ok, ok. I know that I haven't posted in a while. The internet here has been really shoddy and I haven't had a connection for more than a few minutes at a time...and now that its "fixed", I have lots and lots of work due. I promise to post after I finish this presentation. I'll put up pictures from Dover and tell you my uneventful weekend here in London.

BUT I do want to tell you about one of my professors, Tancred. One: he wore a black and white pinstripe suit today...with a white/blue/red striped shirt and a red and black houndstooth tie. And birght red Christmas socks. haha. And he called Mexican food "peasant food" and asked the class what a burrito was. hahahaha. Ok, I have to go to work! I promise to update soon.

“It’s easy to believe in magic when you’re young. Anything you couldn’t explain was magic then. It didn’t matter if it was science or a fairy tale. Electricity and elves were both infinitely mysterious and equally possible — elves probably more so.”

—	Charles de Lint

The Florida Department of Education didn't allocate me enough loan money to cover my International Programs tuition. I'm so worried. How am I going to pay for this??

“By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show”

Although I had a pretty rough week (classes AND finally finishing my model UN background guide), my weekend definitely made up for it! WOOP!

Friday: That afternoon Aaron and I decided to go book shopping. We started out at the British version of Barnes and Noble, called Waterstone's...I should probably not describe it as a Barnes and Noble because it is SO MUCH BETTER. They have floors filled with textbooks (good ones that I would like to read...) Aaron and I spent a good part of an hour on one floor filled with International Affairs/Political Science/Social Science books. We're big time nerds, but that's ok. Then we tried to find a used book store that was supposedly really close to our flat, but we walked around the area for a while and couldn't find it. So, we stopped in a park nearby and read for a while. Then we took the tube to Oxford Circus; we wanted to walk around the area before it got engulfed by the weekend crowds flowing in and out of the thousands of shops on the mile-long shopping street.

Later that night, my roommates (Jade and Natalie) and I went across town to see a free showing of Medea. The show was in an outdoor amphitheater (who knew that word was spelled like that?!) right across the water from the Tower of London, and right next to the Tower Bridge (The bridge in the picture). The scenery alone was AMAZING. The play was so-so...but worth the price. hah.

Saturday: Aaron and I decided to try again and find the used bookstore because we had heard great things about it. After looking at a map this time (great, great investment if you ever want to come to London, we discovered), we set off on our journey. We found the bookstore amidst a weekend street market! It was SO cool.

There were lots of food stands; everything smelled so good. The scents of Japanese, Portuguese, Moroccan, Turkish(!!), Thai, etc. etc. are mixed together; it was heavenly. Aaron attempted to avoid all of the food temptations and walked directly to our beloved bookstore. The first book that I pick up is "Oryx and Crate" by Margaret Atwood, which I have looking for! I was so excited, I put the book in my hand and I picked up another. It was "Trainspotting", which I have ALSO been looking for. It was a very nice (and cheap) blessing :)

After a filling Portuguese pastry (prawn and some garlic/scallion sauce), Aaron and I went to investigate a carnival ride that we spotted behind a building on the way to the bookstore. We walked behind the building and found an annual street carnival that a neighborhood was holding!

There were mini-carnival rides, a clown, a puppet show, a band, more street venders and food :)!!! It was really cool to stumble upon. Aaron and I walked around for a bit and then decided to head to Soho.

Aaron was on a mission to find the street (Berwick Street) where the photo for Oasis's album cover for "What's the Story, Morning Glory?" was taken. We found it pretty easily (everything seemed to be going right yesterday!), and we found a Hare Krishna band chanting and dancing in the streets on the way.

On Berwick, we discovered the best used CD/DVD/Vinyl store in London, as far as I'm concerned. It was decently priced, and it had everything. EVERYTHING: Indie/alternative/rock/hip-hop/bluegrass/blues/etc. etc. etc. SOOO HAPPY. MUSIC HEAVEN. Aaron and I both bought CDs. (I bought Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Wallflowers, and Primal Scream [some band that Aaron recommended])

Sunday: Aaron and I headed out early to go to church!!! We went to service at a church (apparently known for its congregation of visitors) in Oxford Circus called All Souls. The sermon was really good and the people were inviting and warm. We met a old British black woman named Janet and her husband, Paul. It was a good start to the day. The rest of today has been spent napping (soooo tired), doing homework, and going to the gym! (Boring, lazy Sunday). First day of Monday classes tomorrow, I'm pretty nervous about it! We'll see how these new classes go...I'm afraid that I'm going to be overwhelmed!

