Happy Independence Day! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUdB8gCMcXI#t=57) Interesting here in London – just another day gone by – the 4th of July could be like any other day – like the 3rd of March or something. But anyways, today.
mall - and this is not even the tall section!
Tower Bridge out of Lego!
Wouldn't want these in my bathtub!
As Americans, Roehampton kindly gave us the day off. In the morning we did some shopping at Westfield Mall (Sophia, Brendan, Adam, Alexis and I – the scarred for life people who watched “Hunger” coincidentally or not). The bus ride there and back took a long time – over an hour there, almost an hour back – there was a lot of construction and some car crashes we passed by. The tube might have been faster, but it was alright in the end. The mall was HUGE! Doesn’t even compare to Ithaca, and much bigger than Puente Hills or Brea Mall. It was arranged in basically a double square formation (like the number 8 on a digital clock) – and most of it was 2 stories, the second story was over 20 feet tall, allowing for areas to go to 4 levels (or here it’d be ground, 1,2,3 floors). And the ceiling was mostly glass, allowing a lot of natural light in – it was beautifully constructed. And so many stores! I went into the lego store for a while, saw a Dalek bathtub toy in a toy store, and walked by so many more shops. I got a Starbucks muffin take away (instead of take out) because I didn’t eat breakfast. I went to a couple of bookstores (they have more than 1 there!) and found some Christopher Awdry Railway Series books (very rare to find in America! Even Amazon isn’t selling the collection anymore…so I’m buying them 1 by 1) – and bought a couple of those. Thomas is British after all!
Grilling time!
Eating time!
When we came back, the Roehampton team had coordinated a barbeque for us Americans! I think it may have been planned by the marketing side, but the academic people came and spent some time with us as well – thanks to Talah and Emma for doing a lot of the set up and cooking! It was pretty American, and it was interesting to talk with the academics and some Roehampton students about Independence Day, how it’s celebrated in America, treatment of the US flag, some of our patriotic things, and catching them up with what we’ve done over the weekend. There was so much food! Hamburgers (small but thick patties, and some nice artisan buns), mustard and ketchup (and BBQ ketchup), pringles, doritos, sausages, grilled chicken, and lamb kebabs (which while not part of my usual 4th of July food was very very good!). And salad (with rocket! I love it! I think it’s arugula in the US…at least I think it was the rocket. A bit of a nutty flavour. It was good. Had it the second night too in my salad). And strawberries. And chocolate cream Oreo’s! Which were a lot of fun introducing those biscuits to Stephen. And Emma’s cookies which were delicious! And there were Roehampton people in the background playing rugby. Not American football...but close enough I guess!
I took a much needed hour or so nap this afternoon (I don’t see how some people can go with so little sleep! I’ve been getting 6 and I’m going crazy!), and did my reading on globalization for tomorrow. Emma brought us our dinner – packed sandwiches. Adam gave me the excited tuna call! We favour the tuna sandwiches out of the 3 types – those, ham and cheese, and cheese and tomato because they usually put in a good amount of tuna…and it just tastes better than the others. And there’s usually enough people who don’t like tuna to leave them for us. Though with all the packed sandwiches, we’ve got a good stockpile up in our fridge. I think if we went through, we’d have a good amount of chips and water too. In case of emergency, of course. We went to a Putney bar (sports bar - saw an American game of baseball - not cricket- Cubs vs Nationals) tonight with some Roehampton students/workers (like work study I think – they study here, but we’ve only interacted with them when they’re working). It was…interesting. Big steps for me tonight I guess. And I witnessed some other aspects of British drinking culture. And interesting night overall. I can definitely vouch for Adam’s RA skills though. But we all made it back safely, and I should be ready to go for tomorrow’s class!
I took a much needed hour or so nap this afternoon (I don’t see how some people can go with so little sleep! I’ve been getting 6 and I’m going crazy!), and did my reading on globalization for tomorrow. Emma brought us our dinner – packed sandwiches. Adam gave me the excited tuna call! We favour the tuna sandwiches out of the 3 types – those, ham and cheese, and cheese and tomato because they usually put in a good amount of tuna…and it just tastes better than the others. And there’s usually enough people who don’t like tuna to leave them for us. Though with all the packed sandwiches, we’ve got a good stockpile up in our fridge. I think if we went through, we’d have a good amount of chips and water too. In case of emergency, of course. We went to a Putney bar (sports bar - saw an American game of baseball - not cricket- Cubs vs Nationals) tonight with some Roehampton students/workers (like work study I think – they study here, but we’ve only interacted with them when they’re working). It was…interesting. Big steps for me tonight I guess. And I witnessed some other aspects of British drinking culture. And interesting night overall. I can definitely vouch for Adam’s RA skills though. But we all made it back safely, and I should be ready to go for tomorrow’s class!
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