More things I have learned:

• Raj is not actually Raj's name at all - his name is Aman! I really have no idea why he changed it... I guess he thinks Raj is more user friendly?
• You should eat a lot more than I did on Saturday before consuming mass amounts of wine and champagne haha
• It is really strange to be sitting on the left side of a car in the front seat as a passenger
• Everything at Starbucks here is basically priced the same as it is at home... except in pounds haha. Not going back there anytime soon!

I had a really fun weekend although it is probably my first one here that hasn't involved any sightseeing!! I will have to make up for that next weekend when I visit Buckingham Palace ;o)

So on Friday night I went to Kent after I got off of work. Louisa, her friend Lindsay, and I all ate a very garlicy dinner of pasta and garlic bread (which was really yummy). Later on Jeff and Robin joined us and we played cards all night and I learned how to play two new games. Jeff had just got back from a trip recently with his BF to Barcelona, so we saw some of the photos he took and he also bought Louisa a hilarious present... Let's just say they were playing cards with some interesting, funny, but disgusting pictures on them... LOL. I slept over at her house and the next morning we went to this HUGE mall (I can't remember what it was called... Baywater I think?) for a couple hours before I returned to London. If we had stuck around a couple hours longer we could've met David Hasselhoff hahahahah... but we didn't. LOL.

I got back to London a little later than I was originally planning, so I rushed around getting ready and then I was off to Blackheath to go to Marie's flatwarming party! I brought her pink lilies (because we had been talking about how we both like lilies at work but she had never seen pink ones!!) and a bottle of wine. I'm pretty sure everyone that came brought a bottle of alcohol with them so it was a fun night haha. Quite a few people showed up and it was fairly warm outside, so we spent most of the night in their garden just talking and drinking. Since she lives pretty far from where I do and I had drank quite a bit I decided to sleep on her couch. The next morning I woke up with the worst headache ever (must've been the wine and champagne because I never usually get headaches when I'm hungover!). I stayed there and visited with Marie all morning and then headed back to my place to shower and try to feel more human again LOL. I decided to relax a bit in the afternoon so I rented "Practical Magic" and just stayed in my room.

Sunday night, I met up with Karyna, Michelle (Erin's friend), Bree, Tina (Karyna's friend), Sunny (another Canadian Swapper), Emily (yet another Canadian Swapper), and two of Sunny's friends to go to the Thames Festival. It was a lot of fun but we didn't end up actually seeing very much of the festival LOL. We ate some dinner and chatted for a while and then we wandered around, saw a couple street performers, looked at a few booths, played in a fountain, some of the girls bought flashing bunny ears... and then we waited on a bridge for the fireworks to start! They were really pretty and I tried to take a few photos but most of them didn't turn out very well. However I did take a couple videos with my camera (I wish I knew how I could post those on here...). It was a really fun night!!

I didn't end up taking very many photos at all this weekend but here is the link to see the ones that I took during the festival: http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8IZuGzZm2asQ-&notag=1

Tomorrow night after work I am meeting up with Karyna and Michelle for dinner and then we are going to the International Students House (ISH) to try to book a couple trips!!! Hopefully there will still be lots of room for us to go on them (I have no idea how many people are usually able to go so we'll see - keep your fingers and toes crossed for us!). The two I am planning to go on with them are a weekend trip to Amsterdam at the beginning of October - which includes tours of both a cheese factory and a clog factory LOL - and a trip to Bath, Salisbury, and Stonehenge at the beginning of November. Karyna and Tina are also planning to go to Greece at the end of October but sadly I wouldn't be able to take that much time off of work... oh well I will just have to plan a trip in the future to come to Europe and visit places like Greece and Italy that I really don't have time to see while I am here in London!!

Then on Thursday I believe some of the girls are planning to go to ISH for a karaoke night so I might have to join in on that :o) haha. Not sure what I am doing at the beginning of this weekend yet... Karyna and Michelle might be going to Camden Market on Saturday which I really want to go to but IES (where I live) is also having a trip to Leeds Castle that day so I'm torn! Louisa also said she could probably take me to see Leeds Castle at some point because it is in Kent... so I don't know what I should do on Saturday! Maybe I should check and see if there is any room on the trip on Saturday first and then decide.... hmmm... any suggestions??

And then on Sunday is my "Royal Day Out" at Buckingham Palace! I am going with my roommate Luana so it should be a good time! We are going to try to time it so we are there to see the Changing of the Guard ceremony in the morning, and our tickets allow us to see the Queen's Gallery, the Royal Mews, and, since the Queen is on her annual trip to Scotland or something like that, we are also able to see inside the State Rooms! And currently in the State Rooms, in honor of the Queen's 80th birthday, they have an exhibition on called "Dress for the Occasion" which is a collection of Her Majesty's evening gowns and jewellery on display, so those should be really pretty!

Anyway, I think that is all that is new here with me! Love and miss you all

Later days :o)