London day #1

So far, so good on the London front. Most of the day was spent in transit, but my flight from Ciampino to Stansted (30 euro round trip!) was actually ahead of schedule. From there I took the Easybus to Baker Street, which is located conveniently near the apartment building with the ND kids. After walking about a half-mile, I called Mark Durst, and he met me outside the building. I went up to his room, dropped my stuff off, and we immediately went to the grocery store. There I bought a pastry and a wrap, because I was starving. Aside from a banana, I hadn't eaten in 9 hours. That's just not right on Thanksgiving. After that, we went back to the apartment, where I rested on a couch in Durst's room.

Eventually Chad, who is my official host of the weekend, showed up from class, so I went upstairs to his flat (floor 9). The rest of the afternoon/ early evening was spent in preparation for the Thanksgiving feast. I had the totally wrong idea of what the ND london dinner was, but that's okay. Apparently, we had to cook, but they provided the food with instructions. Well, we are ND students and all, so we can follow orders pretty well. The dinner was excellent. Truly... it was no Thanksgiving at the hall, but the turkey was actually better. I was pleasantly surprised.

We cooked for 12, and they provided us with a whole hell of a lot of potatoes, turkey, wine (ND subsidized alcohol!), stuffing, spinich stuff, cranberry sauce, gravy, and some veggies, as well as pumpkin pie. I probably ate two days worth of calories in about 20 minutes. It was by far the fastest Thanksgiving meal of my life, and I paid for it (and am still currently paying for it) for the next couple of hours. But it was totally worth it.