Movies and museums and tours and markets and other random things.

To be honest, the weekend seems like a long time ago. But I'll try...

Saturday I went to the super crowded but very cool Camden Market. It was like Portobello Road...with more people...and more....dodginess. But they did have lots of interesting stuff (and cute clothes!). Plus, it was sunny! I appreciate the sun so much more now!
Saturday evening I met some Baha'is in my area, buuuuut there's no one my age. Sounds familiar. Later that night we went back to Camden to go to what is becoming our favorite club (because they play Lady Gaga and Hanson. In the same club.). We met some English people...because we're in England....

Sunday was not exciting--I slept and did homework.

Monday I went to class and then went back to the Museum of Natural History and looked at exhibits on human biology, sea life, mammals, and a random one on monkeys. Of course that made me want to go on a safari, or take some sort of wildlife tour through about 500 different countries.

Tuesday was long...as usual. I had class all morning, then did some window shopping on Kensington High Street, then met my evening class (Social Welfare Issues) at the movie theater to watch "Invictus." I have no idea why we watched that movie for that particular class, but it was uplifting...which is more than I can say for the movie I'd watched in one of my earlier classes that day, "This is England." That movie's all about multiculturalism....well, it mainly dealt with people who had issues accepting multiculturalism. I don't think I'll ever thing of the flag of England the same way--these people used it as a symbol of racism against immigrants. Noooo good. I mean, I don't think people do that today. Well, I don't know. ANYWAY.

Wednesday we had an "orientation" type meeting for our trip to Edinburgh this weekend at our program leader's flat. The trip sounds really cool--even the 4 and 1/2 hour train ride, because we get to see parts of England that we obviously wouldn't be able to see otherwise. We're going on some sort of ghost tour the first night, and a bus tour, and touring the castle...yeah, details will come after I've actually done the trip.
I spent Wednesday evening in Leicester Square with one of those English people we met on Saturday.

Thursday (today) I had theatre class and got to meet an English actress who writes her own monologues and does stand-up comedy. She was hilarious, talented, but incredibly approachable. She originally went to law school...and was therefore very vocal about the fact that you can do whatever you want, even if you didn't plan for it. For my social welfare class we went on a tour of a place called Toynbee Hall, which provides a bunch of different groups with welfare-type stuff, like offering free law consultation and working with elderly people to make sure their money isn't basically being stolen by their families...which is apparently common. They also work with Tower Hamlets (the place I'll be interning) and providing disadvantaged kids with lots of awesome opportunities like sailing to France! I wonder if I'll be in on field trips like that....

Our train leaves at 9AM tomorrow for Edinburgh, so we get all of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday there. The whole group is really excited, so it should be an awesome trip!