show, in typical Northwestern fashion, with beer pong being played, pike songs being sung, and me being a stupid drunk dancer. Overall, a good time (I'm dreading the pictures the girls took going up on facebook).

Finally, today is of course Ash Wednesday, so I figured thats as good a time as any to go to Mass for the first time overseas. I decided to go to Westminster Cathedral, where I went to Easter Mass when I was in London back in high school. Its the headquarters of the Catholic diocese for London and a very cool church, built in the 1800's in a sort of Byzantine style. So I got my ashes and walked around the area for bit. It was a solid day, and tonight I have to decide whether I or not to participate in the great "grizzly challenge" where some of the Americans and a couple Brits have decided to have an eating competition where you have to finish a large doner from this skeezy kebab place and a big chicken meal from this skeezy chicken shop. Basically, you're taking a couple years off of your life in the spirit of competition. I dunno if my skinny frame and small stomach can handle it, so stay tuned for that. Oh, and I just remember you're not supposed to eat meat on Ash Wednesday, so maybe I won't participate. Whatevs.

Well, the big trip to Portugal starts Friday, and I am super excited about that. We've got all of our plans figured out and a quasi-itinerary made-up, which is good. After that, my Uncle Jack is in London for a couple days on his way to a business trip in Switzerland so I'll have an opportunity to show off my London local-ness. And after that it'll be March already. Holy Crap has time flown by over here. Its all been such an amazing experience and the fact that its almost already been two months is just mind-blowing. As I was walking around today after Mass, I think it kinda finally really hit me that I'm actually living in London. I guess before I was in the mindset of kind of an extended visit or vacation. It was a pretty surreal moment, and on that note, I guess thats it for now, thanks for reading.

Super bowling

Hey there everybody,

This is gonna be a fairly short post, just because I didn't travel anywhere last weekend and didn't really do anything especially interesting. One thing that was pretty sweet however was watching the Super Bowl last night at the bar. Now I'm a football fan, but I don't usually get too excited about a game not involving da bears, even if it is the Super Bowl. However, when the national anthem played and the game got started, I got a bit of a chill up my spine; not in an uber-patriotic way, but more in a "this feels like home" sort of way. Or maybe I just had a little too much to drink. Either way it was a lot of fun and a great game (I was rooting for the Colts, sadface). It was also sweet that we were watching it with Brits, especially since once they got the hang of the game, they really got into it.

One other point of interest, I will be playing for the Queen Mary ultimate frisbee team, which is going to be fairly sweet I think. I mean, I can throw the disc around moderately well and there were some epic matches in high school, but it'll be interesting to see how I do in a more competitive environment (especially with my well-known avoidance of physical activity). Apparently the team isn't especially good though, so there shouldn't be too much pressure. It will be a good opportunity to travel around the UK for tournaments and meet some more people though. We'll be going to some small town called Chichester next weekend for a tournament, which should be a great time. The following weekend should be supremely awesome as well, as I'll be headed to Portugal for a week of fun in the sun (its actually only a little warmer than here, but at least its not cloudy and raining all the time), so look for a nice long post on that stuff coming up. Mmm, good couple weeks coming up, I'm excited. Peace.

Cockles in the Club

Well folks, last week was moderately eventful. There was some sightseeing, some clubbing, and a trip to Wales that could be described as interesting, to say the least. Starting at the beginning though...

The week began of course with a trip to Draper's for Monday's calling, nothing to out of the ordinary there. Tuesday however, introduced me to London's club scene with a trip to the famous Ministry of Sound. Now, I am by no means a clubbing person, despite what you may think from my exquisite drunken dance moves, but still, the Ministry was pretty fun. The music was extremely loud, it was completely packed, and I was about 30 seconds from pissing my pants after waiting in line to get in, but at least the drinks were cheaper than I expected (have I became a 60 year old man? possibly). I suppose the key to the club scene then is to be as shit faced as possible, yet still able to function. Words of wisdom.

My night out on Thursday was definitely an improvement. We went to this Irish-themed bar called O'Neills, but it was so packed that the theme of the place didn't really matter. They had a live band that played covers of some of my favorite jams (Green Day, Blink 182, Blur, even some Sweet Home Alabama) which was pretty sweet, and the area around the stage devolved into a sort of mosh pit, which was awesome. It was definitely more my scene than a club.

