Pizza or Pancake??

Hawaiian Pancake from "My Old Dutch
Pancake House" on High Holborn

There is this place called "My Old Dutch Pancake House" that I went to for dinner with a group of classmates. I was super excited for a big stack of pancakes with fruit and syrup. We walked into the little diner and I begin scoping out people's plates. First off, the plates were massive, second they all looked like pizzas. I wondered if this was one of those things lost in translation...pizza vs pancake? I was up for anything! We look at the menu and I was still confused. There were all sorts of crazy toppings, then to make it even more confusing there was a section that sounded like traditional pancake stacks with the fruit and such that I was used to. I decided to just ask the British student sitting next to me...he assured me it was a pancake that I was used to but they were more savoury. So I decided to try my version of pizza on a pancake. I got Hawaiian!! It was massive but the "pancake crust" was more of crepe-pretty thin. I actually ate most of it in one sitting. Some of the other popular flavours ordered were curry and lamb stew. I tasted both of them and they were both delicious!

After that delicious new experience, I went home to get ready for my first official night out. I was going to a Ball! I had gone shopping and found a fabulous dress and awesome tights. The theme was circus chic, I had bought a mask to wear but didn't end up wearing it...I was going for peacock if anyone asked but truly didn't care. It was at this classy, uppity-up club called Koko. I went with a girl in my class named Akari.

Once we arrived, we scoped out the place. There was free face-painting and I preferred that over my mask, so before the line got too long, we jumped in. I asked the lady to go with the peacock theme and she did a wonderful job. There was loud music, lots of people drinking, and honestly it was nowhere I'd ever choose to hang out for long periods of time. Akari wanted to get a drink, so I told her I'd wait on the balcony. I met a couple of people and we ended up just chatting-away from some of the smokers-for a good 45 minutes. So that was fun!!






It was about 12:15am at that point and I had about all I could take in this scene. I told Akari, I was good to leave whenever she was. The last bus was supposed to be around 12:30am....but it never came. We walked back to the club and asked which routes the Night Bus (Harry Potter fans...HP rode a night bus...) ran and could get us back towards our home. They gave us a few options. We got a little lost but eventually found a stop with one of the route numbers and we waited. It was getting pretty chilly by 1am!  We only had one awkward encounter with some guys hitting on  us. And they were super drunk-I think they just wanted money. The bus finally came and we asked which stop would get us closest to where we needed to be...and it wasn't quite as close as I hoped. So I just kept watching the surroundings and hoping we were actually closer than we thought and guess what! We were!! I'm glad I had walked everywhere previously, or else I may not have recognised where we were. I yelled to stop the bus and we made our way home. It was the quietest I had seen the streets of London. It was actually very nice. If we weren't two girls alone, I might have doddled a little more to enjoy it. Even though the club wasn't my scene, and we got totally lost, the night was quite enjoyable. One I won't forget for quite some time :)




For the next few days, I've started to get a routine going.  I love the pastries..I eat croissants & english scones almost every day!! haha They are just so delicious-I can't pass them up! For actual meals, as you saw in the last post, I made stir fry. That is one that I make, I also make curry. Curry is the national dish of England, most people think Fish'n'Chips but it is curry. And I make it once or twice a week (at least I have for the first 3 weeks).

My first week of actual classes was intriguing and I'm pretty excited to get started and really get into everything. There is going to be a lot of reading, so I need to get a good schedule down. We don't have finals right at the end of a term, they are all done during summer term for all classes taken during the year, so that's a little scary. I am ready for the challenge! Here's to Michaelmas (Fall) Term!!  

Thank you to everyone who sends your support and encouragement to me, you have no idea how much it helps and how much it means to me. Love you all and you'll hear from me soon :) 

Have a Happy Thanksgiving--even though I have a post where I'll talk about this....it'll just be in a few days haha

First Day of School...Graduate School

Okay-I know I'm so very far behind schedule but I'm going to do a bunch of posts over the next couple weeks to get caught up for you :)

If anyone has told you that the pubs are the best places to eat, they were right!! I was wandering around and smelled delicious Italian food. I couldn't say no to Italian food, it is one of my favourites. It wasn't a pub and the prices weren't too bad. Still a little steep...but I couldn't resist that smell...I was seated with a window table and I watched the Londoner's running about with their umbrellas. I ordered some cheese bread and a pasta that I had no idea what it was and waited. I people watched and listened, because the accents are wonderful!! The food came out and smelled delicious. The cheese bread was actually really good..my pasta sub-par. Not worth even half of what I paid for it. I learned my lesson within that first week...truly-just eat at the pubs or cook for yourself.

I had a week of orientation where I learned about my programme, my school, how to register, etc. I wandered and got used to campus and tried to meet some of my classmates as well.

First Day of Grad School at the London School
of Economics and Political Science!!

In America, we register for classes well in advance of school starting. Well, here, I didn't register until the Friday of Orientation week. It was a bit stressful for me! It seemed inefficient and just strange. But this school is very successful so I figure there has to be some method to their madness. I spent a lot of time on my computer researching classes and timetables that week. The other crazy thing is that you have to register for spring term right now as well!!! What?!? Too many decisions. But alas...I struggled through and made it.

I'm smiling...but I'm super tired and stressed about
 my schedule working out. 

What my desk looked like as I wrote out multiple
schedule options. Plus my "envelope"
travel pillow sits in the corner of my desk always!!
(Pillow-thanks to Franchesca/Logan, Kendall, Zach, and Nat)

I cook stir fry often...it is easy and makes enough for 2-3 meals!

 On one of my breaks from school and school scheduling, I was walking through Covent Garden to my grocery store, and there were all of these statues set up. If you have little children, you probably know of the show, "Shaun the Sheep". There were probably 20 different versions of him. Most of them seemed to represent a country but some were just different themes. This goes to show you'll never be bored in London-just go walk around and I'm sure you'll run into something!!

A little about Shopping in London:

As you saw from my first post, there isn't much to my flat! I needed to add some color. There is a store called Argos, that I did some shopping from. Now let me tell you a little bit about Argos, well London shopping in general...most places are speciality stores. They do have Wal-Mart but it is a ways away and there aren't even a handful around London; so we don't get to do much "one-stop-shopping".

I was told to go to Argos, it was going to have as much stuff as possible that I needed. I walked up to the store and looked in and there were a bunch of computers/ipads set up-it looked like a low-grade Apple store. I was super confused. So I looked up a different location and walked there instead...but I saw the same thing. I was getting a little frustrated because I didn't see my bath towels and kitchen appliances anywhere. I looked around for a moment and saw a catalogue with all the supplies. I decided to just go in. This is what happens: you find what you want on the computer and "order it". If they have it in stock: a worker collects your items, you pay for it and pick it up right then. If it isn't: they'll have ordered in for you within a day or two and then you come pick it up and pay for it then. You can also do this same process from home. It all made so much more sense. They also can deliver for you. So I ordered the teal bathmat and towels you see in the picture below from there along with some other household supplies. 

And finally, this is what my flat looks like when the dryer doesn't work!! First off, it is a ridiculous amount to wash and dry your clothing here anyway...and then the dryer didn't work-so my very small flat was covered in my clothing for two days while they dried!!

 I don't want every post to get super long, so I'm going to try to do one every couple of days for the next little while to get you all caught up!! Then my goal is one post every other week...we'll see how that goes :) I love you all!!