This morning I dined on crumpets because I was tired of eating oatmeal with water. Also, I still had to get rid of my old butter. There's not much left, though. I'm excited.
Then I went shopping for food. I made sure to limit myself in what I bought so I didn't weigh down myself on the walk home. Seriously, walking a half-mile with fifty pounds of food held by various points of your body is hard work. Luckily, there's a very convenient bus that'll take you a block from the giant Tesco to right outside International Hall. Oh, lucky me.
Then I went and got Oscar because we were supposed to walk to Elephant and Castle together to look around the shopping center there. Well, there is a shopping center there, but it looks kind of sketch. And what I mean by sketch is not very well maintained and filled with stores with the cheap quality and the cheap prices to go with it. The people that shop there resemble the best of the people of Wal-Mart. (I'm sure no one as weird as the real people of Wal-Mart would dare show themselves in British public. It's a culture difference thing. People seem to be more conscious of what others think of them over here.) All the while, Oscar kept complaining about the state of the building and I sort of said "yeah yeah, you're too good to be here, I know." His
Found a factory outlet for a store warehouse. And while some of the boots looked nice and I checked out a few, nothing really tickled my fancy to the point of spending 30 quid on a single pair. Which I guess is kind of cheap over here, but it's still $60 for me.
There were a bunch of market booths outside the shopping center. One of them sold shoes as well, but none of them tickled my fancy either. So we left.
Oscar had to stop at his bank, which isn't your normal NatWest or HSBC apparently. I followed him until we walked along the South Bank to Waterloo Bridge. When there, he turned to me and said "I wouldn't be offended if you want to go back." And because I was hungry and didn't want to buy anything from a shop (even though it was really tempting to get a kabob), I went back to eat lunch, which involved toast, bacon rashers (it's the kind of bacon closest to the American style bacon they have), turkey meat, cheese, ranch on one piece of bread, and some mixed greens. It was good. Also finished the last of the cookies and ate an apple.
Meanwhile, Chris from across the hall came by asking for laundry detergent. I gave him some because I'm a nice person and he's a nice person and he's always been really polite with me. When he came to give it back, I asked if he'd be interested in visiting Brussels. He said that yes, he would be, because he hasn't been getting around much either (just the south of France with his parents and Barcelona this past weekend and Wales some other time). Then he let me use the vacuum he borrowed from the front desk, so my room is freshly vacuumed now. When I went to return the vacuum, he said that he won't be able to do the weekend I was planning. He's planning a trip to Italy over Thanksgiving and he doesn't want to travel two weekends in a row. He asked if December would be better, and I said no because I'm going to Rome, then Madrid, then Devon, then Scandinavia. And there's hardly any work for final school projects with that sort of travel schedule. He understood. So now we're not going anywhere together.
Called my parents afterward and they're doing fine. They asked about the Harry Potter World Premiere and how the Brussels planning was going. I presume the actual National Express website has some sort of feature that locks my card every time I attempt to book the bus tickets. Which makes booking so frustrating I want to snap my card in two whenever it doesn't work (I don't though. That'll just be silly and counter productive).
During this call, I started to hear popping noises from outside that sounded like fireworks. Since I've been interacting so much with Chris, I thought I'd check them out from his room because he would have a better view of them. And he did. Fancy fireworks show along the South Bank, yippie. We talked for some more (this was where we established the "our schedules are too busy to find a compatible date" thing) and then I returned to my parents on the phone.
Dinner, for me at least, was quite amazing. Here is what I had including recipe in case you want to make it yourself. This came about because I had this gnocchi since early October and I had to get rid of it. But it wasn't just going to be any old heat-yo-noodles-and-eat-'em, this was going to be an attempt to recreate the Chicken Gnocchi soup at the Olive Garden! I deem this a success even though it's nothing like the Olive Garden (but it's been a few months so I may be wrong). I even tried to share, but Chris was the only one who agreed to have a bowl. Even then, he stored it away for later. So I'm upset that no one tried my soup while it was still fresh, but at least I got to share it!
Jessica called while I was away, so I called her back. Normal friend talk there. Nothing spectacular.
Tomorrow is the Imperial War Museum. I think I'll check out the Shepherd's Bush Shopping Center on Monday. Sounds like a good plan to me.
[EDIT] Just booked Brussels using my emergency card. So you all know.
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