Pub Quizzes and Afternoon Tea

I am so sad that my first three weeks in London are almost up! I received my timetable and reading list for my Shakespeare course today and though I'm extremely excited about starting that on Monday, I'm sad that all my new international friends are dispersing to all their home countries - we've had so many great discussions (in class and out) and fun nights out together. A few of the girls especially I've become quite close with, so hopefully I'll be able to visit them when I'm traveling in the time between when King's Summer School ends and UCL begins (Amsterdam and Vienna are now top of my list!). It's also going to be quite hard to switch from our fantastic classroom to a normal room - I'm completely spoiled with being able to see Tower Bridge and Big Ben for five hours of class each day. It turned out that this Multicultural London Literature course was pretty much the best course I could have asked for to start my time in London. We got to travel around the city to places I probably never would have visited by myself (Docklands, Brixton, the British Library) and trace the history of the city over the course of more than four centuries. At least I'm really excited about my next class (which includes trips to the National Portrait Gallery + Tower of London and three plays) so I'll be able to jump right in to something new.

I haven't been posting often because we've been doing so many things it's been hard to have time to sit and write it all down! Last Friday was an afternoon of firsts - the first time I had traditional afternoon English tea, the first time riding on the London Eye, and first time seeing someone actually slip on a banana peel (like chipmunks, which I had never seen until I went to school in Michigan, I thought that might be something one could only ever see in a cartoon). The banana peel was hilarious, the Eye exhilarating (I'm a little afraid of heights to I had to sit down in the middle of the capsule when we were on the very top - but the views were incredible), and the tea was absolutely scrumptious (thanks Donna!). Turns out 'clotted cream', which to me sounded like a horrible combination between cottage cheese and whipped cream, is a delicious topping for freshly baked scones and one of my new favorite food combinations.

Monday evening was another first - most of the girls in our class got together at a pub around the corner (the White Hart) and participated in their weekly pub quiz! We placed 7th (out of 7, shockingly) but enjoyed ourselves immensely nonetheless. The pub quiz host, a delightfully kooky lady named 'Bunnie', took pity on us and gave us some extra prizes at the end, including a bicycle horn and some small lightsaber-like contraptions that turned out to be 'bubble swords' (we only knew their name because, as we were blowing bubbles at passing taxis on the street outside the pub, disgruntled pub quiz participants who did not receive the same prizes walked by and exclaimed "Aw, how come WE didn't get bubble swords!"). With questions like "How many feet high is a regulation football (soccer) goal?" (8) and "What product is advertised by the tagline 'Reassuringly Expensive'?" (Stella Artois), we didn't feel too bad about our last place showing. Tomorrow evening is the King's Summer School Session 1 wrap-up event, another pub quiz at their student bar (The Waterfront, which overlooks the Thames). Given our vast amounts of practice regarding pub quizzes, I am hopeful for "Team Dorian's" chances tomorrow evening. Wish us luck!