Happy Halloween!

Oh hey everyone in the US! Hope you are having a spooktacular Halloween - apparently the US bought record amounts of candy this year, I assume you all did your part. And maybe my part also, because I didn't find anywhere here that sold traditional Halloween candy, like candy corn. Instead they have a few of the mini candy packages and then a whole bunch of solid milk chocolate coffins etc.

Let's get down to business. Blogging. I'll do my best to be quick :). Last week was like most of my weeks here. It was super busy and I had a cold again. I paid for all my fun last week with a fast-acting and somewhat brutal cold, which showed up bright and early Monday morning and hung around like an unwelcome guest for the remainder of the week. I did my best not to let it stop me from having a fabulous time anyway though. For example on Tuesday I went to a Jewish Students in London (not the official group name, there are just like a TON of these organizations and a bunch partnered for this one event) cruise on the river Thames. It was awesome. It was on the Thames Princess (with the London Eye in the background)

I went with Edan (an Israeli LLM I had never met before) and my friends Jardena and Alison

It was a really cool event. We ate a ton of kosher sushi, cruised up and down the length of the Thames, past tons of landmarks that were all lit up at night, and we got to hear this guy play a set for us

He had an incredible voice. Even though it rained for a bit while we were on the river we were quite cozy inside the boat. I made my way hope from the dock happily stuffed full of sushi.

Wednesday I went to my first London surf club meeting. I had been dying to sign up for ages, but they require that you have a board first, and they only meet the last Wednesday of every month. So although I had a board before the last Wednesday last month in September I'm pretty sure it was a Jewish holiday and I ended up having to wait the extra month before I could get involved. I got there, walked past the table with the London Surf Club sign, looked around, didn't see anyone, and finally after checking both upstairs and downstairs, ended up asking one of the bartenders who pointed out both the sign, and its location directly in front of the door where I had entered. I paid my dues, filled out my application form and then spent the next couple hours mingling. The people were really cool, it was just exhausting because the music was just loud enough that you had to strain to hear the person you were talking to and strain your voice a bit to be heard. Despite the music however, I was able to gather some intelligence on an incoming swell, forecast to hit the entirety of Europe throughout the weekend and lasting into the upcoming week. Basically though, the club works as a car share service. People who have cars and want to go surfing but not foot the bill for the "petrol" themselves, send out an email inviting people to join. Apparently you have to respond IMMEDIATELY if you want to have any hope of getting in on a ride. Luckily I got my chance the next day!

Unluckily the e-mail came through while I was at a lunch for the American LLM students. Well, for the Columbia and USC exchange LLM students. There might be other Americans lurking around that aren't in one of those two programs but I doubt it. The Columbia students seemed nice, and the lunch was great, but I panicked when I checked my phone afterward and saw that an email had come through advertising a ride for a Sunday surf trip. I emailed back, but was unfortunately too late, apparently the car had filled in the first ten minutes. I asked the woman to keep me in mind in case anyone dropped out and walked back from lunch at LSE with Valerie. On the way home we passed by Occupy St. Pauls.

This was going to be Occupy London Financial District but for logistical reasons they ended up occupying the nearby cathedral instead. I'd heard a lot about what a disruption the protesters had been, and how they were economically destroying St. Pauls, but that wasn't the impression that I got at all once I was there in person. Everything seemed set up far enough back from the steps of St. Pauls to avoid being a terrible inconvenience, and no one was being unruly. There were appropriately witty and also religious themed signs.

Other than that, my week was mostly quiet. I did my best to get to sleep at a decent hour and recuperate from the ravages of my most recent cold. The weekend, of course, was a different story. All week I had seen costumes (here they are called "fancy dress"), the characters from Pac Man on the Tube,

the Devil and his girlfriend waiting for the bus, and I was READY to celebrate Halloween. Valerie and I decided to be pirates. We made the mistake of waiting until Tuesday to visit the "fancy dress" shop for accessories. There was a queue on the ground floor, so we picked up swords and eye-patches and got in line to wait to go upstairs where the actual costumes were. We get up to the "first" (in American English second) floor, and GET IN ANOTHER QUEUE to get up to the NEXT floor which is where the costumes are. We get up to the costume floor and they are not allowing anyone to try on the costumes and it's total madness and we decide to just leave. Except we still have to purchase our swords and eyepatches. Too bad there is now ANOTHER GIANT QUEUE for the till. We made our purchases and escaped to TK Maxx (not a mispelling, it's actually TK Maxx - similar idea though slightly more upscale than TJ Maxx), where we found pirate shirts galore on the sales rack! I had literally no idea that was a style that had come back in (and then back out) recently. But it was a fantastic way to save money on the costumes and we both picked up something suitable.

Valerie hosted a getting-ready pre-party for a bunch of the LLM/LSE girls to get dressed and snack on various delicious foods, including bat and spider-web shaped crispy snacks. We looked awesome:

and the LLM Halloween party we went to was a great time, even though it was an attempt to fit approximately 200 people into a space designed for 50. I also managed to break my eyepatch and lose my sword so the costume was a one-night deal. The next day my flatmate Marissa and I had Valerie and her flatmate Ellen over for a late brunch. In the spirit of the weekend our dessert was decorate-your-own Halloween cookies. We had varying degrees of success:

Then Marissa, Valerie and I went on a "power" walk. Which became an investigative tour of the Bermondsey (sp?) area near where we live but closer to the Tower Bridge. We found an independent bookstore, a fall-leaf spectacular

a hilarious sign

and a UNICORN

The best part of the entire day was when we were taking this picture a woman asked the man just out of frame by the velvet rope "what is that?" and he responded with his dry-est English wit "That, Madam, is a Unicorn."

