Busy first week of classes!

Hello blog followers! Sorry for the delay in writing. I've been a busy bee. Here's a quick recap:

Sunday: Chocolate tour of London via a Groupon. Great stuff! Had many truffles and some amazing ice cream at Freggo. Malbec and berries. Irish cream. Chocolate and almonds. Yummy! Not as great in terms of variety as the chocolate tour of Austin, but still fun. Thought of my friend Romi a lot. :)

Monday: Bank holiday here. And it rained ALL day. Like poured down rain. This was fine by me because I had all kinds of stuff to do. Did an amazing 2 mile run in the rain at 7am. No one was out along my normal river route so it was so nice. Amazing to run again for the first time in 2 weeks! So, yes the foot is feeling better! I finished class prep for Tuesday, got a math research question figured out finally, watched a few episodes of Scandal on Amazon prime and did a few other things for class. Very productive day. (Amazon prime note: bought a few running gear things on Amazon and got a free 30-day free trial of Amazon prime. BOOM! Found Scandal on there and am loving it.)

Tuesday: First day of class! Walked to IES and got there around 8:30 even though they don't open officially until 9, but that was fine because John was arriving at the same time. Class at 9. Have fun with Skytale ciphers, definitions, and Polybius ciphers. Then, I had the rest of the day free. I did a bit of work on my research again (seriously...this is like a mini-sabbatical!), took a nap, and prepped the house for our first student dinner. We're having the students over in groups of 8-9 so we can get to know them and help them adjust to London. Tuesday night was Ed's cooking night. He made quiche and salad and we had Gu for dessert. He also made cute little menus that the students loved. It was a fun time.

Wednesday: No classes today, so many fun adventures for me. Went to the grocery on the bus so I could get things for my Thursday dinner. Did a new store that was right at a bus stop, but still hated it. Too heavy carrying all that on the bus and from the bus home. Blah! Back to online delivery (especially for these dinners for 10+ people). After that, I did some class prep for Thursday.

Thursday: Class 9-12. Tough to plan for 3 hours. I think I got about 2.5 with a couple of small breaks. Next time I'll plan more. Applied statistics this time. Only 8 students in there, so it's fun. Basically it was a review day and we spent a lot of time talking about their first project. Good stuff. Then, it was home to prep for dinner #2. My turn to cook. I decided to make breakfast tacos, monkey bread, and a fruit salad. Too complicated! It was sooo much work and in a kitchen I didn't know w/ products I didn't know...it wasn't very fun. Whatever. I managed and it was all delicious. Serious work though! After dinner, we headed over to Shakespeare's Globe Theater to see Julius Caesar. The theater itself was amazing and I loved the set up and the vibe, but I am just not a Shakespeare fan and so I left after the first act. Plus, I hadn't slept well the night before and had been busy cooking and everything all day, so I was exhausted. I came home...attempted a FaceTime happy hour w/ Fumiko and Carina (fail...but next time we'll figure it out) and then watched the first half of the Aggie game until 1:30AM. Probably not the best idea, but it was relaxing and fun so worth it.

Friday: Class today. Fun time w/ Caesar ciphers and other monalphabetic substitution ciphers. Walked through the Covent Garden area on my way home and stopped at The Tea House to buy some tea for a colleague. Great place. I bought two other teas for myself and a tea infuser since I couldn't find one in this house! But, it's super cute. The infuser is shaped like a house and has the word TEA on it. Super cute!!

Tonight, we'll have dinner w/ Reggie and Steve from Austin. Reggie was one of the faculty doing the London program last semester and is on sabbatical this semester and has returned to London to do some research. Awesome.