Friday, after doing a little sightseeing around Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square, it was time for the Arcadia arranged homestay weekend in Swansea, Wales. Myself and two other Americans from my program were placed with a woman and her young son (and their free roaming tortoise) for the weekend. After a miserably long 7 hour bus ride, over 2 hours of which was spent getting out of London in Friday evening traffic, we arrived at our family's home around midnight, and thus promptly went to bed. I managed to secure a bunk bed for myself, thus achieving one of my greatest desires as an 8 year old. Check that one off the list.

Saturday was all about seeing the local sights. The first stop was Mumbles, a small seaside community which may or may not be considered part of Swansea, I'm not sure. The origin of the name Mumbles is one of my all time favorite fun facts, a supreme Did you know, that Coach Connor himself would enjoy. Its believed to have been named by invading English soldiers during the Middle Ages who thought that the rolling hills around the city looked like women's breasts. Mumbles is medieval slang for tits, get on it Elmhurst. Anywho, we walked around the beach and checked out the pier before grabbing some coffee and hot chocolate at the pier cafe thing. It was pretty neat. After Mumbles, we were taken to Rhosilli beach, which my homestay mom described as "the prettiest place in Wales", and in my limited Welsh experience, its hard to disagree with her. On the drive there, we saw plenty of sheep and idyllic countryside scenery that you might see on a post card, and the beach itself was even cooler. The beach was beautiful and the cliffs and promontories and shit were gorgeous. Overall, definitely worth seeing if you're ever in the area. The final stop of the day was Swansea market, where we were treated to traditional Welsh cakes and cockles, which were both delicious. Cockles are type of tiny shellfish. Cockles.

After the market, we headed back home, where we played some Wii with young Matthew, the 7 year old Welsh terror we were staying with, before a much appreciated home-cooked meal prepared by our mom for the weekend, Nicola. Then, it was off to meet up with everybody else and experience the glory that is Swansea nightlife. Now, we picked up some hints on what Swansea is all about while we walked around the market earlier in the day, as many of the young women were suspiciously orange for cloudy Britain. That night confirmed our suspicions, as Swansea appeared to be the Jersey Shore of the UK. Muscle bound men in tight shirts with too much hair gel and orange girls in the skankiest of outfits abounded. Many of the young ladies seem to think that Halloween is a year round event, as they were dressed up in all sorts of slutty costumes. It was definitely a fun/hilarious/terrifying experience. The end of the night came, and after returning to our weekend home, I promptly passed out in my bunk bed. The other two guys however thought that making a pizza at 3 in morning was a good idea and consequently received a stern talking to from Nicola. Just like a real mom! All was forgiven the next day once they bought a replacement pizza, and we left Wales after a fun weekend on good terms before returning home... after another absurdly long bus ride thanks to London traffic.

This week was the first in which I've had to do some real school work, as I just turned in my first paper at Queen Mary. It was only 2000 words, which isn't bad at all, but since the grading and formatting is a little differently over here, I spent more time researching, writing, and editing it then I usually would, just to make sure I didn't completely fuck something up on my first attempt. Thats done now though, so time to do some raging. My next trip is a week long journey to Portugal from Feb 19-26 (during reading week, so I'm not skipping any classes). We're going to be spending 3 days in Lisbon and 3 days in Porto, and I am super excited about the trip. It'll be cool to go to a big, fun and historical city that isn't necessarily a major tourist destination like Paris or Rome.

Thats it for now, gracias for reading.

Paris, je t'aime

Ah, Paris! With its exquisite architecture, beautiful boulevards, world-renowned culture and cuisine, and countless piles dog shit, the French capital truly is a sight to behold. Myself and my companions arrived in the City of Lights last Thursday night after a trip on the Eurostar train from London, through the Chunnel (that's the tunnel under the English Channel, thus the Channel Tunnel, thus Chunnel). After some Metro riding confusion and an attempt to walk the considerable distance from Gare du Nord to our hostel, we finally managed to meet up with the rest of our group, who had arrived the previous day. After a decent meal at what I would describe as a Jazz/Western themed restaurant, we grabbed some booze and drank at the hostel while planning our itinerary for the following day. Everyone hit the sack after dinner, as it was late and we planned to get up early for a full day of sight-seeing adventures. As for the hostel we stayed at, I was actually pretty impressed. As my only knowledge of hostels is based on stories of grimey accommodations full of creepy Europeans (and the Oscar-worthy Eli Roth film), I was expecting the worst, but our place was actually pretty clean, the beds were fairly comfortable, and their was even free internet and breakfast.

