Since then...

Here's a quick lil blog entry about what's been happening in London since my last post--but it'll be short so I can move on to a post on our weekend in Paris!

Highlights of the last couple of weeks in London:

- Rachel's boyfriend Ben (who's perhaps more significantly my friend from home :) ) arrived in London to start his semester at the NYU in London program. He's the best because he indulges us when we're being really aggressively stupid by (usually fake) laughing at our intensely dumb shenanigans. He also sometimes lets me inappropriately bully him into doting on me as though I'm some kind of packaged extension of Rachel. (Because I say, "It's not fair that she gets to be a princess when I'd be just as good a princess!" *see earlier posts/Rachel's blog. We'd both be really benevolent, inclusive, fun-loving princesses.*)

Paris Preview: Ben carrying bags. His, Rachel's, Mine.

- Drinks with a cousin of my cousins (for my family: Suzanne Muchin's stepson, Josh Brown--such a sweetheart!) who didn't make clear in his invitation that I'd be going IN to Parliament (where he's interning for the semester) and able to attend a Parliament staffers' reception before drinks in the Parliament staffers' pub, which is directly underneath Big Ben. Very cool night, very cool people.

- Our second walk through Hampstead Heath park, this time with our friend Jake (who we met last summer in NYC) and his girlfriend Emily. Both arrived in London this semester.

- Trips to Borough Market.

- A pub crawl crafted by our Swedish friend who's lived in London now for three years. He's a big resource now that we've been to all the places in my bookstore-bought "Little Black Book of London."

- The Hari Krishna on London School of Economics' campus (about a 3 minute walk from ours) who serves heaping portions of delicious, free, vegetarian meals.

He also has a sense of humor! 

- Speaking of free/basically free food: Monday night dinners at the Slug and Lettuce, all food 1/2 price. Rachel and I meet our friends Molly and Chelsea every week at this chain restaurant that's unlike anything in the U.S. It has the decor and menu of a mid-range restaurant/bar but is super cheap. I don't know how they do it.

- Our overnight in Brighton, a coastal town south of London. Rachel and I stayed with my cousin Cashel and her boyfriend Moses at their flat (which had an incredible front room with floor to ceiling bay windows) for a night and had the best time. We ate delicious food, drank delicious cider and walked through the towns famously charming lanes. I still can't get over how lucky I feel to have such wonderful family in London.

Cashel and Rachel on Brighton's pebble beach.

- Dinner with Anne (the daughter of my mom's manfriend Paul) and her boyfriend Don hours before I left for Paris (we took an overnight bus, which left London at 10:30 pm). Again, I seem to have gotten lucky by knowing even more amazing young people in the city!

- Last and nerdiest highlight: my Aristotle class. Love it so much.