Our friend Owen Roseblade from church hosted the opening night of his exhibition of his photography/graphic design project, London Safari. He's using an exhibit space at a church in Notting Hill called Westborne Grove, which isn't too far from us. So yea, the area itself is quite nice, obviously, and the church is actually sort of related to our church, as a number of our founding members came from there, and we still get advice from them and stuff. We're also part of the same group of churches called Salt & Light. So that was really fun. There was free food and drinks, which is always a favorite of ours, but the art was also really fantastic.
Owen also asked me to document the night, so I took pictures for him of people looking at his pictures. The irony was delicious.
But yea, Owen is an awesome photographer, and hopefully I can learn a lot from him over the next 10 or so months.
Other than that, life has been calm. Our friend Joel had us over for breakfast at his new flat where he just moved in. Hash browns, omelettes, mushrooms, and toast. It was delicious, and his apartment is awesome. He's got a spare bedroom, so he's using it to offer a cheap place to stay for refugees in London who need a base while they look for a place of their own. He's got an Ethiopian refugee staying with him now.
Oh, and baked beans. We had them for breakfast at Joel's too. Joel isn't British; from Boston, actually, and went to Harvard of all places. But he's lived here over two years now, so he's adopted quite a bit of their culture. Thus the baked beans (actually, him being from Boston may actually have something to do with this. But I doubt it. It's the British-ness). We had no idea that the backbone of what it means to be English is completely built upon the consumption of massive amounts of baked beans with every meal, on anything and everything. I thought baked beans were like a mid-Western thing, to be eaten with BBQ or something. But no. They are more British than fish and chips. They seriously eat them on everything. Baked beans on toast (a breakfast favorite). Baked beans on a baked potato (called a jacket potato here...no idea why). Baked beans on pizza.
What? Yes, that's right. Baked beans on pizza. Let me explain. Last night, I went to our friend Andy's to play some music (see how I made that transition there? I used the beans to connect all of the recent events of our lives. Perfect score on the GRE Analytical Writing section, here I come). Andy's got a bass and an electric guitar, as well as amps, so we had a little jam session. We played a few songs, and our other friend Gemma (Andy's girlfriend...we know them both from church) sang. It was a lot of fun, and it felt really good to play bass again.
Anyway, after that was all tied up, Andy invited us to watch a movie with him, called This Is England, about skinheads in northeast England in the 1980's (sounds scary, I know, but it was really well done. We loved it). Chelsea was with our other friend Tim from church, helping him with this debt counseling charity that the church runs. Tim is trained to give people debt advice, so he had two meetings scheduled, but they're supposed to work in pairs, for safety reasons, and in case someone tries to sue claiming that they gave bad advice, there's a second witness. So Tim needed someone else to do the meetings with him; thus Chelsea's involvement. I, as mentioned, was already engaged in the music get together. So, while we were waiting on Chelsea to get back from that so we could start the movie, Andy ate dinner (I had already eaten, thankfully). And that's when I witnessed that culinary atrocity (we're finally brining all back around, tying it all together, I promise). He put baked beans on a frozen pizza.
And ketchup. I lie to you not. Baked beans and ketchup on a frozen pizza. And apparently this is completely normal here. So yea. Breakfast at Joel's. Music and a film at Andy's. Baked beans. It's all connected.
And totally unconnected: biking along the canal. I did it the other day for fun/exercise. Chelsea did it for real today to get to the Senate House Library to research her first big paper. So, yes, this post will actually have more than just 100 hyper links. There are indeed some actual pictures.
Also, square Reese's (which rhymes with pieces. Which rhymes with Cheese's (as in Chuck E.) and not with P.C.'s (as in people who are politically correct, which I just made up)).
Apparently British customs officers say round Reese's are NOT COOL. Only square Reese's gettin' in this country. Not sneaking by me. Why may explain why Reese's are not popular here and we can't find anywhere to buy them, which is why Jason had to send us some.
Also, food in the mail; Chelsea's mom sent us two packs of beef jerky and a tube of Slim Jims. Win!
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