I just got back from Prague, but in an effort to get caught up on blog posts, this is going to be all about last week in London and the post about Prague will come soon. Don't worry, it's all part of the master plan.
Last Monday was the first night of Passover. Instead of having a seder, however, I went to see Phoenix play live at the Roundhouse in Camden. I was able to justify this in several ways.
1. the whole point of Passover for me is being with my family, who are over the Atlantic.
2. I have been trying to get to a Phoenix concert since September, and I bought the tickets before I came abroad when Passover was the absolute last thing on my mind
3. I've been to just about as many concerts that are religious experiences as seders. Actually, probably more concerts.
So I was able to justify going to the show, and I went with Jason, Nick, Louise, and her friend Tim. We got there right in time for Phoenix to go on, and even though they only played for a short time, I knew all the songs and thought they put on a great show. They also sang a song in their native French, which they apparently never do, and I have the lyrics that were taped onto the stage set-list style. They're going to be announced as Lollapalooza headliners tomorrow and I am already looking forward to seeing them play again in August.
Tuesday night we decided to get our Jew on and put together a seder. This proved to be a lot more difficult than I would've expected because apparently there are no Jews in London. I'm used to walking into Sunset Foods around Pesach and seeing stacks of matzah, matzah ball mix, gefilte fish, and manischevitz wine. In London, I went into 7 different grocery stores, unable to find a single piece of matzah. It wasn't until Jason e-mailed a family friend did we figure out a specialty grocery store that sold matzah, but it wasn't even Kosher for passover (I'm still confused why there is a market for non-kosher-for-passover matzah. Even if you eat matzah all year, why is there a need to have an entire product for the handful of weirdos that enjoy eating cardboard with their pb&j 365 days a year??) So there were no matzo balls, no brisket, no gefilte fish, and no matza stuffing. What we were able to pull together was soup, chicken, charoset, vegetables, and potatoes. Out of the ten people at the seder, only six were Jewish, so it was fun trying to explain the seder plate (which we were able to macgyver) and the four questions to them (during the four questions, one guest remarked "i don't mean to sound like an idiot, but what are the ANSWERS to these questions?") Overall, the seder went better than I expected, and even though I missed my family, it was nice to get the chance to celebrate with my closest friends in London, to some of whom the entire seder concept was completely foreign.Sarah's boyfriend Kevin was in town last week, so Wednesday night me, Sarah, Jason, and Kevin went out for dinner. We were running a little on the late side [shocker] and were planning to go out right after so I decided to look up some BYOB restaurants in London. We settled on this little Italian place called Pappa Ciccia which was reasonably priced and not too far away. It was far and away some of the most amazing Italian food I've ever had. We started off eating bruschetta, then I got the pasta fagioli soup, then sarah and I split this bacon risotto (actually sent from heaven) and rigatoni with meatballs, before we all decided to split tiramisu and black forest cake for dessert. We also killed 3 bottles of wine, so all in all it was an extremely successful dinner, and I have actually been dreaming of that risotto since.
After dinner, we took the tube to Walkabout, a club by the Temple tube stop. Wednesdays are student night there, so we got in cheap and hung out there until it closed. I thought it would close at 2, but it closed at 1, which normally wouldn't have been an issue (especially since I had work the next day), but Zach Glazer (a friend from Madison) was in town and I had told him to meet us. He was coming from far away, and he was just getting into the area around 1. And since I wanted to see him, I decided to stay out and a few of us found another bar (O'Neill's!) that was open until 3. As always, it was so great to see a familiar face so far away, and we had a lot of fun at the bar. By the time I got into bed though, it was past 4 and I had to get up for work at 8:15. Needless to say, Thursday was a struggle. I could barely stay awake at my desk all day, and I came home after work and made meatball sandwiches for dinner with Jason before we caught up on any TV shows that we had missed episodes of.
We went for a post-Abbey Road lunch at Bodeans, since we were right in the neighborhood and everyone sort of had a craving barbeque anyway. The rest of the day was pretty low-key, as was Saturday, which basically consisted of going to the gourmet farmers market in Duke of York Square (me and Jason split beef and mushroom tortelloni and a chicken meat pie. YES I did eat the mushrooms in the tortelloni and I was actually the one to suggest it) and getting ready for Prague, which is coming up in the next post!
On, another note, I would like to extend a huuuuge congratulations to my lovely sister MYLA for choosing to come to WISCONSIN next year because she realized that Illinois and Michigan are completely inferior and also that she looks better in red (see below) than she does in "maize" (yellow) or orange. Despite some beliefs, I am VERY VERY VERY excited for her to come to school with me (even if it does mean I might have to share the car sometimes), and I am not just saying that because I know she's going to read this because I'm pretty sure she never actually does read my blog, so either way.
CONGRATS MYMY!!!!
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