more ice bar pics

i was told i looked good in the parka.this is the full name of the bar. everybody received a voucher for guess what? an absolut vodka drink!
supposedly the ice is from sweden.
me and john.
we thought we looked like secret agents.
here's one of those ice maps.
the group...(left to right). michelle, corey, ben, me, john.
ben, corey and me (the hood pretty much never came off. i took it off at one point and ben said i definitely looked better with it on).
me and ben. john says i look devious.

we had to wait a half hour at the hammersmith bus terminal for the final bus home. i'd say its about 3:15am in this picture.

throw back to the past

before i left, joel and i went on a date. we went to long beach and enjoyed a ferris wheel and an excellent greek meal.
afterwards we went to zach kleyn's art show.

we met up with some friends i havent seen in awhile.
adria and nate just had the cutest baby (jude). it was a great evening!

i miss joel!

hillsong london

this is where i go to church.

i really like the worship a lot. but, it definitely feels more like a production than church. makes me miss my little home church back in california.

windsor castle

the morning after the ice bar (remember how i got home around 4am) some of us went to windsor castle. this meant i had to wake up at 9:15am and make it to waterloo station (reference the tube map in a previous post).

i would have made it on time, but per usual rule the tube decided to stop at various places along the tracks. so i was about 20 minutes late....but i made it in perfect time to catch the train to windsor.
every so often the british rail system people will decide to repair the tracks during the day time. this means that we have to get off the train and take a rail replacement service (aka really old bus) the rest of the way.

we had to do that yesterday. they crammed pretty much the whole train on to one bus (the capacity was 91 people but i'm pretty sure there were more than that inside. we eventually made it and had a wonderful day exploring windsor.
this castle is still in use today. the royals will often spend time at the castle - you know, the general hanging out, doing business, etc.
we were able to walk around the grounds, see the moat (now a very pretty garden...i hate to break it to them but i dont think it will protect them very well),
visit the doll house and the state rooms. this is where the guards used to stand and shoot bows and arrows at people.

missy and i ...she was my roommate the first couple weeks here when we were held hostage at the pepperdine house.
just in case we forgot we were at a castle where very important people reside, the light posts reminded us.afterwards, we were starving so we went to wagamama's. i love love this place. when i was here in 2002, my friend claire introduced me to the place...on this trip i've been at least 3 times already. its an asian noodle bar that has excellent food. but the fun part is that we all sit at long tables. so chances are that one ends up sitting next to a complete stranger. i like the communal aspect.

after wagamama's we walked around the town, shopped and enjoyed huge sundaes at ben and jerry's. this is a crooked house.
then we hiked back to the train (really the rail replacement service) and i made it home around 10pm...in time to fall into bed.

today we are enjoying a lazy day around the house (the last roommate, ben, just woke up. its 1pm) playing foosball, eating, and studying. i'll update tonight if anything ends up happening. chances are something will.

ice bar

this was a very cool experience. the entire bar is made of ice (including the glasses that our drinks came in)
and before we went in they put parkas on us so we wouldnt freeze.
there were lots of cool things to do inside like take pictures in an ice phone booth, take pictures next to ice maps,
like the ice and throw the cups at the wall and each other (just kidding....but we did smash them together to see if we could break them).

we paid 15 pounds and were able to stay in the freezer for 40 minutes. but it was definitely worth it for the fun factor.


before we went in (we had to make reservations and since we were slow on the draw, we had to wait until 11:45 to go in to the ice part of the bar) we hung out in the warm part of the bar. it was a lot of fun but the drinks were extremely expensive.
after the ice bar we were all pumped up and wanted to go out dancing. unfortunately london closes down relatively early so when we were crawling the streets around 1/1:15am most places did not want to let us in. we decided to catch a bus back to liz's place (she lives about 10 minutes walking distance from school...i'll try to not let the jealousy show through this post). once we got there most of us were tired and wanted to go back to the house of love (i mean, it was 3am).

so we took a bus to another bus and finally made it home around 4. but it was well worth it!

(ps...it took me about 5 minutes to load up all these pictures. our internet here is amazing!!!)

house of love par-tay

the house of love decided to throw a house warming party. we had it on a thursday night after class (nobody has class on friday so we thought it would be a good idea to have it on a thursday). it was a huge success! we had about 30 people here which is great since there are only 30 on our program.
this was a potluck affair with alcohol being the main event. needless to say we have enough alcohol two weeks after the party for another party this month. everyone loved our house and said they would definitely come back (which is saying a lot since it took most of them 45 minutes to get here). a few people got lost but almost everyone was able to navigate the trains and buses of london to find west ealing.
we played music and foosball...ate food and drank. one of our professors (she's actually the dean of academic affairs back home) and her husband came as well as glyn, the program coordinator. we thought that was very kind of them to make an appearance (and supply us with A LOT of acholol).
thanks to my wonderful fiance we had fantastic music (my ipod is loaded up with his music).

we escaped relatively unscathed...meaning our house wasn't a total mess afterward. almost everyone left around 11:30 in order to catch the last bus and train into town. thats the great and bad thing about london - we have public transportation so we can drink and not have to drive. but, then we are stuck with two bad choices - leave the party early or leave late and get home even later (because at that time of night the only option is a bus....not fun).
so most people chose the former. but thats cool because then we were able to get into bed at a good time!
here are the six housemates that make up the house of love!

Subway Sing Along

here's a little flavor of our group. these are some of our friends that came to our house party the other week. on the way home (after a wee bit of alcohol) they decided to start singing. i love this group!

lets see...i cant remember the last thing i posted so i will throw some recent activities out there.

first, last night i had three interviews for next summer. here in the law world, summer employment is crucial to future success - especially the summer after one's second year. to make this process of finding a job easier, the kind folks at our career development office (this actually happens at most law schools) arrange for employers to come on to the campus and interview prospective candidates. the process is definitely competitve, time-consuming but can be very profitable.

generally, top employers only go to the well-known schools. this year, pepperdine did a great job and attracted some incredible firms, government jobs, and other employers to OCI (on-campus interview). also, this year was the first year that the CDO made it possible for london people to participate in OCI. usually they miss out because they are in london and the employers are in malibu. but this time around we were supplied with video conferencing equipment.

so, last night at 6:20, 11:20, and 11:50 i had three interviews with some incredible firms. i think they went pretty well. my interviewers were relaxed, young and honest about life at a firm. hopefully i'll find out in a week or two whether or not i'll get a call back. if i do get call backs then i will most likely fly home to california to do them. call backs are crucial becuase this is when the candidate meets with 5 or 6 people (partners and associates) for about a half hour a piece to determine if the person and the firm are a good match. generally people that get call backs get a job.

but i know that even if this doesnt happen for me, God has a plan. i believe He called me to law school for a very specific purpose and i am confident that purpose will play out. but in the meantime i'm a bit nervous about the whole process.

on a lighter note, my house is constantly playing foosball. i think we're addicted. we're also going to need to see a chiropractor since we all tend to walk away from the table with sore backs (since its a cheap table its a bit short).

tomorrow we will be walking around london for a few hours noting the important sites to the legal system. i'll hopefully have pictures that i can post from that.

we are also trying to arrange a trip to oktoberfest in a few weekends. everything is so expensive because of it! hotel rooms (for one person) are running around $300-400 a night. crazy! a company has rented a lot across the street from the festival and has set up tents that people can rent out. they are 45 euro a night for a bed in a tent. we'll see what happens.