Catching up

The last couple days have been quite busy and I have thusly, barely been online. On Wednesday, I was feeling like the dog's ass, so I pretty much slept the whole day. I don't really know why I was feeling bad. It could have been the frequent weather changes of the last week or so. Or, it could have just been something going around. My neighbor is sick, for example, so I know it's not just me. Fortunately, one day of sleeping sorted me out and I was good to go on Thursday. That was quite good actually because on Thursday I spent the day at the Royal Institute for International Affairs. They have a library there that is about 100 times better than my college library, so it was absolutely necessary that I go there and mine it for information for my thesis.

I went to see Ms. Colombia on Thursday night. She wasn't feeling very well, so we ended up just watching a movie at her flat. Needless to say, things have been going exceptionally well. Of course, I am really playing my cards right. On Friday, she was so sick that she needed to go to the hospital. She does not have a GP (general practitioner) which meant the hospital was the only way to see a doctor. Of course I took her. She was so miserable - in pain, fever, sore throat - I couldn't help myself but to take care of her. She ended up getting some antibiotics and is now feeling much, much better. After the hospital visit, I took her home and we had a nice lunch.

Yesterday, one of my best friend's in the world came to London. For convenience sake, we'll call him Crazy Ivan. I kind of goofed on when he was supposed to arrive. I thought it was next weekend. But, once I figured that out, we coordinated and engaged in the time honored British tradition of going to a pub. Ms. Colombia happened to be in the neighborhood, so that worked out quite well when she joined us. Of course, being the sensible woman that she is, she had orange juice. It does not due to mix antibiotics and a recovering immune system with booze. Later, Eurotrash even met up with us for a drink.

Getting increasingly hungry, we headed out toward Edgeware Road to forage for food. Well, first we went to this giant department store called Selfridges. Crazy Ivan, who is in town for four days on business, accidentally left his suit at home so he had to purchase a new one and get it tailored. So, after we picked up his suit, we headed to Edgeware Road. This is the Muslim or Arab quarter of London and the food is excellent. We ended up at a nice restaurant with good to very good Shwarma (lamb roasted with herbs and spices served with Mediterranean salad and rice). It was a raucous time. A sea of uniformed wait staff scurried through warrens of tables hastily laid out to accommodate as many people as possible. Dozens of tall silver hookas laden with flavored tobacco and hot coals sat precariously around the room in the Arab tradition known as sheesha. A series of small miracles were performed every few minutes as the wait staff miraculously never sent hooka's or hot embers flying about the room. The food, once delivered was a piping hot platter of deliciousness - more than sufficient for our empty, rumbling stomachs. Later, fully satiated, we ambled to Crazy Ivan's hotel room and enjoyed a beer before making our various ways home for the evening. All in all, a good day of friendship, laughter, and consumption.

Today, Ms. Colombia and I met Crazy Ivan and took him to lunch in Covent Garden. It's one of the touristy areas in London that has still not lost its charm. There are overpriced shops flanked by cheap market stalls with second story pubs overlooking all the foolishness of street shows and cheap entertainment. In addition to the hostile magician who found it best to berate his audience repeatedly, there was an opera singer, and a guy who, as far as we could tell, had an audience of about 100 watch him do a poor man's Michael Jackson imitation involving a chair. Good times. We settled on Mexican food as Ms. Colombia was familiar with this place and vouched for its qualities. It was sufficient. It did not have a never ending bucket of coca-cola (£2.40 per glass thank you very much), nor did it have a never ending bucket of chips and salsa (first one complementary, £2 for another), but it did have satisfactory enchiladas, although, after seeing them on someone else's table, I clearly should have ordered the fajitas. Either way, a tastMexicanan meal served up in London by a pair of Australian waitresses. Now that's London.

After lunch, we took Crazy Ivan down to see Trafalgar Square. Seeing as how Westminster was quite close, and clearly a more important tourist attraction, we took him down there next. Of course, we stopped at the Red Lion on the way, a pub I've now gone to with three different sets of friends. Ok, it's really the only pub open to the public within a stone's throw of Parliament, but it's still nice enough and feels a bit more British than some of the newer, modern pubs. The weather was glorious, but quite chilly on the Thames and, as Crazy Ivan had to get back to do some actual work, we called it a night fairly early. I took him back to his hotel, sent Ms. Colombia on her way, and came back home to crash. I was exhausted.

On Tuesday, I'm moving into Eurotrash's apartment. As I think I mentioned, he's going back to the States for a month and I'm occupying his flat. That means tomorrow I have to pack up and start moving. Well, I'll take one bag down there tomorrow. The rest can wait. I'm not out of this infernal hellhole that I live in until the 15th, so I'm not exactly pressed to get all my stuff together just yet. I don't relish the idea of moving again as it is, so I certainly won't move everything at once. I just have too much junk for that.