Oxford and London with great friends :)

The past three weeks have been hell! I was in hibernation finishing up a paper on child discipline from the 16th to 18th centuries and ended up mentally exhausted! It was due on May 17th, and since I handed it in, I realized that it was the LAST paper of the semester, which means that I am technically done all the requirements for my Master's Degree.... except one.... the dreaded Dissertation, due August 30th. Well, I needed to refresh myself physically and mentally so I had a Spa/Shopping day, got my hair done BLONDE, and ate lots of fruits and veggies.

But the real fun started on Friday night. I met up with my friend Ven from Atlanta who studied at UPenn and lives in NYC. He's doing an MBA at Oxford. He brought his friend Rich, a Mets fan from Long Island, also an Oxford MBA student. Me and Sah met them at Angels, a loungey bar, and drank lots of mojitos. We had a great time talking about East Coast trivia, favorite musicians and Old Lady crushes :) Sah and I weren't planning on staying out too late, because we wanted to get up early and go to London for some museums. But, as the conversations were quite interesting, and we ran into some other friends.... we decided to go with the flow and party at The Bridge, a club.

Inside The Bridge, I was totally unprepared and kept saying, "I can't be here in a Gap Favorite Tee- I'm not dressed for a club"! But it wasn't a big deal, and we ended up seeing some more mutual friends: Quadro and Delany! We all danced together and had a ball!

Meanwhile, I didn't get to bed until 5am, so our London plans were delayed. On Saturday, I met up with Sah and Stephie around noon, and we drank tea and ate Belgian chocolates until 4pm, then we finally caught the bus to London. We met up with Sah's friends from Toronto, Gia and Marina. They found a sweet flat to rent near the Farringdon tube stop. Great location on this 'jeweler's row' of London. My eyes were on the diamonds every time I walked by the storefronts :)

So we decided to head to Soho for some Asian cuisine, sushi and chicken teryaki. Literally, right after we got off the tube, we went to the first place we saw- But it was delicious. However, there was one mishap. I had my WHITE jacket next to Sah, and when a tiny little waitress came over to collect our Soy sauce, she inadvertently tipped the glass too far and it started to POUR on my WHITE jacket!!!!! I was screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! So I got up and had a fit in the restaurant and made everyone help me get rid of the multiple stains. But I don't know if that was such a good idea: They gave me industrial strength bleach and when I put it on my coat it turned it kind of yellow. That wasn't the worst of it: I smelled of bleach for the rest of the evening! Oh well.... Afterwards, we went to a random pub and chilled outside admiring the crazy block party like crowd. We walked through Soho and of course, stopped at Bar Italia for some coffee :)

Sah, Stephie and I decided to do it up and go to club Fabric, one of the biggest baddest and most famous in London, if not the world. I was there once before in 1999, when it opened, but I don't remember much of it. I was only 19 :) So on our way there, we got out of the cab and realized that it was literally 3 blocks away from our flat! The location was so convenient! We got inside and paid a 16 pounds entry fee!!!! Then had to pay another 2 pounds to check our coats! But it was funny because the guy at the counter asked if I wanted to 'check my bag'.... meaning my pocket book, idiot me had brought out my huge bag! So I said no thank you, but it made me crack up laughing because he compared my bag to a piece of luggage! The club was nice, and we drank vodka and red bulls all night. We had a blast dancing and met some interesting people. One guy we met was from Michigan, he was a 19 year old traveling around England for a month... what a lucky kid (reminded me of ME at 19)! He was soooo happy to meet us too, like he had finally found someone to relate to. And one of the employees looked like Wilmer Valderamma, and kept relighting the candle on our table, and we kept blowing it out (because it was giving us BAD lighting). We were dancing till about 4am, and left the club only to realize that there were no Kebab vans.. so we had to go home on empty stomachs :(

In the morning, we were pretty beat, having danced two nights in a row now. We went to Camden Market eating crepes and drinking freshly squeezed orange juice all day. Of course, I stopped into Cyber Dog, but the shirt I wanted to buy didn't fit me right :( Also went to Mr. Jamaica's stall and bought my mom a CD personally recommended by Mr. Jamaica :) I ended up buying some art and a pair of earrings for me.

Finally, probably the best part of our trip, we ran into three guys in The World's End Pub in Camden. One guy had just got back from Afghanistan fighting for the British military and the other two were firemen. All were HOT! Two of them had been drinking all day, the other guy was sober. We pretty much talked about sex for 3 hours :) And the military guy showed us his tattoo of Odie on his ASS! We even made them show us their 'O' faces :) After that, we went to eat Mexican food, and it was so delicious! We got back into Oxford around midnight.

All in all, it was just what I needed to detox, and refocus on my dissertation. And that's exactly what I plan to do.... tomorrow.