The next day, after enjoying a breakfast of bread, croissants, coffee and juice, we set off to take in Paris. Our first stop was Sacre Coueur, as the iconic church was just a brief walk from the hostel in the Montmartre neighborhood. Sacre Coueur is a beautiful church, but the real appeal lies in the fact it is built at the highest point in the city and offers awesome panoramic views of Paris. Then, we rode the Metro down to the center of the city to hit up the Eiffel Tower. My opinion of the Metro is that it is a bit grungier then the tube (though still nicer than the El) and the seating layout is a bit inefficient, but on the whole, still a solid form of public transit. I think we probably could have found a closer stop, as our walk to the Eiffel Tower was pretty long, and on our arrival there, we chose the cheaper option of taking the stairs. The long walk did allow us to walk along the Seine and stumble upon a neat little playground, which was fully enjoyed by our group. One disappointing aspect of the Eiffel Tower trip was the failure of the canned wine experiment. Myself and a couple other gentlemen had planned to enhance our day in Paris by partaking in the wonderful past time of canned wine drinking (an art we learned from the fine program, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia). What better way to enjoy Paris then with a can of the finest 3 euro wine to accommodate one's violent hand gestures? Alas, our wine was lost upon entry to Eiffel Tower, as apparently bringing bottles of wine up the iconic structure is forbidden. An attempt to hide the wine in a nearby bathroom failed miserably, as on our return to the hiding spot, the vino had disappeared. C'est la vie. Anyway, the Eiffel Tower did not disappoint, as the views were amazing.

Our next stop, after a gyro for lunch, was l'Arc du Triomphe, which I must say, was a bit of a hike from the tower. Though the arch was pretty cool, as was walking up the Champs de l'Eysee (sp?), it was significantly out of our way, and I don't know if it was necessarily worth the walk. Moving on then, we next hit up a tea shop/brunch place called Angeline's that had been recommended to someone for its hot chocolate. I didn't buy one, but I did try it, and I must say, delicious. It seemed to be basically a melted Hershey bar, and I dunno if I could have drank a whole one, but it was definitely pretty damn good. After that, it was off to the Louvre, where on Friday's from 6-10 EU students can get in for free, and, as we are studying in London, us Americans outsmarted the French and didn't have to pay. Everybody kind of split up, and I decided to forego seeing the Mona Lisa and just kinda wandered. I really liked the stuff by Delacroix (Liberty Leading the People is sweet to see in person). I probably could have spent some more time there, but as everyone was pretty wiped out and hungry from the long day, we left after a couple hours.

We headed back to Montmarte for dinner and managed to stumble across a pretty neat little place, with some cheap grub and wine. Our waiter was this hilarious Moroccan guy and it was a piano bar, so the whole atmosphere was pretty neat. Montmarte is apparently really touristy, but as January is kinda the dead season for tourism, there weren't too many Americans around, so that made me feel a little better about rolling with such a big crew. After dinner, we grabbed some drinks to enjoy back at the hostel before trying to find somewhere to go out, but a couple of the girls had found out that there was some live music and people hanging out and drinking up at Sacre Coueur, so we brought our drinks up there. It was a little chilly, but hanging out up there with the view and everything was very cool. After that, a few of us were heading back while some others stayed at Sacre Coueur, and we walked past a big group of people standing outside a bar. The bar was small and crowded, but it had a great vibe, and I'm glad we stumbled across it. One of my fellow Americans, having imbibed a bit too much, took a leak on a door near the bar, which didn't sit well with the Frenchmen who's door it was. As tensions were increasing and my attempt to diffuse the situation with my terrible French skills failed, we decided it was probably time to head out, and that was it for our first action-packed day in Paris.

Day 2 started a little later, as the day before had been such a whirlwind, but eventually we hopped on a commuter train to the Parisian suburbs to see Versailles. I was blown away by the place. You hear stories about how opulent Louis XIV's pad is, but it went beyond what I had imagined. The place is huge and the gardens outside are insane. I can imagine in the spring, once all the shit starts blooming, its pretty beautiful. Beautiful enough to inspire people to revolt, one might say. After Versailles, we headed back to Paris, so some people could do some shopping, and some people could nap. I opted for a nap. Dinner that night was definitely a highlight, as we went to this place Refuge du Fondu, that someone's friend had recommended he check out. The deal is that for 15 euro, you get appetizers, a shit load of fondue and fixings, a dessert, and a baby bottle filled with wine (the bottle held about 2 glasses and for an additional 2 euro, you can get another bottle, which is a great deal in Paris). This wine out of a baby bottle thing isn't just some cute little gimmick either, apparently there is a tax on glasses o wine and the baby bottle thing is a way to get around that. Clever Frenchmen. The restaurant itself was pretty cool too. It consists of this small room with too long tables, and you are literally squeezed in to the person next to you, whether you know him or not. People had written all over the walls, and the staff was rude in a fun Ed Debevic's kind of way. Overall, solid venue. After dinner, we wandered out in an attempt to find a place for some dranks. The first attempt was an epic failure, as it was way too nice and expensive for our large group of American college students, but the second place was pretty neat. It was cheaper, had a couple dudes playing the saxophone and piano, and Frenchmen hitting on our American girls in a way that was creepy/funny, rather than creepy/creepy. And thus concluded day 2 of my Parisian adventure.

