Pub Golf

So yesterday was the Rugby Pub Golf outing and it was really fun! For those not in the know, the way Pub Golf is played is that you get a scorecard and it says how many sips (or strokes) you can take to finish you drink (hole) at 9 designated bars (9 holes). They added a few extra details like a water hazard is where from hole 6-8 you can't use the bathroom. Guys had to down pints of beer, girls had the choice of shots or 1/2 pints.

My team which I think she be renamed from team 5 to team alle bon di put... had two 2010 guys Chyna and Smurf, Julian from France and V from Poland, Annabelle on exchange from Berkeley, not to mention Ximena, Marissa and me. As you can imagine my competitive nature makes me want to at any game so I did shots for all of the wholes except the first, yup that means I consumed 9 shots so you can imagine that as the night went on I got a lot friendlier, quirkier and chattier.

Highlights were :

1. Annabelle blindly following the guys into the guys bathroom and then being called a dirty girl
2. The super scary blowdryer at the Temperance
3. Getting kidnapped twice (literally getting picked up and thrown over the shoulder by some guy who I still don't know his name... I spent the rest of the night hiding behind girls whenever I saw him)
4. While getting kidnapped having Marissa running behind me taking pictures before finally deciding to help save me
5. Bumping into a woman who was out wearing Animal Print ... who was not part of our pub crawl and my team getting a picture with her

It was a really fun night. Which didn't end when we made it back to the Windsor because Anya and Ximena convinced me to go with them to Naomi's birthday party, I didn't really know Naomi even though she is in my stream and had already told Marissa I would go with her to a bday party for someone in her stream. But when drinking I am very easily persuaded to many a thing =) so I went with them and I'm pretty sure gabby Cindy had a bit too much fun and chatted way too much with folks. I have a bad habit of being super honest too when I drink so I think I either amused or surprised my stream folk (I tend to be a lot less social during class bc I'm usually quite tired). Pretty sure it was clear I was drunk because I got a few messages today from people saying ... how are you feeling?

Got home at 4AM and surprisingly this morning I didn't feel so bad. Spent today working on homework and procrastinating (thus this blog post). As much fun as last night was I really can't be doing anymore nights like that... plus I don't think Eugene appreciated it too much either.

My Team V, Chyna, Julian, Smurf on the top Me, Ximena, Marissa, Annabelle on the bottom

Our goofy shot, this is at the second pub so we're still all pretty tame


My team at the end of the night.... a lot more goofy and friendly

The girls in all our animal print glory _ Laura, Annabelle, Marissa, Ximena, Sarah, me, Marie

Adjusting...

So this week (which technically has not ended) has been a little taste of what I imagine is to come in terms of how busy Autumn term will be. Not only do I have assignment after assignment but I'm still trying to figure out my place here in London and LBS.

Having not decided on my career direction, PE, Entrepreneurship, Strategic Planning, I can't decide what clubs are most important to me. I already know I have a tendency to overextend myself and I'm really trying not to because I want to have time to travel, explore and play but it's like a constant battle between ambitious Cindy and lazy Cindy. Socially I'm still trying to figure out my relationships and friendships here. I have a group of folks I really enjoy hanging out with outside of school, unfortunately most of them are not in my Stream. There are a few that I get along with really well in my stream but I feel like I have more friendly acquaintances than anything else.

What made me feel better was having a little taste of home. I went to Bodeans tonight, it's a BBQ place in Soho and it was wonderful. Not only were they playing ESPN America and had a SEC game on (I had no idea Ole Miss was ranked 4) but they served a deliscious pulled pork sandwich that didn't taste funny and.... BLUE MOON. Only my favorite beer!

I have Stats and a debate to work on tomorrow but Saturday should be fun. I have rugby practice at 12-2PM ... and found out Sarah has an inner competitiveness that could probably rival mine. And then pub golf crawl from 6pm onwards with the men and womens rugby team. I'm a little apprehensive because the pub golf crawl I did in Austin was a bit intense but I'm looking forward to it because the girls seem cool and I find it much easier to be social when I'm buzzed or drunk (is that bad?). Eugene of course is a little concerned... but not enough to miss the Cal game and go with me =)

Oh and I bought my first piece of animal print clothing on Monday for this event... I was going to go safe and get a scarf but those who know me best know I'm generally up for anything and I don't half ass most things. So I got a leopard print shirt... which should be interesting.

Between the PE/VC Kick off and the Women In Business Club, not to mention all the class work and etc this week I feel like I haven't had a chance to replenish my energy... but I am determined to not miss a thing and work and socialize (eeks) my butt off these next two years. Although I do really miss having my girls around, it's nice to have someone who understands you and you can really be yourself around.

