Woo!  Lots to talk about.  Now that I finally have a place, it's been nonstop hitting the town, sort of.  Yesterday, Omar, Mike and I went to the Carnival on Notting Hill, near where Laura lives, and it was insane.  I knew it was going to be good when all I could smell for blocks was caribbean food.  The Carnival is supposed to celebrate respect for the Afro Carribean community, and it's the second largest street party aside from Rio!  The parades were awesome, the costumes over the top, and the food/drink/atmosphere was one big block party, to say the least.  After that we hit up my first Halal food place here, a block from our apartment.  The food was spicy, strangely colored, and all around overwhelming.  The tv in our apartment only gets Arabic channels, strangely enough, so we had a good time filling in the blanks on the sitcoms.

Then this morning, I woke feeling like I had a sack of potatoes in my shoulder blades - I think it was all the moving I did the day before.  The shower had almost no water pressure, and we couldn't quite figure out how to work the toilet.  So the morning was  . . . interesting.  My ogre tired side didn't know what to do.  In any case, I went to my first class, British comedy, and it was great!  We watched a very wry, dry British movie and will talk about it next class.  It's going to take me a while to get used to the 2 1/2 hour classes we have here.  With that done, I caught some lunch and headed to the natural history museum with laura, omar, mike, and eric.  DINOSAURS!!!  YEAHHH!!!    Finally, we ended the day with a wonderful concert (for 5 lbs!) by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.  They played Romeo and Juliet (go tenor sax) and Tchaik 5.  It was an inundation of music, and I'm still in awe.  I just walked Laura back to her place, cause the drunkies are still out from the Carnival.  Wow .  . . 

Ciao!