Once back home my flatmates and I got together to carve the pumpkin our residence had left in the kitchen so we could properly celebrate Halloween.

 
Our pumpkin had a mustache

Keeping up the spirit of Halloween I also went and saw Ghostbusters on the "largest screen in Britain." It was kind of how I remembered it, but I thought there was more marshmallow man to be honest. Finally, it was Sunday. Now, I forgot to mention this before BUT after I e-mailed the surf-club woman to keep me in mind if she had someone drop out, she emailed back and said a friend of hers was planning to drive and could fit me and the others who had responded too late in his car! So of course I immediately emailed her back and got in touch with her friend Rob, who was planning to drive and we were set!

Between Saturday and Sunday the British Summer Time ended and we "fell back" an hour. This made my pick-up time of 6:15 am slightly more endurable. I was the first to be picked up, I woke up early, grabbed my kit, packed up a bag and was downstairs in the surprisingly mild air right on time. We drove off to our next stop, where unfortunately not everyone was as timely. We were due to pick up two boys there, Nick and Phil. Nick was waiting when we got there. Phil was not. His phone was off. We waited a bit and packed up the boards. Phil finally called, having just woken up (the alarm apparently didn't go off). We waited until he ran up before we drove off to pick up the last girl and then we set off for Wales. The drive was gorgeous. Straight up beautiful English countryside. Tons of sheep, gently rolling hills. When we got to Wales the hills become much larger and less rolling, although the sheep remained just as numerous. We pulled into Rhosselli beach around 10:30 am to be greeted by a lovely sight:

LONG rolling waves

We suited up and hiked down - literally hiked, the mountains we were on looked like this

and we had to get down to where you see that beach.

The surfing part was different than I expected. I had no trouble with the cold. I was wearing my brand new 5 mil suit and gloves and booties, and the weather was mild and so was the water. But the paddle out was ROUGH. I'm not a fan of duck-diving but by the end of this trip I was a master at it. Luckily my board is super light, but I was also looking to stay somewhat to the inside to catch a wave as it reformed to try out my board and get my feet in the wax since I had never ridden it before. It took me forever to accomplish this goal because the waves were mushy and the peaks were shifty and my board apparently requires a VERY precise take-off spot. But not only did a catch a nice re-form wave, I even managed to paddle all the way outback (a good 400-450 metres). It was insane, the waves were breaking out back and reforming three or four more times on their way in over various sandbars. I caught a few really nice waves that went on forever as they broke and reformed over and over again. My board may be difficult to catch waves on, and difficult to get up on cause it's so ridiculously narrow but once you are up and riding on a wave it is doing its best to set land-speed records. It was a ton of fun. I almost died however, climbing back up the mountain to get back to the carpark.

For the second session we decided to try a different beach, since with the tide dropping out the long rolling unbroken lines from the previous picture had disintegrated into whitewatery peaks everywhere that didn't look like much fun. Unfortunately, the next beach didn't have much going for it. But there! In the distance! It looks like a wave is breaking there! And people are riding it! Let's go! So me and the two boys, Nick and Phil set off for the break. Which was significantly farther than it appeared. We start off walking down the beach. The beach starts to disappear, and is encroached upon by this crazy volcanic rock that juts up from the beach and looks like giant pieces of slate have cracked off the hill and fallen there. We clamber over and over until we find ourselves on what looks like the set of the astroid surface in the movie Armageddon. Looking for an escape we climb UP the giant heaps of rock to the path on the hillside, now we are safely on a path that is entirely mud, (complete with cow pies) and on one side is a fence lined with razor wire and on the other a hedge keeping us from falling back down onto the rocks. We finally near the surf break and have to climb down the cliff-like hillside, across some more volcanic rock and voila! We are there!

We've made it to a locals only reef break. Unfortunately it's also a one person wave. There is exactly one place where the wave doesn't close out immediately, but provides a brief shoulder for those suicidal enough to drop in. We paddle out. I paddle and paddle and paddle and duck dive and paddle and duck dive and paddle and find myself finally outside, but not actually near the reef. Nor do I really want to be there since I don't want to fight for a take-off. Phil makes it out before I do and catches a wave. Nick doesn't make it outside. I sit and wait, go for a few waves but can't quite get anything. Eventually Nick makes his way out to where I am and observes we should "paddle over to where those guys are" I turn around and yell "we should paddle for the horizon" as the next overhead set makes its way through. I make it over. He doesn't. At this point it's getting dark. I catch a wave, but it backs off and I'm too far back to do anything with it. We catch foam in and see Phil walking up the path in the opposite direction from which we came. We shrug and go back the correct way. We get back to the carpark. Change, put our boards away. Still no Phil. He's clearly lost. Lita (the other girl) goes out to yell his name. Nick, after a few minutes, follows her to help her look.Ten minutes later, Phil arrives back at the carpark, he was indeed, lost. Nick and Lita don't get back for another hour. Rob (the driver) is pissed, but there's nothing that can be done about it but drive back to London, which is what we do, and the entire way Phil calls Nick "Neal" until he finally corrects him. When we get to their neighborhood Phil literally can't find his way home, despite recognizing the landmarks we are driving past.

