Days 90-94

Day 90: The highlight of that day was attending the game between the Queen's Park Rangers (hereafter referred to as QPR) and Cardiff City, playing for admission into the Premier League. For those unfamiliar with the massively complex system of football leagues in Britain, there are a bunch of leagues on different levels, and the Premier League is the top-level league, where teams like Chelsea and Manchester United play. At the end of every season, the two best teams from the second-to-Premier League play for the chance to get into the Premier League and the two worst teams in the Premier League play for the chance to stay. And now I've typed the word 'league' so many times that it doesn't even look like a word anymore.

Anyway, we took the Central Line all the way out to White City and got off into a milling crowd, many already drunk, the sky above already darkening fast. Police stood everywhere you turned; policemen on foot with riot helmets on, mounted riot cops with megaphones, policemen with bomb-sniffing dogs and canine units. Dr. King had explained that this level of security was totally normal for a game as important as this one, but I still felt like a citizen of some horrible post-apocalyptic dystopia like 'Children of Men'. At random intervals, someone in the huge crowds would scream "Rs!" and receive a shout of "Come on, you Rs!" in return, accompanied by booing from the Cardiff City fans in the crowds. It was freezing, drizzling, and the area around Loftus Field was composed of run-down council housing, so the mass amounts of chavs I saw screaming profanity at each other wasn't surprising.

Anyway, we finally shoved our way into the stadium, found seats, and the game began. Our group had the questionable luck of being seated adjacent to the Cardiff City fans (who had come all the way from Wales for the game, so we knew they were devoted), who didn't shut up once for the entire two hours of the match. Except for when they lost.

BURN.

QPR, dressed in magnificent blue and white, managed to win 2-1 despite their goalie being kneed in the gonads twice and both teams playing insanely dirty. The mood in the stands was like static electricity, zipping from one person to the other and exploding in invective-laced screams in the direction of the Cardiff stands, flipping the double-fingered salute, and singing, "You're not singing, you're not singing, you're not singing anymore!" I participated enthusiastically in all of these events, particularly the flipping of double-fingered salutes. The invective was taken care of by the man two seats down from me, who screamed every profanity known to man, and a few I think he made up on the spot, to express his deep emotions. By the end, I was shivering in my seat and sleet was beginning to fall, but it was still an absolutely awesome event, and one I'll always remember.

The trek back to the Tube station was also quite memorable, if for much less fun reasons. At the exits to the field, the police separated the Cardiff and QPR fans into two separate lines and herded us away so as to prevent riots, although that didn't stop profanity from being hurled at both sides. As we passed by a council house, someone started setting off fireworks, so a policeman unfurled his nightstick and started off, only to be confronted by a chav, earring, track suit, and all, who screamed at him and called him words I shall not reprint here, for this is a family blo-

Sorry, even I couldn't say that with a straight face.

Day 91: I finished the last of my preparation for the exams that day, which on one hand was awesome, because yay, free time, and on the other hand was bad, because while I had free time, everybody else was working and therefore couldn't go do anything. So I went to the local tea shop and got tea and scones on take-away, which is tremendously amazing and something I will miss terribly. The rest of the day consisted of moping about due to the terrible cold outside and attempting not to crawl straight into bed and enter a hibernation mode I would not emerge from until temperatures ascend above the freezing mark.

Day 92: We had our Politics and Literature final in the morning, where we wrote on Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons. Not much of any importance happened that day beyond starting to contemplate the upcoming terror of packing and doing laundry, which ended up being a horrible decision, as we are using a new detergent that I am apparently allergic to and has left me scratching my back and legs like some deranged chimpanzee. Fun.

Also, I am sick of this royal wedding business and am starting to be glad that I'm leaving, if only to get away from all the newspapers crowing how Kate Middleton is 'just like us.'

No, she's bloody well not! Her parents are multi-millionaires, she was educated at a prestigious fee-paying school (or private, to the Americans), she attended an ancient and renowned college, she has a job (which is something most graduates can't claim) and a flat in central London (which most Britons dream about but will never achieve). So they can stop telling us that she's just like us, because she's not, and I hope that most people are smart enough to see beyond this treacle spoonfed to us by the monarchy in the hope of seeming relevant and relatable instead of a decrepit institution peopled by dysfunctional spoiled brats.

Day 93: SNOW. We (and I'm starting to realize that I sound like some sort of horrible monarch with this royal 'we' business) woke to big fluffy flakes shooting straight out of the sky and splattering into the ground, but unfortunately not sticking due to the ambient temperatures in the middle of cities being higher than the countryside. Shivering and sticking my hands in my armpits, I trudged to the last day of British Life and Culture, where there were more presentations which were quite interesting: sex and politics in James Bond, brewing beer, pub culture, the history of the red telephone box, Jack the Ripper and his relationship to Victorian social mores, and the difference in gun control between the US and UK. The rest of the day was quite boring, as I wanted to attend the Winter Wonderland festival in Hyde Park but was stymied by the rest of the group having homework and finding it too cold to go, and I wasn't willing to leave the warmth of the flat without having somebody to go with. Miffed, I slogged to the nearest used bookshop to sell all of my books from the semester, for which I received the princely sum of five pounds. Go go used book market.

Day 94: Today there was no more snow, but ice stuck to some parts of the ground. I turned in my final paper for Shakespeare and took the final for British Art and Architecture, and considering I wrote down everything Barnaby ever said and have grown quite proficient at regurgitating information when required to do so, I'm not terribly worried about the exam. After the exam, I went back to the flat, packed, had some oatmeal, had a nap, and got up to go to the Winter Wonderland with Claire.

We rode a rollercoaster (I cursed the entire time), went through an awesomely cheesy haunted house (that made me laugh hysterically and Claire hide her eyes), and I had hot apple cider with cinnamon and a cheese and bacon pie that was amazing. After two hours wandering in the cold, gazing at the rides and merchants, we returned to the flat, and since then I've been in hibernation mode trying to warm up. Tomorrow morning, I leave Hendrix-in-London, which is crazy and not a little unsettling; I'm already halfway through my junior year in college, and yet it still feels like I've only just begun.

Tomorrow morning I leave the flat and Hendrix-in-London for good, so this will be my last entry. I hope you've enjoyed reading my sarcasm-laden thoughts, and if there's any photography you liked, I'm glad you did! Thank you for putting up with all my rants, too.