I think I forgot to mention in my mosques and temples post that I went to Windsor Castle with Johnny and Sandy and the queen was there. We didn’t see her but the castle was pretty phenomenal nonetheless. Definitely like the way you expect castles to be.
So we were planning to go to Edinburgh but the tour fell through and we just decided to stay in London over Thanksgiving. It’s funny how holidays can follow you. I woke up yesterday morning feeling like it was Thanksgiving, even though I’m in a country that doesn’t celebrate it and there hasn’t been any real build-up to it like we have in the states. I’m really glad we stayed so far because last night was a ton of fun. CAPA hosted a Thanksgiving dinner with a pub style quiz afterwards. The food was pretty good. The iced tea on the other hand…not so good. But, whatever. I’ll be having proper iced tea in a few weeks time. We had turkey and little stuffing balls which were kind of strange, uncanned cranberry sauce which was really yummy, potatoes (roasted and mashed), steamed veggies, and buttery sweet corn. If you know me at all, you know that those last two items thrilled me to no end. For desert we had coffee and pumpkin pie. It was all very yummy.
For the next part to mean much to you, you first have to understand how Southwestern is, particularly here. We are the only private institution here that CAPA hosts in London. Our uni puts in tons of money for this program and has done so for over 20 years. We are frequently considered the smartest and most privileged of the groups here. So, when they announced a pub quiz, we all jumped into action to defend our reputation. We divided into groups of six and began. We named our group The Polyglots to demonstrate how smart we are. We were almost The Persnickety Polyglots but we decided not to push it too much. So after the first 3 rounds or so they announced the top 3 and much to our shock and horror, none of the 2 SU groups were in it. At this point we were really discouraged and started making comments about how we had internet (many of the other grps don’t in their flats) and just generally being snarky. We, holding fast to our SU creed of race, class, and sex, made Michael go up since he is a white male to see if that would swing things in our way. It must have because when they announced the winners, the other SU group was 4th and we were 1st! We felt very proud to have upheld the SU name as the best and to prove that we really are all smart ass nerds. It was pretty hilarious actually.
Afterwards everyone left but like 7 of us girls and Michael (of course) and so we girls danced while Michael lecherously sat and watched. We danced to MMMBop, Hot In Here, Genie in a Bottle, and a bunch of 80s music. The DJ got us all shots (of like apple juice or something) and it was really fun. It was definitely the most unusual Thanksgiving I’ve had but probably one of the most fun as well.
For the rest of the week I think Michael and I are going to the Natural History Museum, the Barbican, National Gallery, and National Portrait Gallery. We are also going to try to see a movie since we haven’t been to a movie theatre since we got here.