I had a really great time and it was fantastic to get back into the water, although there were mishaps and misadventures everyone got some great surfing in and we made it in and out of Wales in fairly good time.

Rob, the driver, also hooked us up to his yahoo group the Urban Surf Club, which operates pretty much the same as the London Surf Club but with less administrative hoops and hurdles.

And that's it! That was my fantastic week, it will surprise no one to learn that this upcoming week is busy as well, and you'll get to hear all about it next weekend when I *hopefully* update on time.

Love,

Surfing UK

I know it's Sunday so technically I owe you a post, but I'm too surfed out to write anything down coherently, and now you have something to look forward to tomorrow!

Much love,

Making Moves

To Nice, France! I'm starting to plan my December travels (we have the 9th of December to the 9th of January off of school) and I just bought my ticket to my starting point. I'm currently planning to buy a ticket back from Athens and then just make my way there from Nice via Monaco, Rome, Naples, Dubrovnik, Athens/the Greek Isles, but I have to be back in London by the 21st for a friend's visit so I'm checking to see how much time exactly it will take me to do this things and how much time I want to spend in each place. It seems like it's going to be quite a whirlwind trip but I'm itching to start my travels. Luckily, my parents gave me both a guide to London and Europe on a Shoestring for my birthday so I'm not going about it completely blind.

Speaking of whirlwinds, this week has been one as well. Although I look back on it and I can't exactly figure out how I managed to feel like every second was spent rushing from one place to another since I only had three classes this week and was done with those by Tuesday afternoon. I don't mean to sound ungrateful but thanks God, I've had fun these past three weeks now ENOUGH WITH THE HOLIDAYS. I think part of the reason that I've felt so busy/overwhelmed/overbooked is because my free days Thursday and Friday, for like the last four weeks, are always spent in synagogue or at some festive meal or traveling to one or the other of those things. It's exhausting! Also my work-life balance remains firmly stuck on the side of social. Which is not a necessarily a bad thing, but I'm determined to be more disciplined in the upcoming weeks as I have big plans for the next four or five weekends and can't afford to fall too far behind in my classes.This weekend I get to celebrate Halloween in London (as a pirate? costume suggestions are welcome), the weekend after my friend Anna comes to visit, then it's off to Brussels and the next weekend to Barcelona. So it might be a wise idea to buckle down NOW.

In that spirit, you get a quick rundown of my weekly activities and then it's back to facebooking like a champ while avoiding looking at the pile of reading sitting next to my computer.

This week I kept training, though not as much as I would have liked to, I was too exhausted from all the sleep-lite nights (side-effect of the whole socializing thing) to make it to the gym as often as I probably would have otherwise. I also attended a variety of Jewish-student or community focused event, including the JSOC WEJ Wasted Bar Crawl, which was an event I attended with an LLM friend of mine, Jardena - as part of the preparation for the bar crawl we were all given matching t-shirts and tied together into pairs, Jardena and I were one of the few pairs that made it to the first pub before ditching the tape

The group rented out a double decker bus for the "crawl" so we actually made it to pubs literally across the city from each other, starting in Covent Garden, moving on to Shoreditch, Camden and finally finishing up in Leciester Square. It was mostly (like, actually 99.99%) undergraduates, 20% of whom attend University of Maryland (you do the math), but the bars were cool and the drinks were plentiful. I ended up staying out dancing quite late before finally catching a unmarked cab home. Which means some dude in a Honda was sitting outside the bar and said he would drive me home for 15 pounds. That part was kind of a lie though, because my street was closed for construction work and I had to walk the last two or three blocks home in a conveniently timed downpour.

I spent Shmini Atzeret back at Marble Arch, enjoying the last dinner in the Sukkah, chatting with a newly-minted UK lawyer and a newly arrived Israeli girl on her gap year. The company was great but the meal was, as usual, extremely long. So long that I ended up skipping shul and the meal entirely the next day when I failed to get out of bed before 12:30pm. That night I rallied and went back to Marble Arch for the Simchat Torah festivities, but due to a misunderstanding about the timing, arrived during dinner to find that they had done all the dancing and Hakafot before I even got there! I wasn't the only one to make that mistake though (in the US and I guess at other shuls the dancing can go quite late into the night), and so the Chabad Rabbi stayed around with the student-types to drink, celebrate and have our own dancing session. I finished the night with Valerie and Jardena exploring the Marble Arch area after everyone else went home. Having survived the last of the holiday meals I celebrated with my first ever Ministry of Sound experience. MOS is a warehouse like club that specializes in electronic dance music. It's an icon (though one that has seen better days) and is conveniently located in my neighborhood. It was SO MUCH FUN. I went with some girls from my LLM program, a couple of my flatmates and a group of boys from California. I forgot my camera but the inside of the club looks something like this

and this warning really is necessary

I had a blast and got home around 5am. The club was still crowded when we left.

