My First London Shabbat

Sorry for the lapse ya'all. Thursday night I got home late due to karaoke night at the International Student Housing bar. Here's a tip to making friends: Def do a cover of 'Livin' La Vida Loca' after about 2 Strongbows. It's a hoot.

Friday blah blah blah, more orientation. This one involving a library of some sort. Afterwards we had another little orientation of the London college we're attending. Needless to say I wasn't paying attention to any of the speeches about how to correctly fill out your paperwork. I wonder how long I can feign ignorance (or actual be ignorant) about stuff and blame it on being "American".

This Shabbat was super nice though. I had been in contact with one of my sister's friends and she invited me to her family for the weekend. I had been feeling a little homesick due to my lack of food options here and the lack of people to play Jewish geography with, so I was looking forward to Shabbat.

It was very nice, this quaint little British family home. They really do say 'cheerio' and 'lovely' and 'biscuits'. I think there was a point in the conversation where I actually had no idea what they were saying, so I just smiled a nodded a lot. Which is what I do surprisingly a lot in America as well. I've noticed that though I don't speak in a British accent, I am beginning to think in a British accent which makes my thoughts seem much smarter to myself.

I had encountered some veiled hostility towards America this weekend though. There were some comments about America's debt and America's feelings of superiority to every country. I didn't exactly know how to respond, whether I should I have defended the US (and say what? "Well...we are superior...") or just smile and nod. I went with a combination of laughing and changing the subject. The laugh was sort of a "Oh we Americans. We don't give a shit about what anyone thinks of us."

I went to shul on Saturday (Hi Dad! Be proud!). Deciding to wear my new heels for the 25 min walk was NOT a good idea and I was basically crying once we got there. I kept losing my balance. There was a Bar Mitzvah this week and the men in the congregation sing "Shma Bini" after the Haftorah which is really sweet. I moved to get a good look, not realizing there were stairs next to me, and tumbled down them. It's a good thing not a one person knew me there.

Tonight there was a party next door. I had been feeling a little anxious about meeting people, even though everyone so far has been super nice. I'm just always like that. It was fun though, I only stayed an hour since it was crazy hot, also I needed to laundry. I'm going out with them tomorrow morning anyways so I thought a whole hour of being social was pretty generous.

Tomorrow we're going to a bar called 'Church' which is a church themed bar that opens at 6am to serve alcohol. I'm just going for the novelty of it I promise!