Please excuse how cheesy this post is...

Today it was really sunny and mild out so I walked home from class across the Waterloo Bridge. With the view up and down the Thames and the sunshine it was a pretty nice reminder that my life right now is actually pretty awesome, despite the work and craziness that goes along with being a grad student. Sometimes I think everyone needs a little reminder of what's good in our lives because we can get so caught up in the stress and minutiae of things that really won't matter in a couple months or years time. That's a problem I deal with anyway. So it's important, every once in awhile, to be reminded that there's more to life than work and deadlines.

(Alright, that's it for the cheesiness. As you were.)

Political speeches, Art, and Transvestites--A Normal Weekend in London

After a period of readjustment to London life, I had a fantastic weekend to jumpstart the semester. It started on Friday (as all weekends should) with a pretty major speech by Leon Panetta--the U.S. Secretary of Defense for all you non-political nerds. One of the perks of attending a renowned school in a major international city. So I got to hear some interesting points and rub elbows with some (presumably) important people. My excitement might come off as snobbish, but it's not often I get to feel so important, so just let me have this one.

After the speech I went to the National Gallery, which I surprisingly hadn't visited yet in the past four months. It was particularly pretty in Trafalgar Square that morning because it was snowing. I'm one of those strange people who actually loves snow so I was quite excited about this. In any case, it's better than rain. At the museum there was an interesting exhibit contrasting classic paintings with early and modern photographs. It was definitely interesting if you're into that whole "art" thing (which I am). I didn't wander the rest of the museum much but I will definitely go back to see the Van Goghs and Degas, preferably on a weekday to avoid the dreaded tourists. (I'm past the point of being a tourist at this point right?)

My enjoyable day continued later that night at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese. And, yes, it is as awesome as it sounds. It's one of the oldest pubs in London with cool cave-like cellars and cozy fireplaces. I met a high school friend there who is here in London for a few months and we shot the breeze for awhile, while drinking numerous pints of course. We even made friends with a group of Brits who joined our table and proceeded to buy us more pints. It was an excellent night of comparing American and British culture which ended with us closing the place down. We may even have been asked repeatedly to leave because they were about to lock us in. But to be fair, most of the pubs here close shockingly early.

The rest of the weekend was quite good as well. Went out with some great people on Saturday night for a theme party (Thrift Shop clothing only) at a club (The Borderline, for future reference) which played some great old-school indie rock. I was also quite pleased because the crowd wasn't the usual 18-year-olds getting wasted and falling all over the place. Plus there were some lovely transvestites and/or cross-dressers we befriended. Love the eclecticism of London. Makes life a lot more interesting.

Back to Reality

I'm back London. Just returned this morning from my three-week break from reality in good old Rhode Island, USA. It's definitely a bittersweet feeling. On the one hand, I now have to get back to work (and having gotten next to no work done while on vacation, this is entirely unappealing) and I had to say goodbye to family and friends for an indefinite period of time. On the other hand, London is a pretty excellent place to live and, once my jet lag wears off, I'm excited to get back into the swing of things here.

The next two weeks probably won't provide much of interest to write about as I will be chained to a desk in the library attempting to write a paper that has proved impossible to research effectively. But hopefully this will be followed by a really eventful and exciting term with lots of fuel for the blog fire. For now, I'm off to readjust to Greenwich Mean Time (and use my jet lag as an excuse to push work off til tomorrow).