My weekend was lazy, even with five days in a row of not actually having any responsibilities I didn't manage to accomplish much, I slept a lot, finally finished Buffy the Vampire season 7, went shopping at Borough Market (something I forgot to do last weekend that should definitely improve my food outlook for the week now that free Chabad food for the holidays is a thing of the past), got lunch with my roommates while church bells rang right next to us for over 40 minutes, and did a minor amount of studying. I also spent last night confidently leading a group of people to the wrong "Cow Pub" (apparently there are multiple pubs in London that go by that name) and finally (after much travails - is that the correct use of the word? Or many travails?) and two or three buses we ended up at a hipster bar on entirely the opposite side of London, where they hang plants in planters upside down from the ceiling. To my deep regret I do not have a picture of that.

Now then, it's 10pm and I should probably do a couple of hours of studying before bed, a place I'd like to find myself in before midnight for the first time this past week. Hope all of you are doing well, I'm super jealous of those of you in CA right now (DAD!) and just thinking of it makes me miss the beach quite a lot. Luckily I believe this Wednesday the London Surf Club has its monthly meeting!

Much love,

Quarter-life Crisis?

Nope! None here. Just in case you were concerned. I'm definitely not having a quarter-life crisis. Phew. Now we can just move right along to the normal blog. In fact, things are going rather well. I've stopped, for the most part, limping around. I finally broke down and got a pedicure which may have helped. And although my weeks remain insanely busy, I'm starting to settle into having an actual schedule, I have a nice balance between school and social life and I'm even starting to plan some trips around Europe (finally) - Brussels the weekend of Nov 11 for a European Jewish group event and Barcelona the week after for a visit with some LA work friends. Don't take this to mean my banking issues have all solved themselves, I've simply run out of the ability to spend any more time thinking about or devoting time to describing how terrible Lloyds is at their job. They however, assure me they are investigating how they could possibly have screwed up so royally every single thing they have tried to do in the past month in regards to my account. I have little faith in their ability to do this well either.

Turning 25 was a birthday like any other, I'm starting to accept, since it was bound to happen at some point, that I'm just no longer going to be the very absolute youngest in every work position or school program from now on. I'm OK with that, women, we age like a fine wine, yes? I am, however, looking at 25 as a year where I will either be at my peak physical condition, or dead. See the black belt that I've been training with has decided I will be coming in for three extra hours of physical training each week with another girl he has been working with. This will be in addition to the sixish hours a week I spend training brazilian jiu jitsu with possibly a side helping of Muy Thai. So, if I survive, this will be excellent. He has promised to be "gentle" with me for the first month, but after that the metaphorical gloves will be coming off. I literally shudder at the thought.

This week was a crazy mishmash and super busy, so the blog is going to reflect that by lacking any sense of order at all, instead of breaking down exactly when and in what order things occurred, I'll just jump right in! First, of all, I saw Wicked. It was AWESOME. I know I'm behind the rest of the world by years and years and years here, but I'm finally on board. I think it also counts as the first professional musical production I've ever actually seen, and it may signal a change in my attitude towards "theatre." We had cheap seats, but the theatre was small enough that it mattered not at all and I enjoyed myself immensely. See - smiling in a picture! From left to right, Sarah's visiting friend (I think Ashley), Sarah and Isla

The stage set with the mechanical dragon on top was super cool:

I also had a lovely dinner with Valerie, Marc and Stephanie. Marc and Stephanie are two USC law students here in London on the Pepperdine law school program. They were nice enough to bring me early birthday flowers since they will be in Rome this weekend

What was interesting to hear though, is that their experience has been somewhat different than mine, in that they have repeatedly had issues with Londoners that have nearly led to fights. They have been treated rudely and with condescending attitudes over and over again. I've had no issues that were even slightly similar. However, I have to agree that they aren't making this up, because while we were standing on the sidewalk after they treated me to birthday gelato we were verbally assaulted by a drunk homeless man, when we walked across the street another drunk,very short man, came up behind us and started making extremely inappropriate comments  and then as we walked into the Tube, a third man made it a point to tread on my heels over and over again on our way onto the escalator until I stopped to glare at him! In short, I think they must literally be attracting these types of people somehow. It does make me somewhat glad though, since I'm stuck here for the year, that I haven't had to deal with anything of the sort.

This week was also the beginning of Sukkot, yet another Jewish holiday in the month of endless Jewish holidays. Due to some confusion over whether or not Chabad was actually hosting a dinner Wednesday night I didn't get to celebrate it quite as much as I would have liked. I had signed up for Wednesday night dinner, which was to be held at the Marble Arch synagogue, but at 9:30pm after the shul had hosted its own dinner. But the day of, I received an email from Chabad that left off the Wednesday night dinner, and the option to sign up for the dinner had disappeared from the Chabad website. Marble Arch is NOT close to where I live and I wasn't prepared to show up at 9:30pm for a dinner that was not guaranteed to be there. So I just went Thursday night, where I found out that I had in fact, missed the dinner on Wednesday, but I did meet a girl who is here on a program from University of Maryland! Jewish geography! Lily, she says she knows of you, but doesn't think you guys necessarily know each other. Her name is Aviva, she's from Queens? The dinner Thursday was really nice though, so it made up for me missing out on Wednesday. The Marble Arch synagogue has its sukkah inside of its social hall, a portion of the roof is removable and they simply place the sckach on top and presto! Sukkah with three solid walls! And it's way warmer than it would be if we were forced to sit outside.