Quick Synopsis of Highlights of the Week

Tuesday - completely downpoured but Alicia convinced me to go with some folks from our stream to Shakespeare Globe Theater to watch "As you like it". It was quite good and a really cool venue (got some pictures before my hand got slapped) but after getting downpoured on the 3rd time towards the end of Act 1 Molly, Trisha and I decided to go find food and hot beverages to dry off and warm up. We ended up at The Real Greek, which was good but overpriced and small quantities, where we ate and chatted until the rest of the folks showed up. I had fun and got to spend some time with Jamie, Pooya, Alicia, Nick, Neil, Joao, Trisha and Molly

The motley crew of 8 who decided to brave the rain and go to Shakespeare Globe Theater anyways

The inside - very cool, felt like I was in Shakespeare in Love
My illicit picture of the actors and the start of the play "As you like it"

Before the rain.... the three who ended up escaping after Act 1 to find a warm, dry place to wait out the rest of the play Molly and I after braving our 3rd downpour in the rain... we're quite soaked at this point

Thursday - Met my group at 8am for a full day of stats... Long Day! Stepped out at 1:30PM to take my oral test for Mandarin... teacher said my Mandarin is not bad and I can skip to level 2... thank goodness I thought I was going to have to spend 70hrs taking level 1 during what is looking like a really busy and hard autumn term. Then went back for more stats only to leave at 3:30 and spent roughly 3 hours taking the written exam. Found I remembered a suprising amount of mandarin, and picked up some words I had forgotten from other sections of the test. Glad to know I actually did retain some. Hung around campus because at 6:45PM was the AT Kearney Global Strategy Competition briefing, Venu and I decided we might as well try it, 50% of the teams get to actually compete and that's a random drawing, and Molly joined our team. Went out to Notting Hill with Venu and Christian because I thought it was Christian's birthday. Turns out its a different Christian's birthday ... one I have not meant... so I actually didn't have to go out. What should have been a 15 min tube ride turned into a 30 min plus tube ride as the two local pros, Venu and Christian, first had us riding the wrong way on the Circle Line, only to switch and get on the wrong line, only to take another tube ending up back at Baker St 30min later to finally get on the right tube to Notting Hill. The bday party was at Babylon Beach Blanket or something, super posh place with a fireplace inside ???? and 11GBP mojitos... that's like $17. They were good but not THAT good. After a bit of socializing and chatting we headed home.... what a long night but as usual it's fun hanging out with Venu, Christian, Constantine, Laura and a few other folks =)

Brighton... London Beaches?

So when Laura suggested a day at Brighton, I heard it was the Atlantic City of London and that it was a beach town. Now coming from LA... I was a bit skeptical of a UK beach (rightly so) and having only TV as a reference for Atlantic City I really didn't know what to expect.

This morning Marissa and I grabbed breakfast at Pret (Croissants and Hot Chocolate are much better here than the states btw) and headed to London Bridge to meet up with Jonas, Laura and Sarah for our trip to Brighton. The train ride was a quick 1 hr... good conversation probably made it better. - Side Note: Marissa and I could not for the life of us find a trash bin so we brought our trash from breakfast all the way from Baker St to London Bridge to Brighton. (Because of the bombings in London were in trash bins there are none to be found in the tube stations and some parts of the city you could end up carrying your trash with you for quite some time).

Despite the morning gloom we made our way along the cute streets of Brighton to the beach. While the beach is mostly rocks and pebbles and what I imagine to be super cold water, it is actually quite nice. Probably helped that it was a Friday and most people have work. We got lucky and saw the Royal AirForce Fighter Jets practicing for this weekend's festivities. If you look carefully you can see Laura, Marissa and Jonas watching the fighter jets.

Afterwards we went to find some Fish & Chips... My very first since coming to the UK. It is quite good, the fish is super tender but the Chips or Fries as us Americans call it was pretty standard.

When we walked out the sun had started coming out which was really nice... still not warm enough to swim but otherwise quite nice. We walked over to the Royal Pavillion, King George the IV Brighton residence. It was very opulent and Chinese themed on the inside... supposedly very popular for the time and the outside was suppose to be Chinese themed too but the architect and decorators had never been to China so I think they got it mixed up with the Taj Mahal. No picture taking inside but it was actually quite interesting. Although the Strongbow Cider hit us when we sat down and I almost fell asleep in the middle of the audio tour.

After we walked out we met up with Yuki, who slept in so didn't meet up with us until later in the day. We walked to the Brighton Pier which was finally open and partook in some dessert. There is a place called Moo Moo Milkshakes which have over 100 flavors and from what I hear was quite good. Then we took the free sundeck chairs and lounged in the sun on the pier. Which was really nice. Afterwards we made our way to the end of the pier where all the rides were. Because there were so few people you just bought tokens and if you had enough people to meet the minimum you flagged down an operator and rode the rides. We did the Turbo rollercoaster... which Sarah and I thought was questionably old and creaky looking. Was short lived fun but ended up tossing us around quite a bit so I think we might all wake up with bruises tomorrow. Afterwards we tried to ride the mechanical bull.. unfortunately it was closed so that shall remain on my list of things I want to do.

