Flashback to my fifth entry: remember that British random who texted me the calculator-related pickup line? (I must confess, a “sin” pun don’t get me going as much as, say, a bottle of Patron.) Well, last night as I was innocuously strolling back to my dorm as I typically do, he detected me with his stalker vision from across the courtyard and shouted, “Hey! Arianna from California!” Keep in mind it’s been a solid three months since I’ve seen this triple/occasionally quadruple texter in the flesh. So, I did what any normal person would do… and sprinted away in the opposite direction as fast I could for someone who persuaded her high school PE teacher to let her walk the mandatory 5K and hasn’t felt the urge to run since.
For my countless fans out there, a look inside my workout regimen: 30 minutes of yoga, 3 minutes of staring at the treadmill (or however long it takes to arrive at the conclusion that sweating is never necessary), 20 minutes of pretending I know how to lift weights, another hour spent rewarding myself with my daily pint of Häagen-Dazs ice cream (and no, I’d rather not admit that yesterday’s Belgium chocolate purchase didn’t even make it inside the freezer), and last but not least, praying to Hollywood that Marti’s genes are dominant and my metabolism won’t slow with age. Everyone has their routines, I guess.
In other words, I would most definitely be the first to die in The Hunger Games.
But I digress. I’ll continue on with more creeper guy stories when I reach that notorious Amsterdam entry, but for now, let’s focus on the previous weeks’ activities. Now that I’m blessed with a little R&R time, I’m doing my best to embrace the London culture; like last Thursday when I hit up the National Gallery and Picasso Exhibit at the Somerset house with April. Tomorrow’s plan is to check out the Saatchi Gallery, Tate Modern, and the Victoria & Albert museum that Kayla and Penny recommended. (What? I’m an art major at heart. Being a business and marketing student is just a front so I can hopefully avoid homelessness.)
And since it’s me we’re talking about here, there have also been less-than-cultured moments, which probably includes the entirety of this past weekend. I’m still trying to determine whether that bar closed early Saturday night or my friend and I just got kicked out…
Anyway, I suppose it’s worth mentioning that Arman (or ‘Minnesota’ as my family knows him, since it took a couple months of dating before Marti Heimlich’d his real name out of me… could this be why people say I’m not your typical girl? Hmm.) and his parents visited London for a week since people seem to call him my “boyfriend” or whatever. Of course, that term implies we actually like each other and emotional attachment is so high school.
AND I would like to note that I finally have witness testimony that my blog is hardly an exaggeration of the study abroad experience. When we weren’t out being tourists with his parents – seeing things like The Shard, Borough Market, the pocket of London where my fictional idol Bridget Jones’ apartment resides, London Bridge, and getting all sophisticated with afternoon tea; see below – I tried to give Arman/Minnesota a look inside my daily life as an East Londoner.
After passing approximately 337289724 kebab stands, South Asian restaurants, hookah joints, and waxing salons just on the five-minute walk from the tube station to my university campus alone – I think it’s safe to say he was convinced that I wasn’t joking when I said I was the only white chick in half of my classes. (My first thought when I stepped foot in my Organization Theory lecture and noticed I was in the minority by not wearing a hijab: “Guess I’m not at USD anymore?”) Check me out, experiencing life beyond Ralph Lauren polos and fiscal conservatism!
He also realized I wasn’t joking about the British male population when I took him to my usual spot on Monday nights, Drapers, one of our university’s bars. It was just as another one of my fictional idols, Cher from Clueless, professed: their faces are nothing but a bunch of Monets. Like the paintings, the guys seem alright from far away, but up close “it’s a big old mess.” Actually, scratch that, I could tell they were all inbred from miles away.
So, moral of the story, if you’re going to be in a long distance relationship it helps to live in a place where your dating pool looks like Joffrey from Game of Thrones.
The Art of Being Basic 