And I wanted to share this quote from C.S. Lewis (Four Loves) that has been on my mind lately:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell."

Minutes before my first (attempt) at a skype conference with my parents back home, I will update you all (hopefully more than just Grace) on London life:

On Saturday, my flatmates and I were on a team for a scavenger hunt...we ran around London trying to get brochures and pictures. The six of us (three girls from Missouri, Hannah, Julie, and Elizabeth and Jade, Natalie, and I) did a pretty good job at keeping up with the uber competitive drama kids. We only ended up losing by 9 points :( But, we definitely got a better idea of the city. My night was pretty boring...I stayed in and worked on my Model UN stuff.

On Sunday, we woke up early to go a bus tour of London. I thought that I would sleepily walk out of the study center that morning to meet one of the infamous red double decker buses...but sadly, it was just a normal coach (the funny thing is...we had to buckle up...let me tell you, it was a weird experience to constantly wear a full seat belt on a charter bus). Our tour guide, Sean, was a witty Brit who kept us all surprisingly awake. I definitely want to set aside some days to walk my way through London...or maybe even get off of random (maybe not totally random...I don't want to end up in a sketchy part of town) tube stop and explore!

Later that night, Aaron, our friend, Ashley, and I went to Notting Hill. Once a year, in the last week in August, there is a street carnival held there. Its the second largest street carnival in the world apparently. It was really really really crowded and there was a bunch of trash and drunk people everywhere, but we still had a good time. Reggae and hip-hop music played as the mouth-watering smells of Caribbean food wafted by. There were floats filled with sequins, brights colors, and even more music. We escaped the mayhem after an hour or so...

Yesterday, I slept in (I couldn't sleep until about 3 the night before) and worked a while on school work and my paper. My flatmates and I had a family dinner (grilled cheese and tomato soup, almost fool-proof dinner)...and I joined the YMCA down the street!!! Its really really really nice...I don't have a lot to compare it to, considering I have been going to the dingy Leach center for two years now. And I learned that this Y is actually the first YMCA. EVER. In a weird, nerdy way, I find that really cool.

Today was the first day of classes. I had Terror and Politics in the morning, then Ethnic Conflict, and then we have a third class in which we will be doing presentations on materials discusses in the first two classes. Juliana Fugezi, a firece Hungarian LSE graduate, our teacher for Tuesday/Thursday classes is pretty intimidating. I'm not sure if its her odd intonation (developed from speaking five languages fluently) or her personality, but she is a little frightening in class....I really like her. I know that she will not let our class slack off...and I have been able to get by in my classes back in Tallahassee. I'm glad that I will have her to teach me this semester. As we went over our syllabi today...my thoughts were confirmed. This is going to be tough semester; Juliana is going to kick it into high gear.

We talked about who a terrorist was this morning...it was sooo interesting. We discussed the saying "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Juliana brought up the example of Nelson Mandela, who apparently was a leader of a African Nationalist group that endorsed acts of terror before he helped develop the new democratic South Africa. This is definitely going to be a different semester than any others before.

Sorry for the laziness, but I figured that I didn't really have a lot to write about (except class...). I will try to keep up. Here is a picture for the carnival (sooooo crowded!!):

So, today is our first real day in London. Yesterday doesn't count because I was deliriously tired and today I'm delirious enough to think that I'm not jet-lagged.

It always surprises me how much smaller everything is in Europe....with this said, our triple room is definitely the size of my bedroom at home. But, I think the conservative size of everything is what makes everything here special to me....maybe not the small amount of water pressure of our shower. I like the homey feeling of it, but I'm sure that it will wear off soon.

London weather gave a great welcoming ceremony yesterday as we walked along the streets in the rare sunny, 80 degrees (Fahrenheit, of course). I definitely felt like I belonged :)

I also felt lost, thank God I was here for a little while last summer. I'm so used to the American cities planned out on grids, even downtown Tallahassee is logically navigable compared to the streets of London. Streets change names and directions very often....always have a street map, and never think you are making a new short cut because you probably will end up in a different neighborhood...

Yesterday was very uneventful, besides getting lost. We just had meetings, went out to dinner out at a restaurant called Giraffe, and I unpacked...

The first picture is of my bed...this semester my roommates (Jade and Natalie) might just hate me. And the second is a picture of a dollar that Aaron used to pay for coffee.