A London Whirlwind!

Well, quite a bit has happened in the past few days.

Of biggest importance to me is the fact that I went to ASDA (Wal-mart owned, that says it all) and purchased L18 of food. I am no longer perpetually starving-just occasionally, because now I can stop the hunger when it sets in. Currently I'm finishing off a microwaveable chicken/bacon pasty that makes my 3rd meal of the day (yes, it is 12:30 am).

Tuesday, I went out with the Christian Union and had great fun learning how to joust. I defeated my first opponent (a slightly taller guy than me). Emboldened by my success, I was preparing an impregnable strategy that would make me undefeated throughout the rest of the matches when a short asian girl killed me in the very next round. Maybe I shouldn't count my eggs before they hatch. After that we went to Nando's, a portuguese chicken eatery. I boasted to the kids around the table that I would choose the extra hot sauce. They warned me to re-consider, and I decided to just go with the hot. That'd be impressive enough since they had ordered medium at the highest. Hot should be a piece of cake-after all, if the fair-skinned Brits can handle medium, my swarthy half-Indian self should be able to saturate myself with the hot sauce. Or not. I had to go back for a refill on the water half way through my chicken wrap. Danielle, the blond British girl beside me, smiled smugly and told me that she warned me. I guess if I wanted to play with fire, I should have known I risked getting burned. And humiliated. :)

Wednesday I played football for almost three hours. I LOVED it. I'm not quite as good as a lot of them, but I can hold my own. They play with tons of quick passes, and soon I was making a few assists for our team. Tomorrow are tryouts. I already have a back-up plan if I don't make it on the football team. I'm going to try out for american football. yes, you heard me correctly. All 130 pounds of me will try out for the American football team here. They just started two years ago, and they don't have a lot of players. Plus, all the players I saw couldn't have been more than 20 pounds heavier than me. I figure that if I ever want to play legit pigskin football with helmets and pads, my chance is now-where all the big guys first go to play rugby.

Wednesday night I went out with a friend from home to tour the Inns of Court. I have to say that the Brits have a sweet educational set-up for their lawyers. We visited the Maughan Library. Google image it. How cool is that? It happens to be my school library-I feel like a super spoiled kid. We also hung out in the courtyard of the church whose steeple modeled the idea of wedding cakes (it's called St. Bride's church, go figure). We were chatting it up in the courtyard while Rowan Williams was lecturing inside. No biggie in London. I walked home that night, and got some killer pictures of St. Paul's Cathedral from the Millenium Bridge, except they were a bit blurry. Unfortunately I can't upload them at the moment.

Thursday, I went over to dinner at the Sneller's house. Can I say that I love their four kids? They showed me all their star wars legos and their nerf guns. Anna, the 3-year-old, showed me how I could be shot with a nerf gun.

Today, I went to the Globe Theatre on a whim (I went by myself), and got to see "The Merry Wives of Windsor" for L5. Not a bad deal! I laughed my head off. It was witty, clever, and also meaningful. I'm glad I got to see it before the open air theatre shuts down for the winter. Tonight I went to the Malaysian fair in Trafalgar Square with some friends from Singapore and tried their food. Quite tasty actually. Then I went with some awesome french horn buddies (you know you're cool when you have pals who play the french horn) to a concert at St. Martin in the Fields of Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Gloria. What an amazing concert! I really enjoyed the Gloria since I had the joy of playing the cello part many years ago. We grabbed some tea from the Malaysian Fair (good stuff, just like Indian chai), and then headed to the Texas Embassy (it's actually just a restaurant, but a legit Texas Embassy did exist in London at one time, google it if you don't believe me).

Now I'm back at home enjoying my chicken/bacon pasty and getting ready to head to bed so I can not embarrass America too much at the football tryouts tomorrow.

Pray for guidance in some life issues I'm contemplating at the moment and humility. Also play that I won't scare away the kids at the Sunday night youth group where I'll be playing guitar.

-Cheers!