Sorry it’s been ages since I last updated! I’ve been super busy and everything has been all over the place lately! And of course this is going to be an epically long update!
I last left off when I was preparing to go to the Philips de Pury Music sale. Randi and I made it to the auction but had to leave early because we had plans later to go to our friend, Angelique’s birthday party. I spent most of the afternoon trying to replicate the coconut cake that I made back in Boston, to bring to the party. Then Randi and I rushed to the auction (which was very cool... we missed the best part though, when they did the second half of the auction to music! The first auction to ever do so!) After we left, we went home, picked up the coconut cake and ventured to Angelique’s place. Unfortunately, the tube stop closest to her was not running that weekend, so we had to take the bus, but we didn’t really know where to get off. So we guessed what stop to get off at, got slightly lost in the rain while holding the coconut cake, and then realized that we didn’t write down the number of her flat on Portobello Road. I called some friends and asked if they knew which flat was hers and we sorted everything out, but it was quite an adventure! Needless to say, Randi and I were both soaked by the time we got there. The party was nice though, there were a few of us there and we sat around, ate some food and drank some wine! We had also made plans to meet up with some friends in Camden later, so we took a cab over there only to find that they had already left Camden! So we just popped into a pub and hung out for a bit, which was nice!
Alex came back from Paris that Sunday night and it was very fine to just sit around and hear about her trip! Randi and I also started watching Sleepless in Seattle because she had never seen it, and it’s just a must! Unfortunately though, on Monday night, Randi started feeling under the weather and came down with a fever. She skipped school on Tuesday and was able to make it down for dinner for our friend, Tomoko’s birthday dinner out at this Belgian restaurant in Covent Garden! Towards the end of the night she began to fade again, so we headed home after dinner and she got some rest because she definitely did not want to be sick during thanksgiving!
For Thanksgiving, we would have really liked to have a home cooked meal, but we had class all day and a lot of work to do, so it just would have been too much work to actually make our own full meal. So we got a group together and went to this American style restaurant that had a Thanksgiving menu! It was really nice, I had a really great time! We then went to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park which was really cute, I want to go back and spend some more time there bundled up, sipping mulled wine or hot chocolate! After Winter Wonderland we went over to the Sports Cafe in Piccadilly Circus to go watch some football (obviously AMERICAN football, not soccer hehe). It was a lot of fun!
Friday night a bunch of us went out for Tomoko’s birthday! She rented a room at this Karaoke place that we were allowed to bring our own drinks to! It was really fun! At first, everyone was really timid (especially me) because no one wanted to sing, but once everyone got loosened up, it was a lot of fun and a pretty hilarious night!
The next morning I woke up with a slight tickle in my throat but didn’t really think much of it, because I had had a cough a few weeks ago that was still sort of residually there. Randi, Jen and I had planned to go to the movies that night, so we ordered tickets online (where you reserve your seats and everything!) and met up in Camden for the movie! It was the first time I had gone to the movies since I’ve been here! How crazy is that? almost 4 months without going to the movies???? That’s very uncharacteristic of me.... Anyway, towards the end of the movie I started to feel slightly under the weather, and by the time I got home I was coming down with a fever. Thankfully, dad had given me some Tamiflu before I came to London, so I took that and got better pretty quick!
Last week was pretty uneventful, stayed in the library after class and such. I got my first paper back and was pleased with the results, which was good! Everybody wanted to let loose on Friday so a large group of us got together to go to happy hour at this place called Dirty Martini in Covent Garden! It was half price on all their martini’s, half price for any bottle of wine, and £10 off of all of their Champagne bottles! I had barely eaten that day, so at one point I left the bar with my friends Ali and Lara (Lara actually lives just a block away from us!) and went to dinner with them in Notting Hill. Lara’s roommate came and met up with us as well and we went to this really cute Italian place. Ali ended up staying over at our place because we got lost and couldn’t find an appropriate bus for her to take home. It was a pretty early night because we had just gone to happy hour straight after school!
