Blogs Besides Mine

In addition to writing my own blog, I find pleasure in reading the blogs of others.
Please enjoy some of the following:

BlackLove

So far post #4 on natural hair applies to me in that I HATE people touching my fro!
Also #25- I too have celebrity photos displayed in my house. You all know that Suge Knight is my boyfriend!
#23- I'm planning a spa trip while in Turkey.
#16- I wanted to go to college in Atlanta. I tried moving there after graduation, but the job prospects didn't work out. I chose DC instead (another black Mecca according to the post). Shout out to Cousin Gary who not only reads my blog, but LIVES in Atlanta! (You're living the EBP dream!)
#13- That's always fun because Ray Ray and Shaquanna are comedy!
#2- I'm trying to figure out how I can get the day off work to see Bilal in Amsterdam in May.

WhiteLove

Thanks to Phaedra for this one! This blog makes me think there's a lot of white overlap in my life. Who doesn't love music piracy (besides you and your intellectual property rights law Yemi...)? Who doesn't love Paris? I've hosted several dinner parties where we played Cranium (now if I could just afford a Wii...). I have gay friends. Is that like having black friends for black people? Or maybe that's having white friends- not sure, but I have those too! My best friend is a lawyer, so I gotta love lawyers. I could go on and on about graduate school, multilingual children, kitchen gadgets, and Mos Def (see my post on Bobby & Whitney), but I'll let you enjoy the blog for yourself!

FBC

This one is written by my friend, Twanna, who also went to grad school in Holland. She was a big help on the adjusting-to-life-in-the-Netherlands front. It's racy and funny- all the things my blog hopes to be when it grows up.

GeeSpencer

Last, but not least, my cousin Gary is a blogging debutant. So far so good! Keep up the good work Gary!

Vacation Hangover Habit

It's been Spring Break for me since Good Friday. I've been off for 1 week and 3 days. Over that 10 day period, I've had a hangover on 5 different occasions.
I went out for a celebratory Spring Break happy hour with co-workers on Good Friday down in Notting Hill and woke up with a hangover on Saturday.
Then, I had dinner with Roger and Quentin on on Easter Sunday. Afterwards we went out dancing at a club called Cargo in Shoreditch. I woke up with a hangover on Monday morning.
Monday night I went to a pub near the Barbican with some friends. Tuesday morning- hangover.
Friday night, I went out for curry on Brick Lane. My date and I had drinks before and after. I woke up with a headache on Saturday morning.
On Saturday night, Roger's former roommate and her boyfriend threw a wine and cheese party. Steph and I brought two bottles of wine, no cheese. Sunday morning was ugly.
I'm slightly disturbed that 50% of my Spring Break has been spent inebriated so far. Today I'm, sober, not hung over, and off for a week in Istanbul. Perhaps a hamam (Turkish bath) is just what I need to dry out & sober up before I go back to work. Living la vida London is getting to be a bit wild for me!

Windsor Woes

According to Google Maps, my house is 13.8 miles from Windsor Castle, the queen's weekend residence and the largest and oldest occupied fortress in the world. Lonely Planet Great Britain says there's bus service from London's Victoria Station which takes one hour and 15 minutes. There's also a bus from Heathrow Airport to Windsor. Heathrow airport is 13.9 miles from my place. There's local bus service from here to Heathrow. As the tube journey from our place into central London takes at least 45 minutes, we decided not to take the bus from Victoria. Our bright idea was to take the local bus from our place to Heathrow, then the other bus from Heathrow to Windsor. Google maps says that each leg of the journey should take approximately 20 minutes, to make for a total of 40 minutes from door to door.
Stephanie and I planned to leave our place at 10am for an afternoon of royal sightseeing. We were a bit slow moving due to the rain, but we managed to get going by 11:30am. The bus to Heathrow took about 35 minutes. Once there we looked around for the stop to catch to Windsor bus. I finally found it only to notice a small sign saying that they'd changed the location of the stop to the recently opened, yet hopelessly defunct Terminal 5.
The thing about Terminal 5 is that despite its shiny newness, it is somewhat inaccessible. The Heathrow Express train goes from Terminals 1, 2, and 3 to Terminals 4 and 5 every 20 minutes. We traveled on the second day of Terminal 5's opening. The BBC said, "The chaos that marred Heathrow's Terminal 5 on its opening day, leaving many stranded overnight, 'was not our finest hour' BA's boss has admitted." It took us ages to get to T5. Then we wandered around looking for the bus stop. When we found the stop, we had to wait 20 minutes for the bus. At 2pm, we arrived in Windsor just outside the castle.
Ravenous from our journey, we wandered around to find a place for lunch. With a mere hour and 15 minutes left until the castle closed, we scurry to the entrance to discover that the queen's apartments are closed, but we could get in for half price. Our discount meant that we were entitled to come again for free another time to see the queen's apartments if we filled out a form and got a special stamp on the form. Steph wanted to shop for mother's day gifts, so we spent 30 mins in the gift shop. We saw Queen Anne's doll house, the royal china collection, and an exhibit on the 60th wedding anniversary of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip. Then they shooed us off the grounds after they stamped our forms.
We had ice cream and decided to take a taxi back home. It cost us 25 pounds, but we made it home in 20 minutes, versus the 2 hours it took us to get there. Insane! Windsor Castle was some drama!
Next time, we'll rent a car.