Here is London, giddy London, is it home of the free or what?

July 2, 2010

Despite very simple instructions for getting from Heathrow to their flat off Notting Hill Gate, I STILL got lost walking to Natalia and Joe's place. On the train from Heathrow I was still asking myself whether I had even made the right decision to go on this trip -- it's a lot of time, it's expensive, and I wasn't sure whether I'd still be up for this much time on the road as I had been in 2005 (spoiler alert...I'm having a pretty great time so far, so no regrets now).

Natalia wasn't home when I got there, so Joe (whom I had never met before) watched the World Cup match between the Netherlands and Brazil(because I'm heading for the Netherlands in a month, I figured it was in my best interest to root for them to ensure that they'd be in a good mood when I got there), and then a tennis match between Nadal
and Murray (here, for obvious reasons, I rooted for the British player). Natalia arrived around 6 and informed me (as she had before) that there would be an "impromptu" dinner party that night (she later informed me that this dinner party was thrown in my honor -- I had assumed my timing had just been good). I argued with her friend Amy as to whether we would need 4 or 7 bottles of wine for the party (she ended up being right) and caught up on personal life with Natalia as she made salad.

I thought the party was a great success:

1) I learned about the RP (Received Pronunciation) although am no closer to being able to imitate it.

2) I participated in a musical singalong with Benedict (from Bristol), Grace (from New York) and Natalia, while the rest of the table either looked on in horror or looked away.

3) N, from Oregon, committed the social sin of telling me that he "went to school in Boston" when he had obviously gone to Harvard (this, when two others at the party went to Harvard, and I think at least one to Oxford -- is this false modesty really necessary?)

4) Despite having hardly slept the night before and drinking more than my share of the party's wine, stayed up until 3 a.m. Is this just jet lag?

5) Benedict's hilarious telling of the story of meeting his American girlfriend.

6) My officiating of a wedding with my Universal Life Church ministry as a sole qualification.

* Morrissey -- "Hairdresser on Fire"