Papers...and fun!

This week has been kind of intense, but by the end it was a good kind of intense.

Last Sunday was crazy---Heather and I spent several hours running around. We went to Hyde Park, then to the Natural History Museum to see the dinosaurs (though that is a giant sloth), then to Regents Park for ice cream and a few minutes of cricket. We then rushed to the Tube stop near the V&A museum because the only person who could give us a key to the flat Heather was staying in was out there, and we needed to get her bag still. She made her bus to the airport, but just barely.

I crashed pretty hard that night, but by Monday or Tuesday I was mostly recovered from the Stonehenge-induced exhaustion. Monday through Wednesday we all pretty much were working on our papers, with a break Tuesday night to celebrate having turned in the art history paper. Classes were pretty good, and we went to the National Portrait Gallery as a class, which was nice.

Second paper was due on Thursday morning. After class, I went to Russell Square and met Matt Marr! who was visiting for the weekend and staying with Gabor. We went to the British Museum and Regents Park, before meeting Gabor and heading to a Spanish tapas bar to watch the Spain-Russia 'football' match. It was a little ridiculous, everyone there was extremely happybecause Spain won.

On Friday Matt and I took a double decker bus tour, where we met a girl from Canada who went around with us for a couple hours. We saw some of the sights of the city, took a boat down the Thames, had lunch in Trafalgar Square, where a veteran's day celebration was going on, and checked out the National Gallery. We wanted to go on a Beatles walking tour but it rained, so Matt and I ended up taking a boat to Greenwich.

We made the trek up the hill to the Royal Observatory, making it with just a half hour till it closed. We looked around the museum, took pictures in two hemispheres, and met up with Gabor. The three of us wandered Greenwich for a bit before getting dinner and making our way to the London Eye to meet Lissa. We took some stereotypical tourist photos in the phone booths on the way.

The London Eye was not as impressive as I'd hoped but it was still a lot of fun. It's a giant ferris wheel with enclosed capsules. It takes about half an hour to go around and it lets you see the city from above, but I guess I like regular ferris wheels better, where you're outside.

On Saturday Matt, Gabor, Lissa and I went to St. Paul's Cathedral. We went into the crypt where we saw a bunch of famous people's graves, including Joshua Reynolds', William Blake's and Joseph Turner's, all people we're learning about in art history. We then climbed the 800 stairs to the top of the Dome. I love climbing tall things. Well, I hate the stairs, but I absolutely love the view from the top, the wind, and just the general rush of things seen from a height. I didn't really want to come down.

Afterward we grabbed lunch, then Gabor, Matt and I took the Tube to Wimbledon! We got in line around 4 p.m. and didn't get in until 6:30 (which is exactly when Matt predicted we'd get in). We lucked out though when we got there, getting to a gentlemen's singles match on Court 11 that was just finishing first set. It was Mathieu (seeded 14) v. Cilic (unseeded), and we got seats just in time to watch them play a tiebreaker in the first set. Mathieu took it, but it was clear Cilic had rattled him, and parts of the next two sets were painful, watching his mental game be shaken.

BUT a lot of awesome tennis was played in those two sets, and the fourth set was fantastic---it went to tiebreaker again. Cilic won, but Mathieu fought hard. If they had gone into fifth set it would have been ridiculous, it was getting dark.

Also we think one of the line judges was Steve Carell. Well, we did till he took his hat off. But... with his hat on... it was so him.

I was utterly happy the entire time I was there, I think it was the best (of many awesome things) I have done since getting to London. I just had such a great time, and the tennis was wonderful. Makes me want to pick up my racket again. It was a lot of fun going with the boys. We got strawberries and cream afterward, went and looked at Centre Court (we'd looked to see if we could sneak in earlier, to the Nadal match, but the entrances were too well guarded), and hit the gift shop. We left around 10, got back to Kings Cross around 11.

We went to a pub, where Lissa met us, and hung out for a while. Eventually we came back to swap pictures, then the boys went home. I didn't get to sleep until at least 2:30, if then. People were loud in the hallway, and at 4 a.m. some kind of ruckus was going on in the street, Liz and Nell heard it too.

I got up around 7:15 to meet Matt and Gabor; they were meeting Joker, who was in London for the weekend and who Matt is hanging out with in Paris this week, for breakfast before Matt and Joker caught the Eurostar. Afterward Gabor and I went to Kings Cross and took pictures of Platform 9 3/4.

This Sunday afternoon has been a lot like last week's Saturday---relaxing, uploading photos, doing laundry... I need to sleep some more. Lissa and I are probably going to see The Edge of Love tonight. I hope I can stay awake.

Anyhow, this weekend was kind of awesome, I had a great time, especially going to Wimbledon. I am not ready for the fact that we're half done here. I don't want to leave!