Group Shot!

This is our lovely group outside the Serpentine Gallery in Hyde Park. 

In case you need to know which one is me, I'm the cutest one.

The two girls on my right in 

the picture are my roommates, JQ and Nandi (not their 100% real names, only 75% real.)

This is a bunch, but not all of the girls in the group. This was the first night I believe. --->

<----This is us last night on the way to a club.

Danced for about 3 hours straight. You should

see my feet, never going to wear heels out again, EVER.

Romanian Invasion

Today was pretty standard, however last night's pub visit yielded great rewards.

On our way back to the flat from The Lamb, which coincidentally has terrific house ale, I saw the word Romania. My dearest roommate from school, Baby Alien (her real name), is a quarter Romanian and she has attempted to teach me Romanian phrases. Unfortunatly the only thing that has caught on is a love of Romanian food, thanks to her grandmother's fantabulous cooking. 

JQ and I noticed that the store was a charity store to benefit Romania. There was also a sign saying they needed volunteers.

So after class this afternoon, we stopped by the store. 

The two ladies who run it were SO excited to see us and hear of our interest in helping them out. 

We have decided to come by once a week after class. We need a letter of recommendation, which we found a bit suprising, but we do look like degenrates so I can't blame them. 

When we had left our contact information and confirmed our first day next week, we looked around the shop. They had a great random selection of fabulous clothes, shoes, and random items.

Pink Suitcases- Never Buy One

Just to clear up a little misunderstanding.... The picture labeled "Rando Apartment" or whatever, that is not where I am staying. That would be insane, not exactly what I call roughing it. For those people out there that are not as in tune with Leah-Lingo (actual term) RANDO=RANDOM. 

ANYWAY- JQ and I went to the Sainbury's yesterday. Sainsbury's is one of the chain grocery stores here in London. It is expensive, not that that should surprise anyone. We decided to stock up to the maximum SOO we bought my HUGE bright pink suitcase.

The history behind this suitcase starts with my dearest Mum (I'm soooooooo English). Once I tell my mom I like a shirt, she assumes this rings true for the next 20 years. Example: I saw a XOXO shirt and said "O, it's XOXO. Cool." Because I was young and thought having an ugly shirt with a somewhat known brand name made it cool. I have since learned the greatness of clearance at high class stores such as Target. ANYWAY- about 4 years later my mom was creating a keychain for me with words, and she told me to get a XOXO charm (as in Hugs and Kisses) because I loved the clothing brand so much... Ummmm, What? Absolutely absurd.

This carries into all aspects of my life: Crushes, Shoes, Candy. But at least she cares to know.

So one day I come home and there is this bright pink suitcase because everyone knows pink is my favorite color/colour. There were three suitcases, all bright pink... Why would anyone want to affirm that they still like Barbies, experimenting with blue eyeshadow, and writing Leah (insert crushes name here)? . That is exactly what a bright pink suitcase says to the wider universe. Of course this MAY be true about me, but I do not want the world to know what I may or may not do with my spare time.

So just imagine two girls walking through central London with a suitcase that maturity wise makes us appear to be about 8.5 years old. We arrive at Sainsbury's with this abomination. We grab two carts, or rather trolleys as we were told by the security guard watching us with an amused expression, and began our shopping adventure. You must realize that these trolleys are about 1/4 of the size of American grocery store carts, so within about 5 minutes we had filled it to the max. Our security walked upon us about 20 minutes, watched for about 10 seconds and asked "Are you guys still here?" We nodded the affirmative, looking around to see if we were being judged. Fortunately the British are grand at hiding their disgust. 

Finally 40 minutes later we go in the line, wait 15 minutes and reach the register. The woman behind the counter looked absolutely horrified to find not one, but two fully loaded trolleys. 

Once we were finished, 10 minutes later, we moved to the side and began the packing of the REALLY COOL pink suitcase. By this time no one could ignore the "fat Americans" giggling with amusement and mortification, and we were being stared at by the entire line/queue. Amusement and borderline disgust was the general emotion that was to be felt. After 5 minutes we were done, the bag weighed easily 80 lbs. 

We had to walk 5, 7, or about 20 blocks back to the apartment. It was very, VERY long but we had a delicious feast of frozen pizza, chocolate bars, and orange Fanta.

Signing off....

Leahmon

Coconut Juice

I went to Carnival in London this fine day.
It was amazing, slightly terrifying. I have never seen so many people in one place, it was like St. Louis' whole population times 20 billion. (You will soon notice that hyperbole is my best friend, if you actually read this- I'm talking to you mom.)
ANYWHO- I was surprised to see so many black people, although they are technically Afro-Caribbean. It was cool and everyone was just so excited to dance without worrying about judgement, which I feel is truly the only way to dance correctly.
I went with my other classmate, JQ, and my professor MAC.
I tasted some goat curry, a bite actually.... it was spicy and tasted like hard cat hair, but yes I would eat again. Never say no to curry --> that's actually in the Bible.
JQ got a coconut. If you didn't know coconuts cure hangovers, have the same amount of something thats good for you as blood, AND make you strong like a lion. (see the pictures)
It tasted like water with chalk dust flavored as non-sweetened coconut, if that makes sense. It doesn't.
We left at 5:30.... and we walked for TWO hours to get back, we thought it was only like an hour. Obviously we were wrong. It wasn't too bad because we walked by Hyde Park, which is insanely unreal, and we saw a lot of cool architecture. (pichas again).
Today, or rather yesterday, was fantastic.... only the 4th or 5th or 3rd day....
Thanks to Rongu.... for being the only person to read this and for encouraging me to share my insanity with the "world".
Signing off..... LeahMon