Thanksgiving in London

Sunday, November 30th

After another great breakfast, we set out to find the Harry Potter books down on Oxford Street and hit up the Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park. That was the only place where I have ever seen a hockey rink, a roller coaster and a giant slide all outdoors at one festival. Kind of odd.
Laura and Kim went to Big Ben again while I practiced, then Kim and I picked up her luggage and headed out to Heathrow to catch her flight. We forgot her passport, but luckily she remembered when we were only 2 tube stops from our flat. She made it on the plane fine, and I spent the rest of the night chilling out at the flat.


Saturday, November 29th

I made some bad-ass omlets, then went to the Wicked theatre to pick up tickets for the matinee performance. Kim, Laura and I went over to see Buckingham Palace and hung out in St. James’ Park for a bit before Laura left and Kim and I went to the show. Wicked is an awesome show, with the intricate stage set-up and scene changes, and the music was really interesting.
After that, we took a walk down the southbank, from the Millennium Bridge down to Tower Bridge. It was a chilly night, but the walk was fun. We got dinner at a pub behind my flat (The Larrick) and had real Aberdeen Angus burgers which were amazing. Then we met up with Omar, Andrew and Laura and we went down to Oxford Circus to check out the Christmas lights. We made our way over to Soho for a bit before heading back.


Friday, November 28th

After breakfast, Kim and I took a tour of Westminster Abbey then made our way down to ICLC. She went with Laura, Seth and Meagan to check out Harrod’s while Omar and I went to try to get tickets for Wicked that night. We couldn’t get the tickets, so I met up with the rest of them down on the southbank to check out the German Christmas village. We took a ride on the merry-go-round and walked all the way down to London Bridge where we went to a pub for dinner. We went back to the flat briefly and headed out to Wetherspoons Pub on Baker Street for some drinks. Not exactly what I had planned for today, but hey, we still saw some cool stuff.


Thursday, November 27th

I got about 3 hours of sleep when I woke up at 5am to catch a Picadilly train out to Heathrow Terminal 4 to pick up Kim. It was really easy to get out there, only took about an hour, and I was there just in time to catch her coming out of the arrivals door. We came back to the flat to drop off her luggage and went straight to ICLC for my Brit Pop class (we covered how crappy the Spice Girls were as well as awesome Irish bands).
After that, we went to some museums (Natural History and V&A) then went over to Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey before heading back to the flat to get ready for the feast. We had 11 people total for dinner (Me, Kim, Andrew, Omar, Eric, Ilyse, Laura, Ilyse’s friend Jen, Omar’s friend Richie, Meagan and Seth) and it went very smoothly, with tons of food and good wine. I gnawed on a turkey leg and ate a few of my baked potatoes. Awesome night.


Wednesday, November 26th

Today I went down to a primary school in Brixton to teach a euphonium lesson to two students in Omar’s class. The school was mainly Afro-Caribbean students, including the two euph students. They were beginners and only knew one note, D natural (or ‘mi’ as they refer to it as). I had to teach them in this large room that was very loud with classes walking through the middle randomly. Eventually we moved into a classroom when the rest of the class was warming up, and then I got to teach them two more notes, C and B-flat (or ‘re’ and ‘do’). They were very interested in learning new things on the euphonium, even though they were actually playing baritones.
After the lesson, they joined the rest of the class for their rehearsal, which was one of the most unorganized things I’ve seen. Students were raising all sorts of hell with each of their instruments, yelling, playing, fighting, not listening to anything the teacher, Alistar (or ‘Titch’), was saying. It was nuts. I decided then that this would be a poor choice to stay here to teach after I’m done. They were rehearsing for their concert next week (which is strange since they only know one note) and it wasn’t going very well. Afterwards, a clarinet player comes up to me and says “hi, can you help me put this away?” and hands me her clarinet. I turned around to officially meet Titch, and when I turned back around, she was gone. I found her wrestling with a trombonist, a tug-of-war match with the trombone slide, and got her to come over to a table to show her how to disassemble the instrument. We went piece by piece, and after it was finished, she closed the case, realized that it was her friend’s case and ran off. Awesome.
After that, I went back to ICLC to practice, then ran some errands and made my baked potatoes for the fest on the morrow.


Tuesday, November 25th

We forgot to pay rent yesterday, I hope that’s not a problem. My highlight for today was in British Art & Architecture when our professor, the lovely Susan Bracken, accidentally knocked the telephone off the receiver while leaning on it and had a heluva time putting it back up. It’s just hilarious to watch a very proper British lady curse at an inanimate object that doesn’t want to cooperate. She also expressed her severe displeasure with the current Mona Lisa exhibit at The Louvre, with its “hideous cream-colored walls and the millions of Japanese taking photographs next to the sign clearly marked ‘no photography.’ A terrible exhibit, indeed.” I love her.
I tried practicing again today, but my face was still not feeling quite ready to play well again after that marathon of playing on Saturday. It reminds me of last year when our ‘Heavy Metal’ tuba quartet would play at Moonshadows Tavern on the commons on Monday nights and I wouldn’t be able to feel anything in my face for a few days afterwards. Good times.
Tonight I made the perfect tikka masala chicken with orange (probably my 10th time making it) and it was great. I spent the rest of the night cleaning the apartment and getting ready for Kim’s arrival on Thanksgiving Thursday. We also started thawing our 17.5lb turkey. Boo-yah.