ice Bars are Cool

So my autobiography class is just one non-sequitor after the other. We play these little memory games and then write about them. Like "let's talk about your favorite toy as a child. Then we're gonna write about it' 'Let's talk about our first loves, then write about it." It makes for some interesting conversation as yesterday on boy (well 'boy', he was like 40 years old) told us all a story about how he dated a girl for 2 years and then found out they were 3rd cousins. They were both from the same small Scottish island and surprise surprise, everyone's cousins.

Yesterday my teacher introduced the topic of 'Where were you when..." and automatically started with Spetember 11th. I was surprised seeing as that the room was my teacher from New Zealand, the Scottish guy who dated his cousin, the quiet boy from Africa, the British girl wearing leopard print leggings and me, the American. And out of all that, people suggested 9/11. Everyone told a little something about watching it on TV or hearing it at school, then the African boy was like "I was working in a restaurant for free since they don't give you a job until you work for no money for 3 months and my co-worker was like wow did you hear what happened in NY? And I was like whatever, that's sad but I don't care." then he looked at me and said "I'm sorry, but like, it didn't affect me, I didn't care." I was pretty surprised that he was apologizing to me especially since there's stuff going on in Africa that I don't care about. I asked my teacher why she chose 9/11 when there was a much more recent bombing in London. She said that it was just the first thing that came to her mind since her friend was American and very upset.
So we moved on to other events that I either wasn't alive for or didn't care about because they were British, like JFK getting shot, Elvis dying, Princess Diana dying, 7/07, Amy Winehouse dying. Lots of dying, no one remembers good events.

Last night my friends and I checked out an Ice Bar. A bar completely made of ice which gives out drinks in cups made of ice. They also hand out ponchos and gloves. I had been to one in Eilat, Israel and it was actually cooler than this one. It had an ice slide, but we did have to watch a movie about global warming and we didn't get free drinks so....pros and cons. Also, spending 45 min in freezing cold temperatures made the balmy London night later seem almost tropical so we walked around Oxford checking out the Christmas lights and decorations, stopping in Hamley's to play with the giant teddy bears. I still have to say that Toys R Us in Times Square is better but it's not a competition.

This Shabbat I'm going to my friend's house and to an 'Arabian Themed Friday Night Dinner."
I hope you have a good Shabbat too!