Friends for a Decade!

    Today was a great day.  The morning started right with breakfast together and each of us off to work or school.  Nathan had a pretty good day, but I won’t be blogging his work experiences since I wasn’t there…wouldn’t make much sense to tell it second hand.  Class went well.  Today we covered some basic epidemiology of HIV and then had a guest speaker from the Mortimer Market Centre, a clinic for people who are HIV+ here in the UK.  It was a lecture specifically on the aging population of HIV+ people, specifically in the UK, though it applied to those in the US as well.  Did you know that by 2015, 50% of people with HIV will be over 50 years old?  The speaker gave great information and great perspective.  No, I probably won’t be interacting much with this population in my work as a school counselor.  I do, however, interact with this population twice a week volunteering with my church at the Bailey-Holt House in Chelsea. 

    After class, my dear friend Mike Yates met up with me and we spend a few hours catching up while eating a yummy lunch and walking the crazy shopping scene down Oxford Street.  I managed to get a cheap UK phone so if you’d like to call or text, check my fb profile for the number!  Mike and I have been friends for the last 6 years about.  Later in the afternoon, we met up with another friend who had just flown in from Nigeria on his way back to the US, Nimi!  Nimi and I have been friends now for over nine years.  We met in college through Real Life, a Christian group I was part of and later worked for in Boston (I worked with Mike Yates, which is how Mike & I met).  Over nine years...that sort of freaks me out because that’s how long ago it was when I started my freshman year (Nimi was at MIT, not NU)!  Eeep!  I can’t be nearing 30….no, not me.  Haha! It was nice to catch up for a few hours and then head to my flat and enjoy a cuppa and conversation that per usual varied from economics, world politics, faith and everything in between.  A couple pictures of this fun time should be posted soon.

Hope all is well with you, my friends!  Let me know you’re reading and leave some love.  Sorry this post is vacant of any real cultural comments. Tomorrow’s touring with my class promises many interesting things to mention in the daily blog. 

Oh, one interesting thing: what the London NYU facilities look like. =)

xx

"Did you get the other basket?" "What basket?"

It's day three and I'll try to make this update shorter.  Class went well.  It's a good group of people with wide variety of backgrounds (in life and in academic focus).  After our class (10am-1pm), we all headed to Wagamama for lunch.  Seriously yum.  Nathan and I did some grocery shopping and managed to forget half of the things we wanted to buy, in our second grocery basket...I think that we can safely blame jet lag for this one.  We then took advantage of our afternoon off and caught some exhibits at the British Museum, which is not only free, but just half a mile from our flat.  Seeing the Rosetta Stone and pieces of the Pantheon were definitely highlights.  I guess I should mention the ceiling in the Grand Hall as well, since it is architectural, artistic, and engineering feet which could best be enjoyed in daylight with some sun...of which we had none.  What was NOT a highlight: the Picasso exhibit that actually only had ONE Picasso.  Serious fail.  After that, we finished up the shopping we forgot, had a cuppa and snack then made dinner in our tiny flat, which was DELISH and much cheaper than a local restaurant.

I was given a link to a fantastic PBS program called The Age of AIDS that does a great job summarizing the pandemic from first cases in the US to current day.  If you want to be more in the know, I suggest watching.  It is in small "episodes" and could be watched over time if you don't have 250 minutes to dedicate to it. =)  Let me know if you watch and we can discuss!

Okay, time for bed.  Class tomorrow and Nathan's first day of work.

Oh, and it snowed today.  Loved it.