This post is a bit late so I apologize for that and promise to do a second update later today or tomorrow to catch up with the rest.
The week prior to going home was a haze of running around trying to finish my projects up and get them turned in, which explains why I started packing to come home an hour before I had to walk out of the house on Wednesday.
A few weeks ago it was the 60th birthday of Clyde, one of our regulars at the pub. So I headed down after class to have a birthday drink with him. It's a good group of locals that we have and keeps the place fun and exciting, especially when they're trying to get Clyde to dance on the bar to Johnny Cash.
Friday before leaving Andrew and I walked down to Covent Gardens to see the small Christmas market they had there and grab a drink before I had to head to work. There is a small Cornish pub that is on the second floor of one of the porticos with outside balcony space so we sat up there and watched all the passerby's from a distance. It was surprisingly not as cold as you would expect sitting outside. Then it was time for me to head off to work. Not an overly exciting evening at work, crowded but fairly low-key.
Saturday night I finally got together with my uni friends from the Welcome Program. I haven't seen most of them in a few weeks because we have all been so busy and we're spread throughout the city. Besides them we were joined by Andrew and my friend Jemma from work who quickly bonded over their geographical location (Andrew is an aussie and Jemma's a kiwi). We all went in to Leicester Square, one of the main club areas downtown, to Zoo Bar, which we managed to walk right past while we were trying to find it and ended up circling all the way around the square to get back to it. All my fault, of course, cause I was sure I knew where I was going....yea, that's how it normally goes with me.
Sunday was a day full of work at the pub, where I got to stuff my face with a nice lamb Sunday roast, so yummy and it makes you so sleepy.
Monday was a day full of course work, just trying to get as much done as possible, and then a bit of relaxing going down to Westfield Mall with Andrew and then wandering down to Oxford Street to see all of the pretty Christmas lights, we didn't stay there too long because it was cold and that area gets very crowded especially now during the Christmas season.
Tuesday I dropped off one of my prints for uni to be mounted and then after doing more course work (see the trend, course work, course work and more course work) Andrew and I headed over to Embankment to see another Christmas market that was going on along the river just down the street from where I used to live last time I was in London. Since we were done there earlier then we expected we had time to go grab dinner before I had to go to work. And I was excited to get in to work because Rod was working with me Tuesday night and he and Liv had just gotten back from their week vacation in Egypt, so jealous. So I got to hear all about their trip and be jealous of Liv's tan. I think Egypt is starting to sound like a very nice idea.
Wednesday was an early morning, as they all have been recently. I grabbed my mounted print from the printer, headed up to campus loaded down with my workbooks, images and other things I had to turn in. I hung up my image and then proceeded to try and find out where the workbooks were supposed to go. Luckily I ran into my friend Petter while I was frantically searching and he agreed to find out where they go and drop mine off with his since I had an hour and a half during which I had to get home, pack, try and shower and get out of the door to my bus. I gratefully agreed and hurried for home.
I actually managed to pack incredibly quickly and way too much, no surprise there. I had checked in to my flight when I first got up and happily discovered that I had been upgraded on my flight to second class (British Airways has 4 different classes, World Traveler being the normal on that people get, World Traveler Plus, the special one I got). I made it to the airport in more then enough time, much of a surprise there as I normally get there with only minutes to spare. There were huge queues to get through security so I was glad to be in so early. I killed some time wandering through duty free before getting onto the bus (this is how big the new British Airways Terminal 5 is, it has 3 different sections A,B and C which seem like separate terminals on their own and they also bus people to some of the planes). So the bus took us down the road a bit and onto the tarmac where we got to climb the stairs into the plane.
World Traveler Plus doesn't look like it's that different from the normal seats, it's just a few inches of difference but it felt so nice. I didn't feel squished at all. So I spent the whole flight watching movies (Ghost Town and Hancock), plus some tv and playing a bit of games on the tv. Getting off the plane was quick, getting through the border went fast as well, waiting for bags and getting through customs took quiet a while, it's always that last little bit of the journey when you're almost done that seems to take the longest, just to torment you a little bit. I finally made it through to get to Mom and Dad on the other side where they had a calzone and a sunkist (which you can't get in London) waiting for me, a very nice welcome back to the states.
The next post will follow the holiday home and New Years Eve, wait in anticipation until it comes along.
