Winter is here and the early bird does not get the worm in London!

So, this week brought what I've been told is London winter. Highs in the 50s lows in the 40s. Rain most days. Wind. I don't love it, but I suppose it could be worse. I can manage for a few more weeks. 

Classes this week:

Crypto: We spent this week learning all about RSA. Serious math in there! Euclidean algorithm. Modular exponentiation. The students did well. I screwed something up at one point and got a bit frustrated in class (mainly because I screw up in this class a lot). I was embarrassed at the time and totally freaked out, but now I think I'll mention to them how natural it is to be frustrated w/ math. So, maybe a good lesson for them in my total screw-up.

Statistics: Deep into data collection, so it was nice to have an easy chapter to discuss on t-tests. This week they're focused on trying to do their data analysis. I'm just hoping it all goes okay and am ready to spend this week's class helping them all out.

Now on to my adventures for the week. It was a bit of a slow week because I was focused on work, but here ya go:

Monday: Work day, but I did need to do a long run. So, I took the tube out to Hampstead Heath after rush hour. It was a great little place to run, although at first I thought it was going to be terrible because the trail was all muddy and my shoes got dirty. But, that went away after about 10 minutes and I avoided that area after that. Lots of trails and hills and a lake. And tons of dogs. More dogs than I've seen in a lifetime. There's a great view of the city from Parliament Hill. I stopped to take a photo.  I spent the rest of the day working. Then, at about 5PM I decided to treat myself to a movie because I miss home a bit and that's a thing I'd do at home. So, I went to see Gone Girl not knowing much other than it had Ben Affleck in it. Let's just say there are some plot twists there I wasn't expecting. Intense relationship drama. Perfect.

Tuesday: Class in the morning. Meeting. Then, a work afternoon. Followed by a fancy dinner w/ Ed at Sushi Samba. We were finally celebrating that we had made it through all of our company (minus one more set of guests at T-giving). It was a fancy place on like the 32nd floor of a building. Nice views of the city...even though it was dark and rainy. Food was pretty decent too. The rolls were AMAZING.

Wednesday: Early AM: attempted a run. After going outside, I decided it was too cold. Worked instead. Had a fun little one hour class w/ my upper-level students (I love these little sessions...genius idea on my part). Then, it was off to St. James church for a lunchtime recital. And, it was saxophone music too! PERFECT! Loved it. The English Folk Songs by Vaughn-Williams were probably my favorite. Then, I explored some of the shops in the area. I got some yummy goat's cheese at the Queen's cheese shop, Paxton and Whitfield. Then, I picked up some discounted Trick or Treat truffles at Fortnum and Mason. Most of them are sea salt and caramel, but apparently some have fish oil, curry and garlic in them! They all look the same too. So far, so good. Thanks to Scherry for suggesting this very nice day out.

Wednesday was also Guy Fawkes Day. So, I had this genius idea that Ed and I would go to the bar on the 32nd floor of the Shard and watch the fireworks going off all over the city. Bad move. There was a one hour queue to get IN to the bar. Terrible. So, we went to a bar that I had gone to during cocktail week, had one drink and then walked home along the Southbank hoping to see fireworks. I saw one little bit of a green one. Ed saw none. Ridiculous.  We did however, see a Paddington Bear on the Southbank and he was super cute. The have them all over town right now in different costumes in preparation for the new movie. It's fun to look for them. I saw some on my way to the church the other day too. There are also painted double decker buses around town right now too. A real scavenger hunt of sorts!

Thursday: Class in the AM. Then, I did a run in the afternoon on South Bank. Terrible! I am so done w/ running there after 7AM. Too many freaking people. I did know the Tower of London area would be terrible w/ all the poppies, but still. Ick. I tried to get some pics of the poppies, but there were just SO many people. That night, Ed and I had some local Thai food at Thai Silk. Delicious. I also checked out Ladies night at a local bar. Cheap cocktails and free beauty treatments. One of my students had told me about it, but apparently it was way cooler the first time because this time it was crowded and the beauty treatments were all crowded.  Then, it was off to see The Cherry Orchard at The Young Vic. This was the same place we saw A Streetcar Named Desire earlier this semester and it was really cool to see the theater COMPLETELY changed for this play. The play actually wasn't that bad. People had told me bad things, so I wasn't expecting much and was pleasantly surprised.

Friday: Rough class. So, I wanted to do something fun for myself afterwards. I headed out to the V&A Design museum to see if I could see my neighbor's name in the Disobedient Objects exhibition. No luck there. I looked EVERYWHERE too. Then, I was planning to see the history of wedding dresses exhibit, but you had to pay. No thanks. I did go and have lunch in their cafe and that was nice. But, then I tried to find stuff I wanted to see and the building was huge and maze like and I was over it. I saw some nice stained glass and then left. Not my type of museum. I still needed to redeem my day, so I went to the nearby Candella Tea Room. Adorable. Mom and I would love to sit in there and drink tea and have a little dessert or something. They had about 3 tables. I got a chai tea latte. Definitely turned my frown upside down.

Saturday: Got up early to go for a run. I planned it all out. 45 minutes on the Regents canal towpath and then I'd check out Broadway Market that was right there and "opened" at 9. I finished my run around 9:30 I think. Broadway Market was not really open. Some vendors were. Most were still setting up. I strolled around for 30 minutes, but the food vendors and such still weren't ready, so I got out of there. Bust! Next time I'll just have to go later in the day and deal with the crowds. I really did like the vibe of that place. Crafts. Clothes. Food. Farmers. I took the bus home. Bad move as it was Lord Mayor's Day. Huge Parade and fireworks and such. I finally made it home and thought about heading out to see the parade, but it was raining and that sounded miserable. So, I just turned it on the TV and watched it there and graded. It wasn't that fancy, so I'm glad I skipped it. That night, I went to dinner at this cute Hungarian restaurant, The Gay Hussar. You should take guests there. Make a reservation. I had some yummy chilled wild cherry soup. And, the place has all these books on the wall and political figure portraits. Super cute!! After dinner, I went to the Ballet because I'd gotten a sweet deal on TimeOut. It was supposed to be 3 different modern ballet dances about World War I. Well, the first one was pretty classical ballet...a bit boring. Then, there was a 30 minute interval! 30 minutes?! I sat through that one and was rewarded with a super cute dance that took place in a bar scene. Very nice. Then, another 30 minute interval?! No thanks! I left. Not sure what I missed, but I needed to get home and pack for my overnight trip...which you'll hear all about in my next blog post!