In the Jungle, the Concrete Jungle

David and I have not always been that great at giving gifts… especially when it came to shipping presents to his family in the UK. But now that we’re here, we’ve vowed to turn over a new leaf... and not fall into bad habits with my family back in the states!

As part of Laura’s graduation present, we invited her to come and stay with us for a couple of weeks while she completes an internship at a book publisher in Notting Hill. And it turns out I got a bit of a present myself – books on loan from the publisher’s library! Yay! I love books.

If Laura lived at home with her mom, the commute would be TERRIBLE (trust me, I know). So instead, she has moved in and now enjoys a 17 minute tube ride to Notting Hill Gate every morning… except early last week when the tube workers decided to go on strike for 2 days. Not cool. It amazes me how they can just strike and shut down the whole city. Is that really going to save their jobs?? Probably not. The problem is things are so automated now with card readers and ticket machines, that the Underground doesn’t need 18 workers per station anymore. It’s called efficiency. Sorry…. On second thought, I’m not really sorry because they’re planning on striking 3 more times before Christmas!

Anyway – don’t get me started. The other part of Laura’s graduation present was a night out on the town. She chose Cote for dinner and The Lion King. Cote is a chain of French bistros throughout London, and in the West End the restaurant offers a pre-theatre set menu. David ordered sardines as a starter, even though he’s never had them before. Risky! But he enjoyed them. Laura had salad and I had soup. For dinner, both David and Laura had the sea bass and I had steak with frites. Waiters have often mixed up my meals with David’s. He’ll order the grilled chicken and I’ll get a huge burger. Or he’ll pick a salad while I choose a steak. Saturday night was no different. David doesn’t have a sweet tooth, though, so he ate off of Laura’s crème caramel and my chocolate pot for dessert.

Well the good news (or bad news) is that I have finally decided to join a gym! I have never belonged to a gym before in my life but the Dell gym is only 2 pounds/month and all these lean Europeans in their damn skinny jeans and leggings are totally showing me up, so it’s time I started working off all the 3-course meals I’ve been enjoying. And I really need to start helping out my metabolism because it can’t possibly stay this high forever…

Back to the Lion King. It was gggrrrreat! The theatre was a bit smaller than the enormous Wicked theatre we were at during our last theatre night, but it was perfect because the cast really involved the audience. The animals walked through the aisles on their way up to the stage while the drummers and bird-handlers hung out in the balconies banging on their drums and flying their birds above our heads. The best part was the costumes! I loved the way the gazelles leapt across the stage and the giraffe singers were so coordinated on their stilts! I would’ve fallen over and broken all my legs and arms if I had to wear one of those giraffe suits! It was really entertaining and we all had a great time together.

Laura will leave this weekend and then Eric, one of David’s groomsmen and best friends from high school, is coming from Boston on Saturday to stay with us for a few days. This means it will no longer be two girls against one boy with the remote and I will be banished from the living room/study/dining room. The boys will take over the living room/study/dining room with their pizza and beer and football (more to come on that in an upcoming blog) while I take refuge in our bedroom trying to change the VPN of our laptop back to a US address to trick hulu.com into letting me catch up on the Amazing Race (this is the first season I’ve ever missed and I going through WITHDRAWALS) and True Blood.