may fifteenth

Well, it is 22 minutes past my birthday (in the UK though, so I still have about 5 and a half hours of birthday time left in the states).  It was a great birthday weekend, filled with London, great food--like CHIPOTLE--the Little Theater (and one of my littles to boot), shisha, and, of course, champagne.  Although I have to say, there was an absurdly little amount of champagne consumed today, as we, for some reason unbeknownst to me, have finals starting tomorrow.  Here are my problems with this:
1.  I do not believe in english finals.  It is like turning in the first draft of an essay.  Rude.
2.  I do not want to be studying.  I want to be drinking and celebrating a) my birthday and b) the fact that we only have a week left (I mean not celebrating, but living it up)
3.  I am abroad.
4.  It's birthday weekend.
5.  They don't effect my overall gpa... what's the point?
6.  I'm not studying.

There you have it.  The problems with finals abroad.  Anyways, I'm sure you are all just dying to know how different I feel now that I'm 21.  Do I feel older? Indeed.  Is this because I'm now 21? Indeed not.  Sadly, I did not experience some magical moment induced by copious amounts of alcohol (or the birthday gods).  That "growing up" thing happened over the course of the semester, over bus rides to Spain, one hundred pages of writing, touring by myself, over nightclubs, hiding in cupboards, over journeys in England and Scotland, Whiskey and Beer tours, and over arguments about Jane Austen, Philip Pullman, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkein. 

Anyways, I have to try and not be nostalgic, otherwise I'll never get through these finals... So Friday, I woke up at the crack of dawn--seven--so that I could hitch a free ride into London with the ASE crew.  This was a brilliant decision, on my part, I must say, as the bus ride was highly enjoyable.  Probably my favorite line was, "I once woke up in the back of a limo," spoken by one of the boys in our program who I would never have expected that sentence to come from.  But we finally reached London, after waiting for the French people, who were also hitching a ride with us, to get back to the bus after a rest stop.  I then split off from the group and found a secondhand book sale.  So, naturally, I purchased Harry Potter number four (a first edition British copy, mother, can you imagine?).  This has become a new hobby of mine, collecting old Harry Potters from around the UK.  Although I have to say, this one might not have been my best decision, as I then had to carry it around all of London.

My view

Regardless, I had a lovely next few hours, as I just sat in the park in front of the eye, feeling the tube rumble underneath me and reading The Two Towers.  Oh, and getting a sunglasses sunburn.  I then left to catch the tube to the Museum of London, where I met my little Katie and Colleen!  It was great to see Katie, and we had a lovely time shopping in Topshop and H&M (though I thankfully refrained from buying anything).  I got to see her flat too--it was so nice!  Their kitchen must be four times the size of ours, at least.  But anyways, I then left her to go back and find our hotel (yes hotel--it was so nice), where we checked in and then had a rest for a bit. Then we headed back out in search of Chipotle (which we found and OMG was it delicious--they used red, yellow, and green peppers in their fajita mix) and shisha.  The shisha place was interesting, as the man kept on trying to get us to buy so many things, and then insisted that "shisa for four" meant four hookahs.  Struggles.  But it was fun anyways.  Then we went back to Katie's flat and talked for a while, before catching the last tube back to our hotel.

CHIPOTLE

LITTLE!

The next day was more interesting--we went to Trafalgar Square and then to a great restaurant called apostrophe where we met Katie and I had a goat cheese, rocket, and pepper sandwich (GOOD GOD THIS WAS DELICIOUS).  Then, we made our way back to Paddington to go back to Bath.  Here's the thing though--they do lots of construction on the tube on the weekends.  As in, we spent four times the amount of time on the tube as we should have.  (We did have a horrible tube ride the night before in which Elizabeth sat on a man twice and Martha stepped on a girl's foot twice as well, and the girl was clearly in pain.  The man just looked confused.  It was very awkward.)  But we finally did make it to Bath, and then we had to run to get to The Little Theater to see Water for Elephants; it was very good and I would highly recommend it.  Also, there was a random tourist commercial for Chicago before the movie started.  LOVE IT.  So then we went out to Second Bridge after the movie, and were nearly bowled over by a bar fight.  Fun times.  I was smashed into the wall, Elysia has bruises, and Martha was punched in the face.  Such fun.

Windy Brunch

Anyways, so then today we had champagne brunch in front of the Royal Crescent, watched Harry Potter, and had some birthday cake (in the form of ice cream).  Not a bad way to spend a day, all in all.  So there you have it.  Oh, and if you were wondering about the coming out of the cupboard story, you can find out what that meant, click here.  And, to see a lovely card my mother sent to me, click here.  So that's that.  I love you all, and thanks for all the birthday wishes!