Pretending to be Anglican, the Chinese New Year, and (GASP) Studying

Your eyes don't deceive you! This is the SECOND post by me in one week! I think I'd like to pat myself on the back for that one! (Too much sarcasm and self-praise here? Ok. I'll tone it down).

Ahem, so on to the things that have been happening aside from me getting older the past couple of weeks.

First off, let's discuss my "sneaking" into St. Paul's Cathedral without paying the £15 admission. I think the idea was genius. I wanted to check the church out. Last week (or was it two weeks ago already?) was Ash Wednesday. They have services at the cathedral for Ash Wednesday. Two birds. One stone. You see my logic... one little thing. I didn't realize until living here that St. Paul's is actually an Anglican church and not a Catholic one! Truth be told... I was even more intrigued to check out an Anglican "mass" at a "cathedral" (which I mistakenly thought was a term saved for Catholic churches). So off I go. 8 am mass. Mom - you should be proud! ;)
Things I learned/observed there:

• The church. is. amazing. Didn't disappoint in it's beauty. See below for proof.
• They seem to call their priest a "president"??
• The rest of the "mass" seems nearly identical to me. No joke. Except they didn't change their creed. ;)
• The statues in the cathedral are not of any religious figures...but instead famous English solders, and I think a view writers. Weird.
• Their ashes don't stick. Seriously. I thought I'd be "branded" all day per the usual method of American Catholic churches. I feel a little scammed. You couldn't even see mine! 

As for the Chinese New Year...I do have to say I find it slightly humorous that of ALL of the places I've been going out to eat since arriving here in London (which is not many, since I'm on a student budget and trying to save money), I've been to eat in Chinatown TWICE....at the same restaurant both times. Now, granted we went there because our Thai friend assured us that it was one of the best/most authentic. And I can't disagree. It was fantastic. But it's still funny to me. So a couple of Sundays ago, Natalia, her husband Chris and I ventured out into the gross, cold, rain to explore Chinatown for the celebration of the Chinese New Year. They claim to be one of the biggest in the world outside of Asia. However Wikipedia put emphasis on the word "claim" so I assume that it may not be the case....
It was a pretty crazy celebration though. It was a Sunday (with previously mentioned gross weather) and it was still packed. Restaurants were crammed full. Pubs were crowded. The streets even were wall-to-wall. We also finally had peking duck, which was super exciting to me (although my Chinese roommate Paul tells me I don't say "peking" right....but I told him to bugger off).
One of the traditions seems to be what I thought was a dragon going around from door to door of different restaurants and eating lettuce off of the door while a Chinese gong bangs in the background, and then essentially "throwing up" the lettuce back into the restaurant as a sign of good luck. Right. Throw up. What's more, is that now I'm not even sure whether it was a dragon or a lion, because after Googling this tradition it seems that this is actually done by a lion....?? I thought I could tell the difference between a dragon and a lion...but it seems not.)
Take a look for yourself.

 

Peking Duck at the Four Seasons

Now before I move on to the studying portion of this description which I'm only including for 2 reasons: 1) so that my mom and dad actually think I'm doing some work here and 2) to let you know how cool I think studying at pubs is.... let's talk about a few of the random things that I've seen.

List of Randoms:

Random 1 - Swans in the park

I went on another run in Regents Park at sunset (which was insanely beautiful), and ran along the pond. There were two beautiful swans that everyone was taking pictures of. Suddenly they start going crazy. Well, see for yourself.

Sunset over the water in Regents Park

The seemingly docile swans

Well...here's the video of the swans. See for yourself.

Random 2 - People take instruments with them everywhere. Completely unexpected for me to see a girl carrying what looks to be a cello on her back. And I complain about my backpack!!!

Spotted on the loooooong escalator

 

Random 3 - They like mustaches here too!!! (And yes.... I did buy this)

 

At the Camden Market

Random 4 - Valentine's Day dates at a Mexican place in Britain with a dance club in the downstairs.. on a Thursday.

 

Random 5 - Stumbled upon this graveyard over on the East side of London after a day of ice skating. Apparently William Blake is buried there! I felt like this should be meaningful to me... so I took some photos.

Random 6 - Natalia's gorgeous street in South Kensington. Can't deny that a rainy day almost makes this look cooler. I love her area of town. 

Random 7 - Laura - my roommate - snoring. I know she will literally KILL me if she sees this. So I'm sort of praying she won't read my blog. But Laura seriously has narcolepsy. One time we lost her at a bar because she fell asleep in the bathroom.... BEFORE 10!! So... this may be mean, but she fell asleep mean conversation a couple of weeks ago and I just found this video. I died.

Random 8 - Ridiculous amounts of live music I've found here is just whacko. But the latest and best in my opinion was at a blues/jazz bar we went to the Monday after my birthday. It was more bluegrass than blues. And the bar was TINY so you were right there. He literally had bare feet and was playing the harmonica. I loved it!

Ok, I think that's all the necessary randomness for the day. Lastly, I guess I'll comment on the studying part of things. Let me just say that when I originally talked about how difficult the transition would be in going from being a full-time marketing professional to a graduate student, I had NO IDEA! I am all over the board. I cannot get a schedule or a routine down. This past week we had an independent study week - which basically meant no class! I thought that was great! No class!!! Wrong. I somehow decided it was a good idea to spend every day going through all my notes and reading all the chapters I hadn't read yet to "catch up". This resulted in numerous 8-9 hour study days, one of which ended with me only getting 4 hours of sleep and now I'm sick! Ugh! The worst part is, I'm not convinced this is all actually necessary. So I'm re-evaluating my approach to focus on the things that I'm not as good at intuitively. What that means is a lot of attention being given to Finance and Econ. Boo!

No making fun of my 3 different pens. You try to differentiate one subject from the other when everything is in black!!

So, the OTHER new decision is.... studying at a pub!!!! :) Rachel and I both camped out for a couple of hours yesterday at a pub in Notting Hill. We ordered roasts and English Breakfast, we had several cups of tea, and we did our finance work! I'm a huge fan of this approach!

 Ok, I think that probably should be it for today. Hopefully I've given you a little taste of what's going on around here.

In the next couple of weeks, I'll be going to see The Lumineers and Of Monsters and Men, going to a 1920s Prohibition Costume Party, and planning a ski trip and a trip to Lithuania! Trust me... you'll be getting updates!

Ciao ciao!