been here two months

I got my camera fixed!

Nothing new to report really. Working hard. Doing not much. Attended church at the Methodist Chamber Hall. The acoustics were wonderful, I would attend just for that, but to be honest the choir wasn't as vibrant as it is at home and really, attending church here just isn't the same as going at home. I suspect because it isn't family.

from some bloke in Camden Town.

I saw a man with a pipe today. Smoking his pipe, while walking down the road!

Anyway, no more snow these days, although there was hail yesterday which really put a damper on my plans to visit the zoo. So my friends and I went around Camden Market instead. It was built in some former stables though, that was quite cool. I had fun, anyway. We also, because it was pouring out, went into this pub that I'd known through my stupid knowledge of indie/britpop lore and it was hilarious, how you walk in and think 'oh, these are the toilets where [insert britpop star here] did blow off the seat and that how _____ song was written.' And you expect, with such infamous clientele, for the place to be really classy and posh but it looked like, as one of my friends said, the inside of a barn. Again, a load of fun to be in, really. It's the company you're with, isn't it? Nothing to do with where you really are.

Camden Town is so funny, anyway. It reminds me a lot of Haight Street in San Francisco, but more stylish.

his accent sounded fine to me

H from Canada and I went to Oxford yesterday. The second time I've been, but this time it wasn't raining! We did much of the same things that I did last time I went which was wander around Christ Church being alternately impressed by the architecture and amused by how obviously Hogwarts was designed after the school, and then eat food. And go shopping. H, who leaves in about a month, has been looking for a dress and I keep ending up in all these crazy boutiques I would never end up in other wise. They're fun though.




That is. . .possibly Christ Church. I'm not sure.



I'm not sure if the two of them were buried there or if that was just a plaque hailing their general awesomeness. They had one for WH Auden and John Locke (!) as well.



This is in no way me declaring my support, just H and I had gotten wretchedly lost in the streets surrounding the university and we walked past that window and started laughing. All the way in Oxford! We couldn't decide if an American lived there or if someone was too involved in international politics. It was certainly an unexpected sight - I, obviously, haven't seen any campaign posters since I'd gotten here and I sometimes forget how mad it has gotten in the US.

hallelujah

winter fixing


Last post for today. . .found this great old video on my phone of my dad replacing his car battery at St. Patrick's seminary after my mom's concert. It was late and all the bells were going off, you can hear them in their awesome untuned glory. If you ever want to understand Christmas for me, it's St Patrick's seminary at night in December, at a PWC concert. That parking lot has always been more Christmas than a Christmas tree for me.

snow video!

snow in london


took it on my cameraphone, before flag I think. you can hear all the brownies screaming and laughing, they hit me in the chest with a snowball right after flag ceremony.

more snow!

It snowed again, a couple of days ago. Hardcore snow, it stayed around all day and melted later in the afternoon, though there were still patches and the snowmen on front remained unmelted even until today. When I woke up this morning actually, it had snowed again. Light snow, but still sort of a shock to see first thing in the morning. It was very cold today!

but california loves!

Today M from Germany and I conned everyone into watching Finding Nemo with us. We'd had a really long, busy weekend and it was nice to unwind with one of my favorite movies. We managed to get nearly all of the volunteers in to watch with us, and some of the career staff as well. It was one of those weird, growing-up moments when I realised that my definition of home has changed and so has my definition of family; that it's no longer just whom I are related to and where I grew up.

We ate popcorn and chocolate and jelly beans that my mother sent me!

i'm not there, roll credits

According to the Science Museum I wandered through today space is closer than California. I find this unsettling.

sunshinin'

I'm not complainin' that it's rainin' I'm just saying that I'd like it alot more than you'd think if the sun came out and sang with me.

all I want for Christmas is a Tyrannosaurus Rex

Natural History museums rule. As a general law of tourism, you can never go wrong with a Natural History museum. All good natural history museums have dinosaur skeletons, cases of stuffed animals, a scale model of a blue whale, and excited small children running underfoot. The London Natural History museum has all that and a scale model of a tyrannosaurus rex that made noises and moved it's head in a vaguely threatening manner. London's Natural History museum was plus one excited teenager running about underfoot. I may have taken a couple of videos on my cell phone, I was that excited.

And on top of that, they had an incredible exhibition of Shell's Wildlife Photography that I spent well over an hour in. You can see some of the photos online here. I suggest you check it out if you are interested in nature photography! It all made me itch for an slr.

it's gonna be a glorious day

I really must apologise for the sporadic updates. My internet here is not very stable and often goes out for two or four days at a time. Also, the battery on my camera has given out, so I am currently camera-less.

The last week or so has been absolutely packed for me! I have been working very hard (we've got a full house right now, and it's really just going to remain quite busy for us - good, because it keeps us busy, bad because the stress level has skyrocketed ) and I have been having a lot of fun. Even when I've worked seven hour shift from seven in the morning, I've been doing my best to remain positive and keep smiling.

But onto some of my small adventures! My friend Nell came and stayed with me for two days on my last break. We saw one of her favorite musicians, a man by the name of Buck 65. He is a great performer and if you ever get a chance to see him, do; while I am the first to admit my knowledge of his music is quite limited, I always, always enjoys his performances. The next day, we wandered around London a bit, bouncing between coffee shops & vegetarian restaurants as it was raining (what else is new?). There's a lovely one in Covent Garden that she took me to last summer and that we visited this time around called Food for Thought. It's a cute restaurant with such a nice atmosphere - very cheerful and properly crammed into a basement. We ended up meeting a man from the Buck gig from the night before, and there were cheerful declarations of love for the performer all around. The food was delicious as well. I think I had a pepper and broccoli quiche? I have been eating food here that I have never before eaten in my life. I am also getting quite into green tea.

Then I worked four days (I work on a two day off, four day on rota) and kept busy. Right now we have no chef as he is on break, so meal times are a bit scary. I trained one of our new volunteers this morning for early shift which was also a bit nerve-wracking, as I was sure I was forgetting something or teaching her wrong. The thing about Pax Lodge is that you are really just thrown straight into your duties. So you must learn quick and be prepared to own your mistakes (of which you will make many) and just never give up. I enjoy working this hard though, because I do feel that I earn every day off and every thing I am given here

And this evening, I "dragged" (actually I ran downstairs to tell her the moment I found out I won tickets to which she shrieked with me, right in reception) our office assistant to see Radiohead with me. Last time I saw Radiohead, I paid an extraordinary amount of money to a scalper to see them in an 8,000 person venue. Tonight, I had asked the Radiohead fanclub very politely for tickets and got to see them in BBC's broadcasting house for free, in a venue for about 300 people that was broadcast live. It was brilliant. They are a brilliant band, certainly a band that any rock junkie must see before they die. And I was especially pleased because we were sitting in the front row on the balcony and could see everything.

Lately, I have also been to the National Portrait Gallery, which I completely recommend, it was so much fun to see all these people I had only read about in books, or read the books of. Tomorrow I am going to the Natural History Museum and I hope they have dinosaurs.