And that, through process of elimination, like I've run out of other things to talk about, brings me to my birthday! My birthday was great. Super relaxed, and despite all my talk of the "fall finally arriving" it was warm, sunny, with not a cloud in the sky. I got a very sweet present from Nilton, the BJJ black belt

I shared donuts with my flatmates Syed and Daniel, since apparently Sayd had been conned into buying half a dozen donuts at once sometime earlier in the week. I also got super fantastic presents in the form of a "London Survival Package" from Valerie, Daniel, Syed, Sarah, Camila, Jardena and Marissa. 

It came with a spiced cider kit, an owl umbrella, an owl reusable shopping bag, and the cutest PANDA highlighters I've ever seen in my entire life

I had a birthday dinner with Martin, Daniel and Syed

and Valerie and Marissa

I got a super cool drink that smoked and came in a beaker, and then had birthday milkshake/oreo/cookie/chocolate chips/whipped cream deliciousness

Our next stop was at All Bar One, which stocked my favorite wine variety and we added two to the party train, Alison and Jardena

Our third stop was a bar/club with dancing, there might have been dance battles, the pictures start to get a little shaky and out of focus at this point. We ended the night with dinner #2, complete with yet another birthday dessert, this time apple pie. In this picture I'm blowing out the obligatory imaginary candle.

I once again (same as last week), walked home barefoot, and having not learned my lesson from last time, managed to get glass in my foot. I'm going to have to invest in some of those tiny shoes that roll up and fit in your purse.

Having survived my birthday celebration, and with the sun still shining, I spent the next day at the park behind my residence, which looks like this

It was a great way to spend the afternoon, until I got bit by some apparently vicious bug, with slow acting venom, since it only became painful after whatever it was bit me. And I mean this bite remained inflamed all night, and by "inflamed" I mean I could feel the heat it was giving off through my jeans. I think I might just not have any immunity to whatever nasty elements populate the UK and that's why it was so bad? To recover I went home and self-medicated with Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 7 until my Kazakh roommate, Yerzhan invited me to the mid-east (located up near Edgeware) to a hookah bar.

Today, since I somehow always end with "today," was the same as most others here, although I finally made my bow to necessity and went to Costa to do some reading for my class tomorrow. I won't claim I absorbed much but I'm feeling good that I actually DID the reading. Baby steps. I also played football (soccer) for a full hour and a half, possibly more. Although I seem to be getting worse each game? Or the quality of players around me is increasing at an exponential rate. I've got big plans to head to Bodeans BBQ later tonight to watch the Saints game and pick up my birthday present from my grandmother and Aunt Carla. 

And that's it! My week all wrapped up into a neat blog-like package. This week promises to be just as crazy as the last few. First of all, classes and attendance start to count for reals. I no longer have any excuse to not be doing the reading, and there is yet again two days worth of Jewish holidays at the end of the week. So basically, my religiously obligated partying continues :) You'll hear all about it next week.

Love,

Finally fall

Time for a real blog update! Last week was the first week of classes, although, because this is still the "shopping period" for classes (registration closes on 17 Oct) the reading assignments remain light and class discussions remain somewhat free-form. Although I did a little bit of class shopping, my schedule is finally fixed and I am really really happy with my choices (so far). I love the teachers, I find the topics fascinating, and the class discussion is enriched by the multitude of perspectives on offer from the students as LSE who hail from around the world.

But overall, this past week was a stressful and frustrating one, as I mentioned in my last post. Despite being in the UK for more than three weeks, I still didn't have a working bank account, I still didn't have a cell phone, my computer chose now to develop a hardware problem - visual hiccups, where the screen just flashed and flickered in a most infuriating and epileptic-seizure-causing way - and of course I got sick. Despite being sick when I arrived in London, I managed to come down with yet another cold Sunday evening. Probably the result of the dorm/communal living situation. I admit, I looked on a bit smugly as one by one my friends here fell victim to colds and coughs but I felt safe and secure having already suffered just a few weeks before. I was wrong. I'm definitely getting better now, but the physical toll was pretty high. Finally, I know I've mentioned this before, but all the walking, as much as I enjoy it, has destroyed my feet. I limp a lot now, and of course it's nothing major, but I've managed to mangle my pinky toe which has the unfortunate tendancy to stiffen up and pain me if I sit still for too long and then try to walk. LA you made me soft! As usual, my response has been to ignore it and hope it just toughens up. This tactic has not worked yet, but no one can say I'm a quitter!

Other big news, Fall has arrived.

Picture caption, my street, I live, not in the building to the left in the picture, but I think one more building past it. Last week I was playing football in 80 degree sunshine, this week the temperature has dropped. But here in London, that just means that at times it is still sunny and warm, other times the wind picks up and drops the temps a good 10 degrees, and other times the clouds hide the sun and it mists, rains, or cools depending (as far as I can tell) on chance. This all happens in one day. I've heard it described time and time again, but the weather in London is not just unpredictable, but varies wildly each day. It's certainly bearable, and at times fun, hats! scarfs! hoodies! But I imagine I will find it getting old quite soon. Finally, as the temperature outside drops, the temps inside heat up. Literally. The shops, the tube, the buses are really really warm. This has the unfortunately effect of exacerbating the feeling of cold once you step back outside. I'm sure once it starts to get "really cold" I'll stop complaining about it though.

