Soggy soggy London...

This is a picture of my Nana (mom's mom) from 1978 when my grandparents came over to visit my parents in England. (Nana rocked!) I just really liked it and was thinking about this picture last night as I was in London so I thought I would post it. My parents lived in England from 1976-1979 and that's how I got to be a British citizen. Thanks for that Mom and Dad, who knew it would come in so handy all these years later!

Anyway, last night I met my roommate, Anna, out in London for some happy hour drinks. I took the tube from my town of Chesham and even figured out how to get myself a debit pass. Ha! Not a tourist anymore!

I found her in a crowded after work bar and gulped a pint of delicious cider. That stuff could prove to be quite dangerous as it pretty much is like drinking a giant glass of apple juice but has quite different effects! Then, we headed off to another place that was a riverboat right on the Thames River. This was very very surreal since it was right by the bridge that is always shown in the movie Bridget Jones- which I have seen about 1 million times. So the bridge view was behind us, across was the giant Ferris wheel called the "London Eye" and to our right was Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, all lit up for the night. I am still having trouble believing that I was actually just "in London" last night. So weird.

We had dinner in Chinatown which was much more mellow than New York or San Francisco. Maybe it would be different during the day- I was hoping to get a fake Coach bag like when I went to NYC the last time, but alas, only delicious Chinese food! My dad would have been excited because they had a million duck dishes on the menu. By this time, it was close to 11 and the last train back to Chesham is at 11:30 so we had to get back to the tube. I don't know why I am having such a hard time grasping that I am in England. But, I am, and so when I was at the Piccadilly Circus tube stop, it just seemed so bizarre.

As I was walking up to school today to get some documents off the server (this is a story for another time- I cannot handle thinking about teaching Chemistry today) I was just really happy to be here. So far (I know I haven't started work yet) it has been so great that I really feel that coming here was a good decision. We'll see how I feel about two weeks into my chemistry unit where I don't know anything about the different types of reactions that create different types of lime.

Anyway, I now have the first place I am taking visitors (the riverboat) because it was just so cool. So, come on over!