I have a sweet pickup line

The weeks are starting to fly by, hard to think that today is the last day of February. This means that time will start going even fast as it starts to warm up around southern England and I can start travelling farther away and for longer periods of time. Or it'll just rain and I'll wander about soaked.

Wednesday night tall Adam came over to see my flat, meet my mates and have dinner. After delicious tuna steak, pasta, vegies, grapes, flapjacks and a bottle of wine we busted out the map of Europe and looked around at where we could meet up. Adam's visa is up in a couple weeks so he is planning out his trip around Europe. We figure we will meet up in either Barcelona or Geneva at the beginning of April. We are both leaning toward Geneva, because from there we can go sky diving over the alps! So I have that in my sights for the near future.

Thursday I went down to Central London for a night of pub quizing and drinking. This was quite fun. Everyone from Travel 2 formed a team and we were quite dominant through out most of the game. At one point we were in second place. One of my favourite categories was "Metro Stations." So we got a clue and had to name of the station to which is was reffering. IE "Up the wrong tree" would be barking. Yes, there is a tube station called Barking. We initially got two free drink vouchers: weak. However, since Christian who recruited all of us to Travel 2 was our good friend and moderator of the pub quiz, he kept the drinks comin', at least to us. Then he just plain bought for all of us. Well, we make him enough money at least. So once we had a few too many we dropped off and finished in second place. Not bad for the 15 or so teams competing!

Friday after graciously avoiding a hangover from the night before I made my way to work. Of the 7 of us that went down, I was the only one who made it on time. The rest were either terribly late or just didn't show up. Saffas' can't handle their alcohol, I guess. Friday's always seem to take forever to pass at work... I drank whatever was left of my beer out on the fridge, err balcony. One thing that will take some time getting used to is not drinking in public. In some parts of town people look at you because you don't have a Tenants Super in your hand when wandering about. There are laws against it, but it is mostly tolerated and not enforced. Just don't be completely pissed and public and infront of a bobby. And don't flout (is this aword?) or flaunt it about. But there aren't the same social associations of drinking in public as the US. I went to Charing Cross to figure out when to catch a train to Canterbury the next day, and to make sure it went all the way there. I was in luck, and Adam was coming with me as well!

We took the 9am out there and by 1030 were wandering about Canterbury. It was quite nice outside-sunny and blue, but windy and cold. We had some food, wandered about the highstreet, walls and gates. We went to a few museums and galleries and they made us really appreciate the world, no, universal class museums we have in London. At least the price was negligible and we got student's rates all over the place. We stopped at a cool little bookstore, cause that is what Canterbury is known for right? The first book written in English yeah? A stop at the cathedral (whoa, a catholic church in England!) took up most of the rest of our time there. It is quite impressive because the church was first started there in th 5th or 6th century, though it has been razed and rebuilt numerous times. The highpoint of the trip came when Adam and I were arguing about where we were on the Cathedral layout map. We were pointing all over the place, completely ignoring the LARGE RED ARROW with the words YOU ARE HERE pointing at our present location. Hey, did you know we both went to St Thomas? A quick late afternoon meal of fish and chips killed the rest of our time before we snoozed on the way home to London.

I had planned on just staying in that night after a late friday and early morning. I ended up going to our local with Rhitik and Mario. He is Rhitik's girlfriends brother who just moved here for Uni from Mexico. And Rhitik's girlfriend did a student exchange program in Pine City, MN. Small world eh? Rachel had told me there is never a bad night at the Crown. I like drinking with Rhitik because he never lets me buy! I only got one round out of ??? I thought we were getting single bacardi and cokes, but after the 5th or 6th drink he said, no they were doubles. Hey! Anyways, when I had the chance to get drinks I went up to the bar and caught the glance of this girl I was standing next to. I said "Hello" and we hit things off from there. This is probably the first number I've ever got in my life. Her name is Michelle, she's a Kiwi. Around 2 or close, whatever it is now, we walked across the street to our designated Kebab shop. Kebabs in MN. It'll happen!

I somehow avoided another hangover Sunday morning and after 4 night of drinking decided to skip out on Ultimate. Did some errands and chores and went down to Hyde park for the chance of shooting some ultimate, if not playing. Brilliantly enough I forgot to load my camera with film so ended up toting everything down for nothing. Not to be at a loss I got Adam to come over and we threw disc for a while, making fools of ourselves because it was bloody windy and we couldn't get off a pass if our life depended on it. OK, so my throwing was a little better. I have thrown in the last 9 months.

So I've been keeping myself thoroughly busy. How have you been, dear Reader? Things that I am contemplating at the moment include going to India for a few weeks in July, the skydiving thing, and living in Australia for a few months over next MN winter and returning in 2007. For now though, I am thinking more about what I should do this weekend!

I am also on page 930 of 1065 in Atlas Shurgged. And I still haven't started stirfrying =(