Bank Holidays: Beer Halls, BBQs and Boats

School sucks.
Seriously. Well, I guess I should say final exams suck if we're being specific.

This is my kitchen table. Where I've spent the past 2 weeks camped out studying stupid financial accounting formulas.

This is a calculator. I haven't used a scientific one in years. 

This is one of my many ridiculous studying tactics. Rewriting the same thing in 20 different places and ways and taping them all over my flat so that I'm forced to pretend that I will study them while doing things like blowdrying my hair. (Only we all know, when I'm blow drying my hair, I was not reading about budgets.)

Last Thursday was (what I consider to be) my hardest: Finance. I spent HOURS more than even I can believe I spent prepping for that awful exam. And I'm not going to lie, I was pretty sure when we were led down 5 flights of stairs into a concrete "warehouse" style room in what seemed to be the depths of hell to take our final (that wasn't an exaggeration either... that really was where we took our exam), I wondered at several different points if I was going to be killed down there along with 200 of my classmates. Thankfully, 2 hours later I emerged. I was given several crazy-eyed looks from people who seemed really incredulous that I could possibly finish my financial accounting exam in less than the 3 hours allotted. My teacher - crazy Bijan - even asked me (twice) if I wanted to double check my answers. I assured him that I already had, and that 2 hours was plenty of time to take this daggone exam, and I think I was one of the first 5 people to leave. Yesterday I took my human resources exam and apparently there's an unspoken "exam" rule that the second you step foot in the exam room you're not allowed to leave. Even if you're 10 minutes early and have to go to the bathroom. I may have gotten into an argument with the exam moderator. I didn't find the British accent so charming yesterday...

Anyway... despite the fact that I've effectively taken over the kitchen table for the past month (thanks flatmates for not killing me) I've managed to squeeze a bit of fun in. Read on. (You know you want to!)

London is AWESOME when it's warm and sunny.

This past Monday was a "Bank Holiday" here. It's basically like Columbus Day. Or President's Day. Banks are closed. Schools are closed. Everyone freaks out and parties all weekend long. As a student, I wasn't really affected much by this. I still had exams. But the energy around the city was palpable. Nonstop plans were being made. And despite my efforts to maintain the study mentality.... I caved. A couple of times. I figure I should tell you about it. 

Beer Halls
Sam and John tell me to meet them in Shoreditch at this Bavarian Beer Hall. Now, if I haven't talked about this previously... I sort of hate Shoreditch. I know it's where the cool kids hang. All the hip, new, trendy places are here. I get that. But Shoreditch may as well be China from where I live. There's no easy way to get there when the tubes are running. So trying to get home via bus when the tubes end is like walking from the United States to China. It takes FOR-E-VER. Yet somehow I always end up meeting friends who go out in Shoreditch.
But I haven't seen Sam in ages and I'm not going to pretend a Bavarian Beer Hall doesn't sound sort of intriguing. So I go. And ya know what? I feel like I'm walking into a Guys Only club. Seriously. I somehow thought a beer hall was equivalent to a beer garden. Silly mistake on my part. A beer HALL is in the basement of a building with lots of long picnic tables and a 199-1 guy-to-girl ratio which is bordering on a male frat house. Everyone's drinking out of massive beer steins.

Sam is demonstrating that even white wine can be drank out of a huuuuge beer stein.

The girls are wearing authentic Bavarian garb.

This girl - by the way - was the hostess. She also had posters of herself all over the bar, in addition to being the face on the drink menu. 

The bar is playing stereotypical old school American music. It's pretty much exactly like what Oktoberfest was like in Munich years ago. Debauchery followed. Here are some photos to prove it.

First off, I don't even know what this guy's name was. I believe he was from Oz, and he is visiting his E&Y friends here which is why he was at our table. 

This is what happens when you give me 2 steins of beer....

Clearly something was really funny....

It was Jeff's birthday. So ....they are pretty serious about their candles here.

Delivered by authentic beer wenches

They also are pretty serious about their birthday beer "pints"

I think you get the picture here. Things got a little crazy.

BBQs
Sunday, I was invited to a BBQ and was pretty pumped. It was another one of Deepti's.... and Deepti LOVES theme parties. Fancy dress isn't even an accurate description because that's just costumes. No, Deepti has fancy dress + food AND alcohol themed parties. They are intense. This one was an American BBQ.

I was told to bring corn-on-the-cob which I admittedly didn't even know they had here. (Deepti rolled her eyes at me like 42 times and told me it wasn't Somalia and that they had corn in London). And despite the fact that the sun started hiding right about the time the BBQ started, I have to say I LOVED that I was surrounded by Brits (and Aussies and Germans) wearing American patriotic outfits. 

I couldn't NOT put on the hat. I mean... it's got my name on it AND the color scheme!!? I don't know why Deepti was so against smiling. Don't let her fool you. She had fun.

Flip cup happened too. And I'm saddened to say that as good as I am at talking trash, I should've figured out whether we had Solo cups before I started running my mouth. Playing with anything else totally throws off your game. The weight in the cups is different. Basically we lost. A lot. To British dudes who'd never played before. It was sort of sad.

I'm convinced for real that the reason we played like crap was because of these awwwwwful cups. Where are the Red Solo cups when you need them??

Boats
I live in Maida Vale. Most times of the year it's beautiful and idyllic albeit a little difficult to get to from anywhere East of Regent's Park. But it certainly is NOT "the" place to be. Except for this weekend. The Regent's Canal runs right through the middle of it, and this weekend there was a Canal Festival. Sharon is talking it up to me on my way to Yoga and I'm thinking "Crap I have so much studying to do this is a bad idea".....and then I walk through it on the way to my class and people are eating ice cream and walking along the canal and I know I'm doomed. (Apparently I have more of a weakness for ice cream than I realized until recently...)

So we spent several hours down by the canal. Drinking. Eating ice cream (well - I did anyway), and listening to New Orleans-style music being played by a band from a little island in the middle of the canal.

It was so charming you couldn't help look around at this gorgeous neighborhood, when the sun was out and shining and wondering why everyone didn't live here. All the pubs along the canals were spilling out with people and I got a little taste of how summer is going to be. And I got REALLY excited.

These boats are SUPER expensive and SUPER tiny inside. They are really long and narrow and some of them are like 50 years old from all over Europe.

Unwilling to go home and sit inside and study, Sharon, and I wander around our neighborhood a bit just enjoying the flowers and the awesome weather (and our amazing neighborhood).

Then we head to the Paddington Rec (a little park down the street from our flat) to sit outside and soak up the remaining sun.

It really is an awesome park. And while I'm not sure that with that Leffe beer, the glorious sun, and my A.D.D. from the day's activities that I actually got much studying done, I do think I soaked up at least a little bit of UV rays to color my pasty, white skin. Today, I got a taste of why London is awesome in the summer. It was beautiful. Everyone was happy. And the parks here really are landscaped so beautifully it's impossible to ignore.

Sharon and Dean relaxing on the blanket next to me.

Now let's just hope I am a little more productive this weekend as I prep for my next set of exams and papers....