Scrum!

First off, Tesco sells delicious apple-filled donuts for 12 pence.

This weekend was filled with time zones and mash and men smashing into each other without proper padding. We started the weekend off right with Friday night cleaning/laundry, yeah! We vacuumed our pants off -- I know, crazy, right? The next day Elizabeth, Allison, and I went to Greenwich, which is quite possibly my favorite place I've visited so far. We walked up to the Royal Observatory, which allows you a great view of London. Greenwich is also where the prime meridian line is, so you can be in two different time zones at one time! And take pictures! We also walked Greenwich Park, a beautiful place with loads of dogs (I will get to English people and their dogs, later -- oh, believe me, I will), and anicent Roman ruins! Actually, there was no ancient Roman ruins, the signs just lied to us so that we would walk this weird path. It took us to an ancient Roman fence leading to ye olde highway. After that we took a boat ride on the Thames from Greenwich to Westminster, which was beautiful. All in all, good times on Saturday.

The next day we got up early to make breakfast before going to a rugby match. First, though, we needed to get those Portuguese custard things for our roomates, who were making traditional Sunday dinner English roast. After a mad 25 minute trek, we finally got to a Portuguese bakery, selling lots of yummies. Oh man, can those Polish people bake some mean Portuguese baked goods! It felt like I was in the Azores as Elizabeth spoke Portuguese to a Polish woman who knew no Portuguese whatsoever! The custard things were good, though. Don't think I didn't greedily dig in after that 25 minute walk.

Important fact #2: Tesco doesn't open until noon on Sundays. Silly Europeans. That meant we couldn't cook breakfast, so it was to our safe haven of Cafe Diana. Cafe Diana is this crazy little restaurant in Notting Hill across the street from Kensington Palace, and is a mecca for Princess Di fans. The walls are covered with Princess Di pictures, and there's even one with her posing with the owners of the cafe, wow! I don't envision Princess Di as a big falaffel fan (it's basically Mediterranean food), but you never know. Falaffels are quite tasty. After that we hopped on the charter bus with a bunch of study abroad kids to go to a rugby match. As I switched on my Ipod and leaned back for some relaxing bus sleeping, I was hit with memories of EPGY and taking the kids to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. These kids were much quieter than my lot, though But still good times. :0) <---- Look at the nose on that happy face! That was completely unintentional. I like it.

So rugby is boring. They hit each other real hard. They don't have any protective gear on whatsoever, so they get hurt a lot. They get into massive huddles, which is like mass cat-fights, called scrums. That's about it. The best part was sitting behind the goal posts where the balls would come flying at the crowd (no net!) During their pre-game practice, we almost got hit on multiple occasions. It was pretty hilarious.

After that Elizabeth and I went home to a nice dinner prepared by our flatmates. Our flatmates are good people -- most of us get along great. We had roat chicken and vegetables and potatoes and salad, yum, yum! We were a very happy group of people after that.

But back to work today and back to lawyers and data entry. As Bob Geldof sang, "tell me why, I don't like Mondays, I'm going to shoot, ooooh ooooh ooooh oooh ooohh, the wholeeee dayyyy downnnn." That song will forever remind me of Monday mornings car rides to St. Lawrence with mom. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Bob Geldof and Bon Jovi got me through senior year. :)

Here's some british slang for you all to wow your friends:

real stroppy cow -- someone who is in a bad mood; a moody or tempermental person: "He's acting like a real stroppy cow." (You can also just use strop: "she was in a strop")

bullocks -- ridiculous: "what a load of bullocks"

bloke -- guy: "Look at that bloke over there."

gutted -- disappointed: "Did you see X-factor (their version of American Idol) last night? I was gutted!"

And that's all the British slang I have for you right now. Tune in for more. I spell like a British person now: recognise, programme, behaviour, etc. And now I write the date with day, month, year -- my birthday is 04/09/1984, not 09/04/1984. Oh, changes.

And now, for my rant: British people and their dogs in parks. They don't use leashes when they enter a park with their dogs. They just let their dogs run mad, which inevitably means you'll have some giant beast of a creature running at you. And then the owner will shrug their shoulders and laugh while this unfamiliar animal runs toward you. There has been two instances where massive dogs have run at me while the owners remained unfazed by their dogs running wildly at people. It's not the dogs' fault at all, it's the owners. It's driving me crazy! I don't like unfamiliar creatures with teeth and a large amount of body strength running wild while I'm walking in a park!

Rant complete.

I'm currently uploading a massive amount of photos, so in about 10 years I will be able to share them. No, I'll try to do it tomorrow. It's time for me to sign out, because Christmas music begins at 6:45 am! (Elizabeth...) Goodnight and godspeed.