Picking up from where I ended last week, I finished my blogging and played football while fasting. I made it through an hour playing 7 on 7. We played shirts and skins. You can guess which team I was on :). You can also guess that I'm still the only girl. This was also the first time we played games straight through instead of 7 minutes and then rotating teams. We finally had enough people and the pitch was free so we had four teams rotating about every 20 minutes instead. This made it a lot more clear that I need to get into better running shape. I did not end up watching NFL that afternoon, although I did put on the website that updated the Saints' score every few seconds while I pondered which classes exactly I was planning to take, when and where they were, and what my schedule for the next day and week would be and whether or not I had any reading. This took hours. I finally settled on the three classes I had always planned to take, full units of International Business I, International Business II and Mergers and Acquisitions, Takeovers and Restructurings in Europe and the US. I also chose a half-unit e-commerce class for Lent Term, because it will fill my writing requirement, which left me with a choice of one half-unit open for this semester. I decided to shop around for this course. I spent some time chatting with my family and Kent and then walked down to Barclays to take out money. This is when I noticed all the cash machines outside Barclays were OUT OF CASH. How is that even possible?! Desperate, I noticed that although the bank was clearly closed, the doors were open for the construction crew that although not in evidence, was surely working on the bank. There were ATMs in the lobby. They appeared to have money. I walzed in and started my transaction. Mid-way through I was interrupted by a "Hey! The bank is closed!" I played the dumb American girl card. "Oh! I didn't realize! I just thought the door was open because all the cash machines outside are out of cash! Can I just finish my transaction and leave?" Permission granted I took my money and hurried out. I finished the evening watching Inception in the new downstairs common room. New, because apparently our building was bought by a Qatari group and they insisted the bar which formally occupied the common room space had to go. So now we have a shiny new room with a foosball table (!) a pool table, and a big screen TV. Unfortunately a few things were a little too new and shiny (or just not well thought through). For example, the lights won't turn off. Except by a motion activated/timer/sensor thing. There apparently is NOT a lightswitch. I can even see the designer selling this feature to the decision-maker. No light switches necessary! Motion sensor on a timer! You don't even have to lift a finger! Blinded by the prospect of such advanced technology the decision-maker leaves us with a theater that can only be viewed under flourescents. Problem 2 was the DVD player/TV connection which made the lighting in the movie all purple. So now you have an artificially darkened movie in an artificially brightened room. Not a good combination. I stayed anyways. I really wanted to watch a movie.

Monday, woke up with a fully realized hacking cough (it had started to develop Sunday night). It was going to be a warm day so I dressed in my Target sleeveless top, the one that zips up the side (this becomes important later) and a skirt. Valerie and I walked to the Natwest on Tottenham Court road for our bank accounts. With everything in order it still took about an hour for us to have the accounts opened. But opened they were! I have a bank account! It has money in it! I have no way to actually access this money though, because it is 7 to 10 business days before the card arrives. I understand the need for "security" but what could be more secure than handing me my bank card, in person, once you just spent an hour verifying my identity? With a couple of hours yet before class started I popped into an O2 shop to discuss phones and phone plans (for which I needed a debit card) and I spent some time in the sun in the park across the street from the New Building on campus where my first class was located. During the class, which I ultimately decided not to take, though the professor seemed interesting, I realized that my zipper had started to upzip itself from the bottom up. After class I made my fatal mistake. I went into the bathroom to fix this annoying zipper issue. I knew I wasn't going to be able to actually fix it. I knew messing with it was only going to end in tragedy. But once I started I literally couldn't stop myself. By the time I was done the zipper was completely destroyed and my shirt was open from armpit to waist. Complete wardrobe malfunction. Luckily I don't know that many people on campus yet. I hung my shoulder bag across my body, akwardly cradled it under my left arm to partially hide the gaping hole in the side of my shirt and walked across campus to the bookstore to buy an LSE hoodie. So that I could wear it in 80 degree heat. Not my finest moment. I retuned to the New Academic Building to see if I could find the room number for my next class, which was being held down the road at King's College of London. I rode up the elevator with an acquaintence who also had a question for the law department. The reception desk was unmanned. But there was a sign pointing us to two different offices if we had questions. I knocked on the first office door. "Come in" we entered. There were two women in the room of four cubicles. The first was to directly to my right. The second was directly in front of us, but at the back of the room with a cubicle wall between us. Neither looked up. No one said anything. We stood there. Silence. Finally I asked my question to the room at large "Oh, hi, um I need the room number for a class at King's College, it's not on the time sheet" No response. No one said anything. "Hello?" Finally, after a few excruciating minutes the woman at the end of the room looked up and was like "Oh, I was reading, to answer that question go talk to so-and-so down the hall" It was the oddest thing. She had told us to come in, then thoroughly ignored us, heard my question but decided not to answer it until she finished what she was reading! Luckily the next office was more responsive and I had a print out of exactly where to go for my next class. I walked home after class ended, glad for the hoodie now that the sun was setting and then once I got home devoted myself to catching up on US TV for the night.I also spent a few minutes on the phone with my mom, coordinating the "security code" Bank of America sent to her cell phone so that I could transfer a large amount of money at once to my Lloyd's account. Mission accomplished, I slept. Kind of. The cough made this more difficult.