Saturday was pretty lazy and slow, and I tried to do some work. I rested a lot and then planned to go out with Randi and Jen to this party Jen had heard about. Jen is from Ireland, and her older brother’s friends were having a party out in Clapham. We showed up and it was a house full of Irish people! It was a lot of fun, and pretty hilarious because right when we walked in, this random Australian guy came up to me and Randi and was like “Are you the Americans?” and we were like “yes we are American” and he was like “we’ve been waiting for you, we heard you were coming!” which was pretty strange considering Jen hadn’t told her brother’s friends that she was bringing 2 American friends. It was funny though! Later in the night some people were thinking of going to this club down the road, but apparently it was £10 to get in and closed in like 2 hours. So Jen, Randi and I ended up going to this place called The Swan with these guys because it was open until like 6 (or something like that) and it was cheaper to get into. I had a great time, but it was definitely one of those places that would be more fun if you were totally plastered. I was completely sober, but the people watching was fantastic, so I had a lot of fun! This place seemed to be where all the Irish people in London came to, pretty much everyone in there was Irish! It was hilarious! We ended up staying there until 5 a.m. and tried to find our way home. Randi and I found a bus that could take us to Oxford Circus, where we could then take a bus home, but we wanted to make sure that Jen got home safely. So we tried to find a taxi for her so she could get home, but it was really expensive. So we told her to come home with us, or at least part of the way until the tube re-opened and she could head home. This very nice man ended up offering to share a cab up to Oxford Circus and wouldn’t let us help pay at all. It was very nice of him, and we got home much faster because of it. We ended up getting home at around 6:15 a.m. and then hung out in the kitchen for a bit talking. I didn’t go to bed until 7, and then woke up at 10:30 to get ready for breakfast! Needless to say, our Saturday night was pretty epic! It was great!
Tuesday a large group from our program went to the Christie’s Old Master Painting sale. There had been a lot of hype surrounding 2 lots- a Rembrandt painting that had a low estimate of £18 million, and a Raphael sketch with a low estimate of £12 million. We weren’t allowed to watch in the bidding room, so we had to sit in a little room next to the main room with a screen that showed the auctioneer and the pieces being auctioned. The Rembrandt went for £18 million, which is a record for a Rembrandt, but it was still slightly disappointing that it didn’t go for more with all of the hype surrounding it. The rest of the sale had a large amount of bought in lots (I think it was around 15). The auction as a whole wouldn’t have been much of a success had it not been for the Raphael sketch. It was the most intense part of the auction! It ended up going for £26 million!!!!! Crazy! Check it out here: (http://www.christies.com/LotFinder/lot_details.aspx?from=salesummary&intObjectID=5280814&sid=35a0ce0a-0350-422a-81ac-e4944001d0cb) I wasn’t too thrilled about the auctioneer at the Christie’s auction, because there wasn’t much heat in the bidding. I wasn’t sure if it was because of the auctioneer, or if it was because he was catering to the Old Master’s crowd.
Wednesday, Randi and I decided to check out the Sotheby’s Old Master Painting sale so that we could compare! We met up on Oxford Street to do some shopping and then walked over to New Bond Street to watch the auction. The auction started off pretty well, but there weren’t any pieces that matched the hype of the two in the Christie’s sale. I liked the auctioneer a lot better at this auction though. Unfortunately, the sale as a whole didn’t end up going so well for Sotheby’s. There were a lot of bought in lots and nothing matched the crazy price of the Raphael sketch!
Last night James came!! I’m so excited that he’s here I can’t even describe it! Last night we took it easy and got some pizza from the place around the corner, but starting tonight we are going to hit the town! While I’m in class today he is wandering around and exploring a bit and we are meeting up later when I am done with classes and meeting with my group for my project. I wish I could go wander with him today. If it weren’t for this group meeting and the fact that it’s the last day of class, I would have gone with him. Doh. But I can’t wait for this weekend! So there is my epically long update. I might update again before I go home on the 17th after James leaves... xoxoxox Love and miss you all!
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