Trying New Things

These past few days have been full of trying new things. For starters, on Sunday Denise and her family invited everyone over for an ethnic pitch in. Most of us selected Indian or Thai foods but there were a few other things. I’ve never really had either so it was the perfect opportunity to figure out what I liked/didn’t like. Overall I liked the food and am definitely willing to try it again. Lyndon told us about a really good Thai place nearby so I think we are going to try that out soon. Spending the evening with Denise and her family made for a really homey feeling Sunday. It was definitely a nice feeling to have. Plus on Sunday I was extremely excited to have Jeana back as she had been gone all weekend in Amsterdam! She was only gone three days but it sure felt like a lot longer than that!

The start of Monday was not great, but the evening did a complete 180 and even ended up being one of my favorite. The whole problem with being in London and going to school here is that it’s really easy to forget that we are actually taking college classes and need to focus on that. I’ve been getting all my work done and everything but I have to admit I have not been putting in my best effort. The reason Monday morning was not so great was because Lyndon gave us a lecture about how we need to really step up our game. The problem with the way we are learning here is that if one person isn’t pulling their weight then it holds everyone back. As of right now we are behind where we should be in comparison to the other groups that have been on this trip. That’s pretty disappointing to me. Although I have been having a great time I really am interested in getting the most out of this experience in all aspects so I really hope everyone steps up their game. I know I plan to and I am hoping everyone took his lecture seriously.

Monday evening our flats had to prepare two British recipes for Lyndon and his wife. One was a sausage dish called Toad in the Hole and the other was a bread pudding called Spotted Dick. These were traditional recipes that each of them would have ate when they were kids for “tea” aka dinner. Being the competitive bunch that we are we all tried to impress them with little tricks to get them to pick our flat over the others. The bribery actually worked against one flat as they mistakenly wrote their menu in French while serving a British meal! It was quite entertaining for us all to take part in and everyone had a great time. Sadly our flat tied for second with flat six. Flat four ended up winning which consists of only the three girls so props to them since we all had eight people to help figure out the recipes. Lyndon and his wife did say that our group as a whole did an excellent job as no one messed up the recipes. In previous groups at least a few of the flats totally destroyed the recipes. I think we can all be proud of our efforts! :)

After Lyndon and his wife left we cleaned up and then people started to get ready to head out to the casino. We found out over the weekend that we are all old enough to enter casinos so we decided to venture out and see what it was like. Before we left we all decided how much we were going to take and only took that much. I played Roulette the entire time. I had a lot of fun but it was also really stressful at the same time. I really didn’t want to walk out of the casino with less money than I had come in with but the only way you can get more is to bet. Going once was a good experience but I don’t think it’s something I will add to my list of hobbies. I completely understand how people can get addicted to easily though. As soon as you are up you feel like you can keep going because it isn’t your own money. The problem is then you get back down to the original amount you brought and then you think you have to get up to what you were. Then no matter how much you win you want to win more and it could quickly spiral into a vicious cycle. I quit when I was up 15 pounds and called it a day. I was quite happy with that end result! Ten of us went last night and only 2 or 3 came back losing money so overall it was a really good night. It was especially good for one of the girls who ended up winning 250 pounds! She was nice enough to get us a cab ride home which was another fun experience. The cabs here are huge. When you look at them from the outside you wouldn’t expect for them to be so spacious on the inside but they are quite large. They sit five people and all of us girls had plenty of room. Being in the cab while it is driving on the wrong side of the street is pretty fun too! :)

My final adventure was tonight. The day was just a normal one…Brit Pop in the afternoon and then one of the girls and I went to our second shopping location for our shopping assignment. This evening as a group we all went to Absolut Ice Bar. I’ve wanted to go since last year so I was really excited to finally get to see it. It’s a bar made completely out of ice. It was really neat but I have to say it was a lot smaller than I had imagined so that was a little disappointing. Almost our entire group came, including Denise, so it was great having a fun evening together. You are only allowed to stay in the Ice Bar for 40 minutes and it was plenty. We were all pretty much ready to leave when the time was up; some of us were ready to leave before the time was up. They give you a parka and gloves but it did not keep you from being extremely cold. Overall a great experience and I’m glad we all got to go together!