Sundial Court

Hello and Welcome everyone. I am now awake. (You will be pleased to learn, I'm sure, that it is possible for me to sleep until noon regardless of where I am. Though in my defense I would like to point out that I was making up for somewhere between two and three nights of sleep.)

But on to more important things! I have a room! And flat mates! and little pots of parsley, basil, and coriander (see how well I am adapting already? I didn't write "cilantro" and Basil is being pronounced Baaaz-ill, but not really, because I think Baaaz-ill sounds silly.)

My room is quite spacious and directly across from the kitchen. Time will tell if this is actually handy, or awful. I have four flat mates and they are as follows (I may get the spelling of their names horrendously wrong, for which I apologize in advance.)

Latana: age 25- early music singer from Paris. She has cool purple and green glasses and spent her undergraduate in Berlin. I feel embarrassingly monolingual. (She was telling us to correct her English, but aside from a slight accent she is fine.) She was the first one I met and when we were introducing ourselves she said "Oh! You're from so far away!" and I was about to respond that so was she until I remembered that just because they are impressively foreign in Seattle doesn't mean they are in London. Paris is like 2 hours away by train.

Patrick: age 21- actor from London. He was feeling embarrassingly local compared to the rest of us. I'm glad that we have an actor because I was afraid that they would be completely segregated. There are apparently only 16 people in the drama section of the school (that can't include the techies, can it?) which is impressively tiny. Though that does explain how they can manage to produce such stellar alumni. Like Ewan McGregor and Clive Owen. I should tell Patrick that I expect him to become incredibly famous so that I can then brag about knowing him...

Moises: age 23- trombonist from London. He has more trouble with English than Latana does, but is very nice. He is so tall that he doesn't actually fit on the bed. I suggested that he use the footstool at the base of the bed, but suspect that that would still be wildly uncomfortable. We'll see what he ends up doing.

Meredith: age 22- French horn player from Connecticut. She was the last one I met, and when she started talking I whipped my head around because "Hey! I know that accent!" She is also very tall, I wonder if she fits on the beds. She has been here for a week already and apparently they have been doing a lot of last minute refurbishment. When she moved in none of the rooms were set up except for hers and there has been steady progress throughout the whole week. It still isn't done yet- in the stairwells there are a lot of places that have been sanded down to be painted, but obviously haven't been painted yet.

We haven't moved my luggage yet, so I'm not sure where I'll be staying the night, but Mommy did go grocery shopping and so now has lots of chutneys and chocolate.

Oh! The northern line has been under repair today- so there are huge delays and remarkably little air on the tube. Fortunately there are only two stops between the dormitory and the hotel- but ohmygosh that was awful. Also, considering how cool it is, I have been sweating a ton the last two days (Aren't you pleased I'm informing you of this?) So many places have been so crowded and/or overheated and therefore muggy. It's been gross.

We did also find a little cafe. (Called "Market Cafe." A creative leap ahead of Laine's cafe named, simply, "Cafe") Mommy got jacket potatoes with beans and cheese and I had a vegetarian English breakfast. It was remarkably good actually. We watched them slice the mushrooms (so they were very fresh) and the tomatoes were also very fresh. When we ordered the waitress called out for "weak tea" but the tea wasn't terribly weak- so we wondered what she was talking about...

Be on the lookout for a guest blog entry from Mommy- she has been taking pictures for that purpose. Also- for some reason blogger has decided that I would like all of the commands to be in German. Isn't that sweet? In a really non-helpful way? For instance: what does "Tastaturkurzel" mean?