One Day at a Time

Hi Everyone!
Well, each day is a gift here. Andy's class schedule allows him to have differrent classes/instructors each day, so there's tons of variety in his life. Wednesdays seem to be the hardest on his body as they do acrobatics for several hours on that day. Mondays are somewhat exciting and difficult because it is the day that each small group presents the projects they worked on the previous week. He also has a "Space Lab" class on Saturdays which so far have involved a field trip around Centra London and on another day they used charcoal to draw different spacial concepts. Every once and a while he'll come home and teach me an exercise or game that they learned that day.
Just recently I had some spare time (as I am still waiting to start my new job) so I wandered around the city. I spent some time in St. Margaret's Church which is near Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. I also walked around the Picadilly and Covent Garden areas which are known for all their shops. My new favorite place in that area is a small bakery in China Town where you can get the most wonderful sweet red bean or lotus pastries. I'm hooked. I also found a great restaurant near my house with my friend Xan. We tried looking for a pub to hang out in, but they were all busy and noisy. We came across this great little cafe called "Babes and Burgers." The name is somewhat decieving. It was small and full of candlelight and we were seated in a booth right next to a classical guitarist who was just playing acoustically in a corner for the 6 or so customers there that night. They do have burgers, but they also have a lot of great healthy gourmet food that we proceeded to split as we are both on tight budgets.
Hmmm...other adventures...we both have seen a few interesting plays lately, we've been taking advantage of all the student discounts. Most of them are put on by smaller theater companies, the one we went to last night was in a pub and reminded me a lot of the Acadia cafe in Minneapolis.
I'm really surprising myself lately with my ability to stay up late. For the past three Saturday nights, we haven't gotten to bed until 3:00 or sometimes later. There have been some fun parties with Andy's classmates and we keep finding ourselves with guitars in hand and singing late into the night. We're excited to maybe have some friends over for a Thankgiving meal sometime this week. I really love hosting, especially for a small group of friends that like good food and laughter.
Andy is at a friends house today having "tea." Which does involve tea, but it also could include sandwiches, cakes, biscuits, and chocolate, along with much conversation. I love some of these British traditions!
I've included some pictures of the sights around town. One of them is of crosses with poppies on them. Here in London, they celebrated their Memorial Day two weekends ago and the lawn in front of Westminster Abbey was covered with these crosses with names or prayers written on them. There were thousands and thousands, it was amazing.
Hope all is well with each of you. Happy Thanksgiving this Thursday, we'll be missing you all.
Peace, Mandy