day 17

Today was the 4th of July, as well as mom's birthday. It feels ironic to spend the celebration of the day your county was liberated from the tyrannous rule of the country you're currently in, but there you are. I pretty much didn't do anything today. I know it sounds ridiculous, not being able to think of anything to in London, but I really couldn't, so I decided to have a day to relax and hopefully work on my final paper.

There was a little bit of paper writing, but a great deal more relaxing. I shared my time between eating meals, talking on skype, watching things online, and pretty much being lazy. I think everyone deserves a day like that every once in a while.

Anyway, I finally got together with my friends and went to Giraffe for dinner. This is the place I had the really good waffle and ice cream from before. We all sat and talked and said "Amurica" a lot, because it was the 4th and this was the only thing we could really do about it. I had these amazing BBQ chicken quesadillas, which was exactly what I was in the mood for. Something I will not miss about London is the food. It's pretty much sandwiches for every lunch, heavy meat and starch for dinner, and rarely any vegetables. Sure you're in London, so you would think there are tons and tons of options for different foreign food, but the foreign food is all wrong. There's are loads of Indian restaurants, but they are way too spicy for me. And the Chinese food isn't American-Chinese food, it's British-Chinese food. They have "American Fried Chicken" places, but once you've lived in the South no tea drinking Brit is going to know anything about how to make good fried chicken.

People are also very pushy in restaurants. You have to call the waiters over to do everything. They leave you alone until you catch their eye, which means meals take forever. You can hardly ever separate checks for some strange reason, so you always have to hope you have the cash to pay for your portion and contribute to the pot for the whole bill. Tip is also included in the bill, and if you want to leave less you have to ask, which means the waiter hates you forever and won't even come back to your table. Free refills and ice don't exist over here either. You get one ice cube because people over here think if you fill it up with ice the ice melts and you're paying for water. And if you want to eat at cafes you had better hope you only have one other person with you because they only have about 4 tables outside with two chairs each.

Now that I've ranted, I think I feel much better. London really is lovely and I hope you'll all come here one day, if you haven't already, but three weeks is a long time to be without a tall glass of endless, cold sweet tea.

Anyway, after dinner we walked along the South Bank for a bit, then made our way back to the dorms. Class starts tomorrow yet again, but I only have three days of class, then the test on Thursday. We'll see how that goes. Shower and then to bed.

British word of the day: digestive biscuits = Graham crackers, don't ask me why.