Day 3, the plan had originally been that some people would hit up a market, some people would go to mass at Notre Dame, and some would just sleep in before our 1 pm train back to London. Alas, everyone was so wiped out/hungover, that the entire group ended up sleeping in; epic tourism failure. Still, the weekend had been a huge success and a lot of fun. Bravo Paris, bravo.

Nothing else of note to report really, except that the homestay in Wales this coming weekend should be neat. Until next time then, au revoir, mes amis.

2 weeks deep

So, as of today, I've officially been gone for two weeks, and I must say, so far, so good. I was a little nervous going into this whole deal without anyone I'm really friends with, but the experience has really been amazing. It's strange to think that I'm already 1/12 of the way through my semester over here, and probably even less since I will most likely be finished with finals/heading home a week or two before my scheduled return date of June 12 (epic return in time for Dillo Day? Possible). The city of London itself has gone above and beyond what I was expecting, which was a lot. The people, the culture, the atmosphere, everything is just cool as hell. I wish me and Rauh had won the lottery before I left so that I could do everything, but alas, no such luck. Regardless, even while trying to stay within my budget, I've gotten to do some really cool stuff. The other day, myself and a couple other kids went to the British Museum, which I did see when I was here in high school, but I could probably spend a week in that joint. Plus, its free so I'll definitely be going back over the next few months.

Today was also the first time I've seen the sun since I arrived in the UK, and not because I've been partying so much that I've been living nocturnally. It's just always cloudy here, so maybe all that Vitamin D is what's put me in such a good mood. So because of the sun's glorious appearance, I decided to check out a local park that I was told is pretty neat. It was actually

really cool, and it had a hill that offered some sweet views of the local area and Canary Warf, which is a business district seperate from London's central financial center, and it contains the tallest building in the city. (Pictures included: looking south towards Canary Warf from the top of the hill, and looking north from the same spot, into the park) There was also a schnazzy little (free) art gallery in the middle of the park featuring an exhibition on childhood which was pretty interesting.

Also, props to Kegan Daugherty, who's iPod provided the soundtrack for my saunter through the park. The nostalgia provided by middle school favorites such as Blink 182, Alkaline Trio, Getto Boys, and Rage Against the Machine nicely complimented my stroll. After the park, I threw the frisbee around with a couple other kids, before we headed to Brick Lane. Brick Lane is probably the coolest place I've seen since I've been here and doesn't really compare to anything I've seen in the States. It's this old street in a Bangladeshi area with a ton of restaurants, stores, night life, etc. Quick side note first however: so the way some of the London buses work is that they are those kind of double length buses with a squishy-like connector in the middle. You're supposed to swipe your card when you get on, but if you get on the back half, you can just ride for free, unless its one of the very rare occasions where there's a cop/transport authority person on board. This doesn't work with the famous double-decker buses, but basically everyone does it with the double-length ones. People literally call it "the free bus". So anyway, our original plan was to take the free bus to Brick Lane and check out this bagel place that was recommended to us by a British kid, but while we were walking to the bagel place, we were overwhelmed by one of the most insane/amazing smells I've ever experience. Turns out we were walking past the famous Brick Lane Market, held every Sunday. There were food stalls from probably every country imaginable, even Mexican, which you don't really see on this side of the pond, and those stalls were the cause of the fantastic smell that had overcome us. I opted for a healthy helping of Chinese food with a Brazilian soda called Guarana Antarctica, all for 3 pounds. There was also stalls selling clothes, antiques, bikes, all kinds of shit. I'm sure some of it had fallen off a truck at some point, but it was really like nothing I've ever seen before. I wish I had brought my camera, but luckily one of the other guys did so when he puts up his pictures, I'll steal a couple. We eventually did make it to the bagel place, which was pretty good (and cheap!), but I'm sure any Jewish people/New Yorkers would have some better place to recommend. I think the reason the Brit recommended it was because it makes fresh bagels and other baked goods 24 hours a day, which I imagine would be amazing at like 3 am on a Saturday, but I'll let you know if I ever get to experience that. So alas, my plan to have a quiet Sunday doing laundry and some reading was thwarted by the city of London, but I'd say it all worked out for the best.

