Why is everything in German?!

Actually- not everything is in German, just the little notes that more specifically explain certain buttons on Blogger. To be fair, it isn't like I have bothered yet to check on my language settings that may have inadvertantly been changed. (Though you'd think that if they had tabs such as "Settings" and "View Blog" would also be in German...)

Whatever, the point of this entry is that my father tells me that I am not writing enough. Okay then. In that case I will tell him all about my night.

The bed squeaks in an alarming way when you toss and turn, which I was because the "Oh my god I'm living in London" bit has started to hit me. I completely missed the move in day party at the basement pub because it took so long for us to get a taxi (oops, Saturday night- didn't think about that part.) and so by the time we had dropped my luggage off at Sundial Court it was around 9:30. Keeping in mind that The City is basically the financial district there was *nothing* open to eat at. So we walked towards the Old Street stop on the Northern line and and eventually ate at the first place we found: a fancy Indian resaurant that had seven servers standing around and absolutely no customers. We ate there anyway because beggars can't be choosers and proceeded to have the best biryani ever. (Seafood Sofyani Biryani to be specific, Mommy picked up the menu.) However, I found it very unnerving having all these people standing around watching us eat. No one else even stopped by while we were there. I hope they do a booming lunch trade during the week or else this is a serious case of failing to follow the "location, location, location" adage.

Getting back to the sleeping story. Remember how yesterday we slept until noon? Well today I was supposed meet Mommy at the hotel by 10:30 so that we could go to Spitalfields. I woke up at five, I think. (I don't have a clock.) It was definitely still dark out and was for a couple of hours after I finally got out of bed as well. I finished unpacking everything, read a portion of "Clear Your Clutter With Feng Shui" by Karen Kingston (Or, in German "Heilige Orte erschaffen mit Feng Shui. Ein Anleitungsbuch") I highly reccomend this book, even if you have a really low tolerance for New Age-y things. She has a lot of helpful and good suggestions and advice and you can easily ignore the stuff that doesn't sit well with you. So I read that, played with my sink (Everything is so short! The top of the sink hits *maybe* my mid-thigh. Short!), fiddled with my furniture, and eventually gave up when it got light out and decided that if I was up probably so was Mommy so I hopped on the tube and now am at the hotel.

I feel a little bit bad that I haven't already spent more time bonding with my flat mates and meeting other people, but it is only the second day and I will be living with these people for at least three months, so it is probably all okay, right? In anycase- it is. Mommy and I are now going to scout for breakfast even though it is Sunday and nothing opens until at least 11:00am. (The hotel restaurant is open, but their prices are ridiculous. The english breakfast costs 10 pounds, we got a better sounding one yesterday for 3.50, including the tea.)

True to form

I spent yesterday at the National Portrait Gallery- which is much cooler than you would expect. I rented one of those head sets that have mp3s of interesting facts, which ended up being a good idea. The headset actually made Tudor era portraits fascinating, which I think is saying something. Each set started with a piece of music that then continued in the background (they did a good job of having era appropriate music, which I was pleased with 'cause I'm a dork like that) and explained who the important person was, why the painting was important (if it was, many weren't), who the artist was, and if there were any important historical things illustrated by the painting those were mentioned too.

The gallery has also done a very good job of making sure that there is actual diversity within their collection (like every room had at least one painting of a woman, even the science rooms. A disproportionate number of the women were operatic sopranos though) and currently have informative panels along some of the paintings about slavery. Like, was the person in question involved with the abolition or did they own slaves and the like. Cool, huh?

I had purchased a ticket to go see a candlelight concert at St. Martins in the Field, but that didn't start until 7:30 and the museum closed at 5, so I had some time to kill. I ended up going to Trafalgar Square and climbing up on to the lion pedestal in order to do some serious people watching, but instead ended up talking to these two Pakistani students at Queen Mary: Waqas and Abbas. They wanted to go down to embankment and watch the buskers, so we walked down there. There is a fellow who plays the steel drums immediately next to the carousel which makes for terrible terrible cacophony that was only very slightly reminiscent of Ives.

The concert was good, but I was cheap and got tickets that had a completely obstructed view. (It wasn't supposed to be totally obstructed, but the only thing I could see was sometimes the baton of the conductor if I was trying really hard to see.) So what I did instead was stare at the ceiling. Fortunately, being a baroque era church, the ceiling was pretty cool. They are doing a lot of work on the church right now. The crypt and the brass rubbing area are both closed, and starting in May the church will be closed for services and concerts as well, so it was good I got there when I did. However, that meant that when I was looking at the ceiling I had to look up and past the scaffolding and plywood. I would tell you what they played, but I left the program at home. Sorry.

This morning I went to "cafe" in Mile End, which is a little, um, cafe, that I went to a couple of times with Laine. I remember it very fondly and have been wanting to have at least one English Breakfast while I am here, but I think remembering it fondly was a better idea then actually going and eating there again. Oi, so much grease. But lots of fried mushrooms, and you can't go wrong with fried mushrooms. Well, in my book anyway.

I'm going to the ballet tonight, total nose bleed section tickets, but at least they are not standing room- that would be awful. I'll let you know how it goes, and thanks so much for commenting (those of you who do) it makes me really happy!