Loco Mexicano

Orientation started at 9:30 yesterday morning so when Jon, Ryan, and I walked in at 9:26, I think we should have been awarded a medal. Donna and the gang had pastries and coffee waiting for us and we all sat in the back of the room for three hours until our lunch break. (At 11, however, I managed to escape long enough to get a cash advance on my credit card and buy an ugly wallet at a place called MUJI.) My favorite part of orientation was talking about all of the field trips we're going to take and all the plays we're going to see like Hamlet (featuring Patrick Stewart). Two police officers attended our afternoon orientation session and told us all how not to get robbed on the way home from the pub. They also showed us two examples of phony Debit card readers that record PIN numbers and ruin lives.

We picnicked in Hyde Park again and had Taza meat sandwiches with our new Oberlin friend and a bunch of Grinnell people. While the group stood in line, however, I ran over to the movie theater on Queensway and bought tickets for MAMA MIA! SING-A-LONG for Ryan for his birthday. Unfortunately, the lyrics didn't run across the bottom of the screen like we were anticipating so we could only sing the songs we knew really well. Jon, who had never seen MAMA MIA! before probably hated it but he did a good job pretending like he enjoyed himself. For Ryan's sake, I'm sure.

The Taza sandwich I ate for lunch gave me wicked food poisoning for two hours.

After the movie, we went to a club, walked in, and then walked back out. Drinks were £7 ($14) a piece and we were all a little sleepy and it just wasn't our scene. Tomorrow and Monday is the Notting Hill Carnival (the carnival has taken place since 1959 and first began in response to the Notting Hill race riots) which promises to be a really really awesome street festival with a parade, vendors, music, dancing, and good eats. This afternoon, we're thinking of heading over to the Camden Market to pre-game tomorrow's event. In the morning, we have a GIL sponsored bus tour of London and on Monday night we're going to a famous classical music festival called the BBC Proms so our festival time may be limited.

The best part of Ryan's birthday was dinner at "Loco Mexicano." London has a long way to go before it truly grasps the essence of Mexico. The food and service was crummy but the atmosphere was great. All the servers were wearing sombreros and Corona shirts and the chips from the chips and salsa appetizer were really Nacho Cheese Doritos. As dinner patrons, we had the option of wearing sombreros during dinner, which we did. Ryan's birthday treat came at the end of the meal and instead of the servers singing "Feliz Cumpleaños" around our table, our server cued a guy at the bar who played a recording of "Happy Birthday" really loud through the restaurant's stereo system. Ryan was maybe a little mortified.

Nora's coming over for dinner tonight and we're having spaghetti again.

We have hot water. Some guy from the phone company came at 8:30 this morning and I didn't want to go back to sleep for fear he would ransack the place so I stayed up, cleaned the kitchen and figured out how to turn on the water heater. We still have almost zero water pressure but at least the little trickle we have is warm.