In terms of night time activities, I really tried to do a better job of controlling my drinking coststhis week, as that has traditionally been my number 1 expense, and I think I did a decent job. However, I still managed to squeeze in some raging, including playing my first game of beer pong since arriving. It's tough to find ping pong balls and solo cups (damn metric system), but we managed to succeed in scrounging up a game. Monday night is 1 pound drinks at Draper's, the on-campus bar/club (yes, on-campus), so naturally it was pretty crowded, but still pretty fun. I feel like its a fair assumption to call it the Keg of Queen Mary. Along those lines, Thursday included a trip to the Deuce of Queen Mary, the New Globe, which is actually probably classier then the Deuce, though more crowded, believe it or not. Friday included an abortive trip to a club in favor of cheaper drinking at Draper's, which I really had no problem with. I mean, going to clubs is great, but not really my cup of tea, and I'll always choose cheaper drinking within walking distance of where I live. I then decided to stay in Saturday night to stay within my meager budget. From this point forward however, I'm afraid I will have to maintain a Mike Roche-esque social calendar, trying to only rage one or two nights a week. As Roche himself might say in this situation, mega sad face.

It's not all bad though, as this restricted drinking agenda will allow me to continue to check out London and also to travel around Europe. On that note, my first trip commences Thursday (no class Friday, WOOT), as I will be Chunnel-ing over to France for a weekend in Paris. The following weekend, we have our program arranged homestay in Swansea, Wales, where I will be staying with a Welsh family for the weekend, experiencing a more relaxed, small town side of Britain. I'm actually really looking forward to the home stay. Exciting stuff. Oh yea, and classes started this week, though for some reason those don't seem that important....

Weekend recap

'Ello 'ello (see, I'm talking like a local already), I just wanna give a quick highlight for anyone interested enough to click a link, but not interested enough to read through this whole, moderately long post. So, some of the British kids I live with taught us a drinking game, that I thought was very clever, both for its simplicity and for its just straight up drinking-ness. Its called "Arrogance" and the rules are as such: the first person fills up a cup with as much of his drink as he pleases and then flips a coin and chooses heads or tails. If he is correct, he passes the cup onto the next person, and if he is incorrect he drinks the contents of the glass. Thus, if the player is feeling lucky (or arrogant, hence the name) he will pour a lot of booze into the cup figuring either he will screw over the next person or that he is awesome enough to just chug the whole glass. If people in the group are consuming different types of booze, that adds a whole other dimension to the game as someone might end up having to drink a delicious mix of various beers, wines, ciders, and spirits (luckily we were just playing with beer, but its still kinda nasty if you're drinking different brands). Anywho, I'd never heard of the game before and thought it was pretty sweet, moving on.

I had a fairly eventful and enjoyable past fews days, I'm happy to report. Friday night I went out to a local Chinese food restaurant with some folks, which wasn't too shabby I must say. It was kinda neat to hear a British accent coming out of an Asian person, just not something I'm used to hearing. Later on we were drinking in the flat, and then planned to head out on the town. The plan originally was to go to a club that one of the British kids we've met suggested, but at some point over the course of the evening, a few of the people I was with decided going to a club wasn't really for us so we ended up just going to a bar. Also, when I say bar, its technically a pub, but I feel like a poser calling a bar a pub, just fyi. Ended up just getting drunk and having a great time, so I got that going for me, which is nice.

Saturday was the first day where I was completely free and we were on our own, which for most of my group meant grocery shopping. Now I don't really grocery shop, ever, so this was going to be a challenge. However, I am determined to obtain a healthy variety of foods when shopping over here, at as low a cost as possible in order to maximize the quantity of adventures I could afford over the course of my time in London. I'm willing to sacrifice eating good food of any sort in order to be able to travel around more. I believe I was fairly successful in my first attempt at this goal, as I managed to obtain a good amount of various, fairly healthy foods, at the cost of only about 20 pounds. So huzzah to that.