Tuesday – woke up on the early side, marched to school, but was still just a few minutes late for my first class. Not as late as the like 6 other people who all not only showed up late, but tried to get into the classroom via the locked door, instead of the one that I had used across the room. I had two hours between classes, so I walked to the Lloyd’s branch down the street to see if they had ever received my debit cards. I was due to receive 3 cards, one for each currency account, but they handed me only the sterling card, and assured me that the information I had was outdated, I should only expect to receive one card, not three like I had been promised. Obviously they were wrong but I didn’t figure that out till much later in the day. No instead I strode off slightly satisfied that my mission had been at least a partial success. I still couldn’t use my card, since the PIN is sent separately and they were not sure which address it had gone to, but I had one. I had a card. I made it to my second class of the day with enough time to spare to use the restroom. The class was on the second floor. Which means third floor in England. Here, it goes, ground, first, second. Once I reached my classroom I noticed the sign that said there was no bathroom in that building due to construction I would have to go back down three flights of stairs and over to the next building to find a restroom. I trudged back down the stairs, over to the next building, took the elevator back up one floor, and followed the signs to the women’s bathroom. Which led me a dead end. I retraced my steps and seeing no women’s room, and running out of time and patience, I ran into the men’s room. Luckily it was empty, for just long enough for me to enter the stall. Then I had company. I waited until the coast was clear before darting back out of the men’s room. Whereupon I noticed the women’s room cleverly hidden in a corner behind a door. I made it to class on time, barely, and then met Valerie afterwards to fix our ability to log-on to LSE's Student Union website, which allows students to join "societies." I've already joined the Jewish and the Israel societies, but wouldn't mind seeking out a few more (there's a wine-tasting one!). My day at school was extended by a group meeting with my faculty advisor. Allegedly this was a group meeting because we "all have similar questions." Wrong. My questions don't sound anything like "If I'm taking x specific class, and y specific class, and z specific class should I take class A or B in addition?" But each person in the group had an opportunity to ask questions just like that while I tried not to roll my eyes too loudly. The night was spent relaxing and vegging out, watching British TV in the common room - the Body Farm to be exact - I may have mentioned this to some people before but I think forensic science is super cool and would totally recommend the book "Deaths Acres" to anyone. Maybe not kids. Everyone else though.  Then, as usual, I spent an hour of my night yelling at Lloyd's and Bank of America, who had managed to lose track of $10,000. One claimed the transfer was complete the other that they had never seen any money. It was, if you've been reading my blog lately, the way I've spent many of my nights here.

Wednesday was more of the same. I woke up just late enough that I was going to be late for a class I was shopping for, so I decided I must not really want to take that subject and spent the morning yelling at Lloyd's on the phone again. This went on for an hour, because of course, all the information that I was given when I picked up my one bank card was wrong. I did in fact, need two more bank cards to access my accounts. And although I have the pin numbers for the bank accounts for which I have not received my cards, the pin for the sterling account had not yet reached the Isle of Man though it had been ordered 10 days prior. And so on and so forth. The call ended on a happier note when she lied and told me that my card, pinless though it was, could be swiped and signed for like any credit card. This has yet to work. I keep trying though! The one piece of information she got right bless her heart, is that it would be enough for me to get a cell phone. So after my 2pm class on campus that's just what I did. It took near to an hour, they had to make copies of my school registration statement and passport, write down my bank account details, fingerprint me (just kidding) but I got a cell phone! This was thrilling. Having also recently received my student oyster (like a smarttrip) card in the mail I was able to purchase a deeply discounted monthly travel pass and hop the tube for Southfields. I was on my way to meet Ben from Gumtree.com for my surfboard! I got there early though, so I stopped by the local pub for a couple of quick drinks while the bartender made "surfing on the Thames" jokes. Finally, the time had come to pick up my surfboard. I went to the address. 44 xxxx Lane. It didn't really look like anyone was home, so I knocked quite authoritatively. After a moment I heard a few locks being undone and the door opened "Hi, is Ben home?" "No, I'm sorry, there isn't any Ben here, maybe he lives next door in 44A?" I apologized and let myself out of the tiny front yard. Not wanting to make the same mistake twice, and having in my possession a CELL PHONE, I called Ben, "Hi, Ben, do you live in 44A? Yes? Cause I think I'm outside." He was perfectly nice and normal, but when I mentioned that I had first gone to the wrong house he and his girlfriend both were like "yea that happens all the time, our friend came over to watch rugby and just walked right into their living room carrying a six-pack!" Haha. Maybe it's because you GIVE EVERYONE THE WRONG ADDRESS!? It would explain the extraordinary number of locks on her door. But look, look what I have now!

Worth it. Also worth the stares on the Tube, and the weird man who ran over to me while I was waiting for the bus yelling "IS THAT A SURFBOARD" and insisted on shaking my hand the entire time we were talking, while he made the "surfing on the Thames" joke and I called him out on being unoriginal. The rest of Wednesday night itself, after such an exhausting and exciting day, was spent quietly.

