Snow Day!

I walked through four inches of snow today on the way to my first class and found a note on the door indicating that all 9 AM courses were cancelled, so I happily went back home. Shortly after, I was told all courses for the day were cancelled. Snow Day! My flatmates quickly arranged a sledding trip and we all headed to the lone hill near campus, a stout mound across the canal, to do some sledging, as the English put it. I discovered my French flatmate absolutely loves snow, and his excitement was reflected in many British faces who had never seen this whopping amount before. If the forecasts are correct for the next two days, this will be the worst snow storm in London in half a century. Which is to say, it will be about equal to an above-average storm in Klamath Falls. Hehe, we Klamath Falls-ians may not have Big Ben, or the Tower of London, or thousand-year old churches, but we sure live in a cold, miserable place! We’ve got that on these darn Brits!

Anyways, we sledded for quite a while this morning. Kids used plastic bags, lunch trays, chairs taped to pieces of cardboard, air mattresses, woks, road signs….My French flatmate even tried using an umbrella, but, sadly, to no avail.

We finished up sledding and decided to trek down to Westminster and Big Ben to see the sights all covered in snow. And they were quite beautiful. We saw the sights. I’m afraid I ruined the trip a bit because my stomach hurt, but it was still fun. We walked through St. James’s Park and took pictures of all the different sorts of birds, and walked up to Buckingham Palace.

Tonight I went out with my friends to the usual Monday night bar. It was very busy because this bar is very popular with students on Mondays. They offer heavy discounts on many of their drinks, so, predictably, it was very crowded. My second trip up to get drinks was pretty harrowing. I waited for about fifteen minutes just to get up to the bar. A guy behind me saw that I had a little extra elbow room and asked me to scoot over, so I begrudgingly complied. We talked a little bit, and I found out he was a professional surfer who was leaving for California for a tour in three days. He said he was sponsored by Nixon and they were renting him a convertible while he was in California, so he was pretty excited. The funny thing was, I believed him. He was a pretty nice guy and he bought me a drink for helping him get up to the bar once we finally got served.