Piano Drumming, Peter Pan and Persian Food

Last night, at 11:00 (23:00) we decided we wanted ice cream. Now, this is pretty non-existent at 11pm, so after much interneting we found Tinseltown, a 24-hour diner that caters to the bumbling post-clubbers. Turns out, it is one rockin' 80's restaurant. Our booth was next to blown-up pics of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan (SO glad this is what the Brits use to encapsulate Hollywood fame). I ordered a Reeses Cups milkshake (makin' Daddy proud) and it was pretty much just mushed up Reeses in ice cream. Basically, the greatest thing ever. The place was loaded with screens showing some sort of 80's music video countdown. We were Rickrolled. And then - and THEN!!! Every Little Thing She Does is Magic.



See, Jesus wanted me at that diner last night. BTW, if you've never seen Kate Bush's music video for "Babooshka" (here's lookin' at you, Joe) go Youtube it. Or just click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ot3cVY1JESQ

Today I slept in and then went venturin' on me own. I took the tube to Hyde Park and went to Speaker's Corner. There were many impassioned speakers, some preaching the Gospel, some talking about the evils of government, and my personal favorite, the sad state of the banana. "They deserve to die!" he proclaimed. "They were too stupid to get out of the fruit cargo bins, so if they get eaten, it's their own fault!"



I started walking through Hyde Park, hoping to run into a certain boy who wouldn't grow up. After an hour of walking, I gave up. Then I ran into a sign pointing the statue out, so I turned around and decided it was do or die till I saw Peter Pan. After about a million repositionings of the massive bag I was carrying (housing all of Volume 3 of "Gather" Hymnal piano accompaniment) I found a pretty directive sign. And then I found Peter himself. I sat down and journaled for a while, took pictures for nice British couples, and told people I did not, in fact, know the directions to Buckingham Palace. I plan to go back. This was a preliminary Pan stake-out.



I somehow, by the grace of God, managed to pull off music for Mass. I had to play the piano. Pause for laughter. See, I don't really PLAY the piano. I plinky-plink my way through songs and mess around with my own stuff, but I can't ACTUALLY play notes on a page. I can invert them into diminished 7th chords, but honestly, when am I going to need to do that? So I played chords while my beauteous, most appreciated pick-up choir sang the melody. I had NINE people come and sing in the front. Either they really like me and wanted to help me out, or else they were all just too intimidated to say no when I asked. Frankly, I don't care, because I wasn't alone looking like the Phantom of the Opera in the corner banging out chords and trying to read lyrics at the same time. There were a great deal of mishaps, but only one chorister started laughing (not saying who), and most people didn't notice. God bless the musically incoherent masses. My personal favorite moment was when I decided I couldn't for the life of me play "I Am the Bread of Life" (four flats! FOUR!) so we did it a Capella and I "bongoed" on the top of the piano during the refrain. So, imagine 150 poli-sci and business majors singing "And I will rai-haize you up! And I will rai-haize you up!" with no piano to dictate a tonal center and me up in the corner pounding the top of the piano to keep everyone on beat.

Oh. Dear. God.

OKAY so after Mass we broke into groups and went to dinner at different international places, lovingly subsidized by LUP (London Undergraduate Programme). I ended up in the Persian food group. It was DELICIOUS. I had lamb and falafal and hummus. FALAFAL! In honor of Darrel, because there was once an unnecessarily drawn-out inside joke in his musicianship class about someone yelling, "Well, it isn't a party without falafal" in the middle of a restaurant. I resisted the urge to yell, but I enjoyed it none the less.