Thursday, December 16th, 2004

Well, I’m here in London. It’s been a fun few days, and now I’ve finally found some time to write. My flights went fine, although bad weather in Munich made for a late arrival in London. But nothing too bad, and Leah was happily waiting for me at Heathrow. So, let’s see… what did we do?

We took the underground up to her apartment in Willesden Green, which is I think in the north-central area if my mental tube map is at all correct. It’s a nice little place, although I think my room at home in Iowa is only slightly smaller than her entire apartment! But it’s comfy and pleasant, and I even have my own bed to sleep on! Our first night we headed out to a pub for a cheap meal, which was actually quite great. The Spotted Dog had a deal on pub meals so we had a pint and some grub. Then it was back to her apartment, where I did my laundry amidst drinking wine, chatting away and watching Anchorman on the television.

We awoke the next day and went to visit Leah’s friend Lindsay who lives nearby. Lindsay is from Minnesota and is also attending Le Cordon Bleu. We hung out for a few hours, and then made our way to the Four Seasons hotel downtown, where we attended the graduation ceremonies for their semester! What a laugh. I was by far the most underdressed person in attendance, which I found to be a very enjoyable thing. This was quite the event, the dinner alone was £75! Fortunately each graduate gets one guest, so I ate for free! It was a really interesting scene. Soooo many people there were being very pretentious. One guy at our table was giving a running commentary on everything. “The guinea fowl is a bit too flamboyant for my liking.” Blah blah blah. Lots of talking just for the sake of hearing his own voice. The funniest thing about this guy is Leah said she saw him eat on of his own boogers once. Heheheheh. Anyway, we drank tons of champagne and red wine, ate a £75 meal, and then ran away before the graduation ceremony began! Classic.

Now today we’re just lazing around at Lindsay’s place (that's her in the photo). I don’t know what we’ll do over the next few days. Probably some wondering around London, hitting up the markets, eating tasty food, and whatever else. It’s low key and fun. And it’s so nice to be in a familiar place with a good friend! The only downer is that it’s so expensive here in London. After being used to eating for a dollar a day, I now have to adjust to the fact that dollar goes almost nowhere here. I’ll have to be very frugal while I’m here, this much is certain. A funny story… I went into a bank and exchanged 80,000,000 TL for the whopping sum of £23! Good grief. And that will hardly last me at all. Oof.

It’s wonderful to be back in England. I understand what everyone says!!! It’s a familiar place, and I feel like I fit in, which is not an easy feeling to have in Turkey. I love Turkey, but there’s always something that I don’t understand or feel differently about. So I’m really happy so far… I think this holiday is just what I needed.