1 month ago...

...we were all arriving here, sitting (sleeping) through orientation sessions, and trying to acclimate ourselves as quickly as possible to our new home in London.  I can't believe it's been a whole month already, time has flown by and yet at the same time it feels like so much has happened that I can hardly fathom how much I've done and seen and experienced.

This weekend has been blissfully low-key for me.  My flatmates Kelly, Joanie, and Ellen were all traveling for the weekend, so Nicolle and I were alone in the flat.  Friday night after I blogged was a great evening of watching "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" with a group of friends...I had never seen it and it was so funny!  We also discovered Cadbury Cake Bites...which are sinfully delicious in every way.  Early bed for me, as I was still exhausted from the long Thursday night I had :)

Saturday consisted of a program outing to see a rugby game!  About 35 of the people who hadn't traveled this weekend took the Tube with our awesome program supervisor, Ric, to Kew Gardens for the match.  Kew is a really charming suburban-ish village on the outskirts of London...very picturesque with brick streets, lots of red-brick houses, and tons of trees, flowers, and open green space.  What a nice change from the cityscape of London!  The match was between the London Welsh Dragons and the Bedford Blues, and was comparable to attending a Saint Paul Saints baseball game...minor-league but with a super fun and energetic dynamic.  The very few girls in the group definitely enjoyed the rugby players' buff physiques and the short shorts they all sported, and I was shocked to see how violent a sport rugby is...they wear no padding and it is intense!  We were rooting for the Welsh, the hometown team, and they took an early lead to dominate the Blues 26-13.  What a fun game!

Nicolle and I deep-cleaned our flat after the match (it needed it BADLY) and decided to cook an Indian dinner to celebrate our newly-tidy living space!  Isaac, Kayla, Anne, Tanya and her friend Kayla, and Jonathan all came over for the peanut chicken dish I had made a few weeks ago with Coleen.  It was a hit once again...I felt so accomplished actually cooking something successfully!

We then cleaned up and headed to Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, one of the oldest pubs in London.  The signs outside brag that the pub hasn't been structurally changed since 1667, which is just insane to think about...I was drinking in a pub that was older than my COUNTRY.  Mark Twain, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Charles Dickens were all regular customers at this place in their time; it was such a rush to sit at the tables and wonder what famous piece of literature may have been dreamed up in that nook.  We had a wonderful time and "drank like the locals..." nursed a few pints and enjoyed the company and society!  It was another early night for me, as I wasn't feeling super (I now have an absolutely raging cold).

Today was a very quiet Valentine's Day!  Nicolle and I spent the morning relaxing around the flat and then met up with three other girls to go on an epic quest for Ben's Cookies, a famous bakery in Covent Garden.  We knew vaguely where we were going, and met up with an adorable French couple spending their Valentine weekend in London...I was able to give them directions and converse on the way.  I love being able to use French more over here!  So exciting!  We got a bit turned around and ended up wandering for a bit before we finally found the Market.  After waiting about 15 minutes in line, we were able to purchase our cookies, and OH MY GOD, they were phenomenal.  If you are reading this and have any plans to visit London anytime in the future, make Ben's Cookies a stop on your trip.  I had one lemon and one white-chocolate-macadamia-nut, and they were SO yummy.  The only better cookies I've ever had in my life were The Isles Bakery's in Uptown Minneapolis.

We headed home, cooked some dinner and did some homework, and are now just relaxing; Joanie and Kelly just got home and we're watchin' some Olympic luge!  It's really nice to be settled in and comfortable with just relaxing, especially considering just a month ago we were stumbling around the flats gawking at maps and trying to get comfortable, period.  I love it!  :)

Ciao for now, everybody!  <3 Liz