London!

7:30pm on a Friday evening - usually the time of night, over the past 2 years especially, when the phone starts ringing and the IMs pop up and my fabulous friends and I start planning our evening out. By 11:00 we'd be having cocktails (which I'll now refer to as affordable cocktails) on a dance floor somewhere in Boston/Allston/Brighton/Cambridge or New York/Philly/Doylestown/New Hope. I'm not sure if I was spoiled or lucky or blessed or whatever, but I had it good. Now that I'm in London, I still feel very spoiled or lucky or blessed or whatever you'd like to call it, don't get me wrong. However, I can't help but feel a little deprived of my amazing social life and Hector's group text messages telling the crew where to go that night. A good time was always guaranteed. Even if we couldn't get into the place we planned on going, we'd find a dive bar across the street and make the best - and usually the better - of it.

So here I sit with only 3 or 4 people to survey in terms of going out. One is working, one is waking up at 6am, and one is gushing over a boy back home while planning a day trip for the morning (early risers on Saturday, I could never understand them and I don't think I ever will). I convinced one to wander around Notting Hill with me to maybe find a good time/early night. Hey, the more cocktails I have and the more people I meet, the less bothered I'll be by passing out at midnight right? But anyhow, the point of this blog is to make a list of things I miss, and end on an optimistic note with British things I can't believe I lived without for the past 23 years.

Missing (most are food-related as I cooked some pasta the other day and it got me thinking...):

-My garlic press
-A frying pan
-Owning more than 1 pot
-A coffee maker & french vanilla coffee creamer (I think I'm anti instant coffee & they only use milk)
-Baseball - all day, every day, thanks to my father for subscribing to MLB ticket
-Yuengling (and all affordable alcohol for that matter), but I'm used to missing Yuengling
-Cheez-Its and Odwalla Bars and Peanut Butter (their excuse for Peanut Butter scares me entirely too much to give it a try)
-FNX radio
-My iPod (may it rest in peace in disposable electronics heaven)
-Tomato sauce from a jar not reminiscent of acidic tomato jelly (believe me, I'd make my own sauce if I could but I haven't found any canned crushed tomatoes, nor do I own a can opener, soo..)
-Going to clubs that don't cost $30 USD
-Beaches, including: Belmar, Sea Isle City, Avalon, The Cape, Naragansett (Speen's house!), anything with real sand, really.

Ok, in order to prove that I don't hate it here and that I'm actually quite enjoying myself (how's that for British speak?) (and what's up with the amount of parenthesis in this entry?), I thought I'd end on a positive note and list some things I do really enjoy about life in London:

-Easy, cheap access to all of Europe
-The fact that lattes and coffee, aka "Caffe Americana," cost the same - no longer do I feel guilty for buying caffeine that costs double the price of other caffeinated drinks on the same menu :)
-The non-sketchy vintage stores in Notting Hill
-Carling beer. Apparently, according to some of the bartenders I've ordered it from, it's "toilet water" but it's the smoothest damn beer I've ever tasted.
-Getting text messages from work - better than phone calls, ya?
-ALL incoming texts and phone calls are FREE! (Ahem, you know who you are ha ha)
-The World Cup!
-The fashion
-and so on...


Alright, I'm off... gonna drag Meg away from listening to the song her boyfriend wrote her and have a good time til about midnight ha ha. Have a great Friday nite! :-*

posted by Stacy @ 19:33