That day, the rest of the British kids moved in, and we drank with them that night, thats when we played arrogance. Let me just tell you, these Brits can drink, even the girls were just pounding 'em. Insanity. We didn't even go out that night, which is probably ideal for my bank account, and it was just a lot of fun. As the people who read this probably know (better, August?), I would much rather sit around, shoot the shit, and drink with a good group of people then go out to a bar, let alone a club. Though as some of you also know, I have 3-4 of the best dance moves ever utilized by man, which allow me to frequently win dance offs against the most challenging of competitors.

Sunday was a touristy day. Gotta see all the sights over here, ya know? A couple other kids and myself went out to the Tower Bridge, where there's a pretty neat exhibit in the bridge and you can walk up to the top area. Tower Bridge is the famous cool looking bridge bt dubs, London Bridge, of falling down fame, is actually pretty lame. Fun fact: The old London Bridge was sold in the 1970's to some rich dude in Arizona. Rumor has it that he thought he was buying the cooler-looking and iconic Tower Bridge. He musta felt like a real dope when he opened the box andthe crappy London Bridge was inside. Regardless, you can go to Lake Havasu in Arizona and check out the original London Bridge if you so fancy. So there ya go, you learn something new everyday. I already knew all that though because I'm just awesome/a huge loser. After that, I was planning on just hitting the sack early, six days of drinking, sight-seeing, and meetings will get to ya. However, some folks were planning on checking out an American bar to watch the NFL playoffs, which I had sort of forgot about while I was over here, damn Brits. I joined in and saw the Patriots get beat down by the Ravens before heading back home.

Finally, Monday the real fun began as that was the first day of classes. I'll go into the details of my classes and the retarded English university system in a later post as this one is starting to drag on I think, but I've had 3 out of 4 thus far and overall, none of 'em seem too bad. That night was the official Queen Mary's International Student boat cruise on the Thames, which reminded me of our post-prom thing on the Odyssey. We cruised up and down the the river, and saw all the sites, it would have been cool if it wasn't 4 HOURS LONG. Holy Crow. Some advice, if you get chance to cruise up the Thames, definitely do it, but make sure it lasts only like an hour or two.

I figure now that I'm going to class and have a bit of a routine, my going out will decrease significantly for the sake of my finances, otherwise I'm going to have learn how to play the guitar or didgereedoo (sp?) like some of the dudes I've seen on the street. That's it for now though folks, but stay tuned for a thrilling post on my classes and my first continental travel plans. Gracias.

The East End

I hate to start off with a complaint, but I just discovered that Hulu does not function outside the U.S. and that causes me great pain. Anywho, on to the main subject of this post, which is the East End of London, where I live.

So I am enrolled at Queen Mary's University of London, so this trip is not just a long vacation, I will actually be doing school work. However, the British university is system is a bit different, in that for each class you have only one lecture per week and one seminar (small group meeting) per week. This means I am technically only in class for 8 hours a week. On the flip side, they say that there is a ton more independent work (reading, researching, etc.), and that there usually aren't that many quizzes or smaller assignments. A lot more is based on final papers and exams. Craziness. Anyway, this means I will have a pretty good amount of free time in which to explore, which is nice considering I live in one of the schnazziest places in the world, the East End.

Now traditionally, the East End has been the poorer, more working class area of London (check out the Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls" for a musical education on the socio-economic differences between London's geographic regions), and it has often been the entry point for immigrants. Word on the street is that Queen Mary's was founded back in the day for smart but poor East End kids who wouldn't be allowed in to England's more established universities, and it was just down the road from me in Whitechapel where Jack the Ripper was doing his business in the 1800's. Today, the area is still less well-off then other areas of London, and the immigrant population still remains huge. Though the majority of the immigrants around here are from South Asia and the Middle East, there are also a lot from East Asia, Africa, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe. You can hear like 5 or 6 different languages every time you walk down the street, and theres people in Middle Eastern dress all over the place. A bit of a surprising thing I've noticed is all the fried chicken places in the area, and around London in general. There are actual KFC's everywhere and also a ton of KFC knock-offs. Copyright laws must be lax over here because I've seen places that look just like a KFC with names like PFC or FFC. Craziness.

This area is also really up and coming apparently. There are a lot of young people around, because of the school and just because its kind of a trendy area. Interspersed in between all the chicken shops are schnazzy little restaurants and shops and what not (yes, you have counted correctly, that is two uses of the word schnazzy in one post). Not exactly my cup of tea, but its a cool area to be in regardless. Additionally, most of the stuff for the 2012 Olympics is going up on this side of town, so thats adding another level of excitement and investment. On the whole, its pretty neat. And preparation H feels good.

Thats it for now, thanks for reading.