The Top Floor Flat

So… I forgot to take pictures last night.  To be fair, besides the fact that it was in an amazing setting (the British Museum has this atrium that used to be an open-air courtyard around the British Library, and now is an exhibit hall enclosed by a giant domed glass ceiling) and the fact they were giving away free Krispy Kreme donuts (how can you get more American than that? Free fried food.) the 4th of July event was a bit underwhelming.  Part of the problem was that it was so crowded! The whole area was jam-packed and surprisingly with very few Americans.  That was alright, though, because earlier that day I discovered through Facebook that a friend of mine, Kathryn Taussig, with whom I attended middle and high school at Castilleja was also in London that day.  I managed to get ahold of her and she met me at the British Museum event.  From there, we went with one of her friends (in fact her roommate from school – she’s been at college at St. Andrews in Scotland the last three years) to this incredible Ethiopian restaurant.

I’d never had Ethiopian food before (or if I had, I hadn’t had it like this.)  It was served the traditional style – all of the dishes we had ordered were poured on top of this giant piece of doughy bread, which we then used to scoop up the spicy beef and lamb dishes on top.  There were no utensils other than the bread itself so things got a little messy.  We also got a bottle of the traditional honey wine which was quite tasty.  As Kathryn has been living in the UK for the last three years, she knows a lot of people around Europe and was already suggesting friends I might visit when I take time to travel.  She’s going to be in London all summer and doesn’t really know anyone in the city either so hopefully I’ll be seeing a lot more of her!  She also got excited about DormWise which is always nice and encouraging for me :).

Today I had a long, late breakfast with Mimi (who is so nice to keep taking me out for meals) and then I went home to do (a ton) of laundry and bake cookies for the thing I’m going to tonight.

I found a group of people online (very dodgy, I know, but I wasn’t stupid about this or anything) who have weekly pub meet-ups and they all sounded very friendly and smart.  On Thursday, the group was meeting relatively near my work so I figured I’d poke my head in, if they seemed alright stay for a drink and head out or just keep walking if it didn’t seem like my type of group.  I ended up staying for over two hours chatting and met some really nice people.  I got invited to join some of them this evening for the finale of the Doctor Who series 4 (ahh! it ended on such a cliffhanger last week!) and readily took them up on the offer because it’s not nearly as fun watching the show alone.  They’re way on the other side of the city, near Canary Wharf (that’s the Investment banker/MBA area of the city) .

Unfortunately my baking experiment didn’t turn out quite as pretty as I hoped (I made sugar cookies with jam filling) but they taste fine which I guess is most important.  In any case, expect a journal update of somewhat overwhelming geekiness next, after I see the Doctor Who finale!