Afterwards we walked around the really cute cobblestone streets of Brighton with their cute stores and shops. Yuki and I were hungry, having not eaten any dessert like the rest of the folks, and found an Italian restaurant offerring 2 course meal for 6.75 GBP... pretty cheap. Everybody ended up sitting down with us and eating too... most everyone got the Lasagna, which looked and tasted quite good, except Yuki, who got the pizza. We also split a jug of Pimms, a summer drink similar to sangria and arnold palmers.

After dinner we headed back to London. All in all it was a really nice day to just get out of London, hang out and get to know some really cool people better. Tomorrow I have loads of work to do and Stats so its nice to step out once in awhile.

Smallest Chinatown... EVER

So Saturday, after going to a picnic of all the MBA 2011 Women, Marissa, Eugene and I headed to Chinatown to look around and buy some groceries. Given Britain's ownership of Hong Kong I just sort of assumed it would be a bit bigger, or at least be comparable to Chicago's Chinatown. It is actually quite small... takes up maybe two small streets with just a handful of shops and restaurants. Not that I'm going to complain, that wasn't complaining just observing, because I saw a Taiwanese restaurant and I found a Korean restaurant that has sul long tang and soon dubu! We tried out Jen's cafe, that has homemade dumplings, not bad.. probably won't return but the fried dumplings are pretty good.

I was very happy to bring home some REAL rice (i.e., jasmine vs basmati), oyster sauce and real chinese style soy milk... thank goodness for vitasoy. We also found a bakery and stocked up on the yummy breads we missed so much... definitely not on par with LA but will tied us over until we come back to visit.

On Sunday we went to the Thames River Festival. I am quickly learning that London's version of Carnival or Festival basically means two things. 1. lots of stands where you wait in long queues for food. 2. Parades. The first part I don't mind so much because Marissa and I saw Flaming Cactus and made a beeline for some Mexican food. The burrito was the most poorly made burrito I've ever seen... she folded it in half... sure why not... and then in half the other way... what the hell is that. I didn't care because I was so massively hungry... but woman how hard is it to roll a burrito. Brits...

Later we walked all the way from the London Eye to the Tate Modern Museum to see the Fire Garden. Name sounds MUCH cooler than it actually was... it was basically a bunch of metal structures with candles on them that were lit with fire...ooooOOooo Eugene was not so pleased since the walk is not a quick one... think about 3-4 tube stops down. We decided to bounce, having lost most of the group anyways.. and on our way back we began walking over the Blackfriar's bridge (where the Night Carnival was suppose to be) home and bumped into the Night Carnival... which was just a parade. This was actually pretty cool because they were dancing and had crazy cool costumes on. Some of the girls looked like Rio Carnival costumes and I am sure were freezing their butts off in the cold nights air. I'll post those pics to facebook as I've gotten too lazy to individually post pics here.

All in all a pretty decent weekend... and to add to my list of things I've done... yesterday I got stuck in the elevator at the Tauton building. Tauton is this newly designed building across the street from the main campus that houses our itty bitty gym and some study areas. You would think it was dwinelle, but worse because its impossible to find stairs going up (they aren't all connected) and even harder to find stairs down (half of them are "fire exit only" and so doors on the lower floors are locked or alarmed. So I had given up and decided to take the elevator.. only to have it stall after going down 1 ft from the original floor I was on. In the elevator with 3 able minded men they pried open the doors and called for help. All very exciting... but now I need to find an alternative method of traversing the 6 floors of Tauton ... 8 if you included the basement and subbasement.

Internet Finally!!

Productivity has been waning the moment we signed on! Not only do we not sleep as early anymore but we just spent 2 hrs not talking and just being online.

I have also discovered a way to watch tv online... there go my grand ambitions ;).

But a quick update...

Apparently my stream is getting the reputation as being the social stream. Tuesday night we went out for dinner at Imli (a modern Indian tapas place) and basically everyone showed up... definitely impressive turnout. The food was okay but a bit spicy and me recovering from my sore throat was unable to really eat it... yea my lack of spicy tolerance didn't help either. The night was fun but .. again in recovery mode... I headed home afterwards instead of joining the crew to Floridita, a salsa club, for drinks. My stream is pretty cool, everyone is lax and makes me laugh so I'm having a grand ol time rt now.

Today, Wed, was my day off so I just met up Alicia and Mamello around 2pm and headed to the Westfield here for a day of shopping. Westfield is HUGE... and very nice and posh. We hit the main stores, Mark & Spencers, H&M, and Zaras and all bought clothes at all three. Our styles have some crossover and we had to make sure to at least buy different colors of some of the same clothes. =) All in all a very fun day and very successful given our haul.

After I came back I rushed over to have dinner with Venu, Christian and Marissa... we went to La Tasca with a 50% of all food voucher... got total 12 tapas dishes and came out to 23GBP total... great deal! Dinner lasted for 3 hours and it was fun to gab and catch up since we're in different streams.

Tomorrow I only have a brief programme briefing and the rest of the day is off too. Planning on being productive tomorrow and resting up so I can hopefully go Gay Clubbing on Friday, Cal game Saturday, Rugby and then Thames River Festival Sunday. =) ... not to mention finally use the gym and get all my hw done... oh and upload the pics that i've been taking here and there.