Thursday I don't have any classes this term, so I spent the day getting things done. What things? So many things. First of all I had to drop off my computer for repair. The LSE IT helpdesk had recommended a place on Tottenham Court road. I decided to walk since the days are still nice and, thinking of you, I decided to take pictures along the way. This is my walk to school (Tottenham Court Road is just a ten minute walk past it). The first super cool thing I see when walking to school is a full size replica of the Golden Hind

Sir Francis Drake's boat. This replica has been sailed around the world but is otherwise permanently docked here, alongside the Thames. Turn left and continue west along the Thames and you pass by

Which is all that is left of

Continuing along the same narrow cobblestoned streets you reach The Clink museum

super spooky music plays out of this doorway at all times. Even when it's not almost Halloween. Then you move out along the river bank and under the Southwark (pronounce Suh-thick) bridge, with this delightful art

with a poem celebrating the Thames in olde english. Back out along the river and you can't help but notice

the Shakespeare Globe Theatre. If you're me, you stop here to do Tashlisch and cast your sins like bread into the water. Where they are immediately eaten by a screaming pack of gulls. I think so long as there is fish in the water it counts though. Then you take a picture of this, the Millennium walking bridge

which I just found out was called the "wobbly bridge" when it first opened in early 2000 and they faced so much criticism over its stability they had to close the bridge for another two years and reinforce it. Frankly, with the wind blowing hard I can still feel it move under my feet, so I shudder to think what it felt like before reinforcements were brought in. The Bridge lands right at the base of the TATE modern on one end

and St. Paul's cathedral on the other

Once you turn and walk up Fleet street, right before LSE, you get to the Royal Courts of Justice. They are HUGE. Like can't even a little bit fit the building into one picture huge.

And that's it! LSE itself. Well part of it anyway.

Normally there isn't a car parked in the middle of the pedestrian parkway.

Anyways, that's how I spent my Thursday, I went walking took lot's of pictures, dropped of my laptop, and walked down Oxford Street, past Selfridges,

the single, largest department store I've ever seen (from the outside, not sure you could pay me to go in there) to Primark. The greatest store I've ever visited in my entire life. It's a crazy, insane SUPER cheap department store. Filled with people and cheap everything. I got pants, leggings, four pairs of flats, one really cute shirt in three different colors and a medium sized purse with a long across-the-body strap for half of my intended shopping budget. It was GLORIOUS. I have nowhere to put the shoes. I don't care. This was the line for the ladies' changing room though

on a Thursday around 2pm. The rest of the day is a blur. Of pure happiness. I believe I bought myself a book for class and spent time at the school library not finding the other books I needed for class, then met up with Valerie and we bought train tickets to Brussels! We are taking the Eurostar to Brussels on Nov. 11 (I think) for a weekend with the European Jewish something something organization for Young Jewish professionals and students in Europe. The group came highly recommended and I really wanted to see Belgium. And I love the train. So this is going to be great. Thursday night, I went out for a walk in the cold with two of my flatmates, Marissa and Sayd, we found a fantastic Moroccan restaurant with a split personality, we spent some quality time in the bakery portion with giant slices of cake and then full of sugar, retired.

My Friday was a big day of not accomplishing things. I tried to go train, but the dojo was closed (apparently had I waited longer I would have made it for the class), my laptop was not repaired, it was that sort of a day. But it was also Erev Yom Kippur. So I made myself a big afternoon meal, waved money over my head to dedicate it to charity and then spent a couple of good soul searching hours in shul. Saturday was the same. I woke up, made my way to shul, davened, repented, chatted with the Chabad Rabbi, listened to a Q&A with the Chief Rabbi Lord Saks of the Marble Arch synagogue and broke my fast on a delicious spread of salads, fruit and desserts. Saturday night was an adventure around town, first with my flatmates, Marissa had found an "alefest" at a bar in west london. We bussed and tubed our way there

Drank some ales, and then met up with some girls from the LLM program and bussed to another bar.

This bar, I have no idea what the name of it was, but it was amazing. Like lots of random 90s rap songs amazing. I was in love. I was also in four inch heels. I walked home on the wet pavement barefoot.

Sunday was magical. It was first of all, my hebrew birthday, and second of all, the day Marissa had booked the two of us for the Muggle tour.  That's right, a Harry Potter themed walking tour around London. It was fantastic. The girl leading the tour knew tons of information about the books, the author, the filming, the locations, etc. We also stopped by occasional points of general interest as well. Such as the Monument to the London Fire

And the house used as "12 Grimmauld place" in the movies!

Yes, I'm modeling HP glasses and yes, Marissa is wearing the sorting hat. We also passed by Trafalgar Square

Led by our fearless leader

afterward we got delicious authentic Italian pizza, authentic Italian waiters as well, which is to say, not super service minded. I decided on skipping football for the first time that afternoon, simply to allow my feet to heal a bit more before I go running around on them, instead I napped and blogged briefly, and then went and saw Harry Potter 7 in IMAX 3D on Britain's largest screen, which happens to be about one neighborhood over from where I live! It was as good as everyone said it would be, yes the IMAX did make a huge difference. Also, they plan to start showing the Lion King movie in 3D there this month. I will be there.








Now then, it's late, and I'm tired and if you've read this far, you're tired as well. Until I learn a method of self-editing/censoring these blog posts are just going to be extremely long. Read as much or as little as you like! 

Much love,