Monday, January 25th

After class today, Allyson and I were planning on going to Poundland (basically a dollar store) and then to the Science Museum. We wandered around Portobello Road and found Poundland. I was quite disappointed. The deals were not very good. We left too late, so we didn't get to the Science Museum, but we did get to go exploring for a little. We went to the other side of Hyde Park and walked to Buckingham Palace. We were both freezing! So cold! As we were approaching Buckingham Palace, Allyson doubted me when I told her it was right next to us (the wall was at least). It was pretty funny... We finally reached the front, looked at it, and left pretty quickly because we were sooo cold. We will definitely be going back... on a warmer day. It took us a while to find a tube station.


After dinner we went to the movies with Brittany and Kira. We love student discount Mondays! We paid to see "The Boys Are Back" with Clive Owen. I didn't like it very much. It was slow, didn't reach me emotionally like it was trying to, and he was a really poor father, so it was frustrating. After, we snuck into "Up in the Air" with George Clooney. I really like that movie. It didn't really end on a happy note either, but it was at least funny! I liked it so much better than the first movie.

*** So at 2am (Jan 26th) the fire alarm went off in the Centre. Usually I would still be up, but for some reason our entire room crashed early and was asleep by 1am. I woke up really confused. I thought it was the morning and was really sad that I had to get up and get ready for class. Then I realized everyone was really confused and gathering their coats. I finally realize that the fire alarm was blasting throughout the building (so loud!) and jump out of bed. I was only wearing boxers, so I quickly changed into jeans and slid on some shoes. Everyone was starting to head downstairs, but Christina was still in bed asleep. I stared at her and realized she was wearing earplugs, so I woke her up. She was completely confused, and my explanation wasn't very clear, so I feel kind of bad for that. I told her that the fire alarm was going off, and that I didn't really know anything else, except for that she needed to get up and go downstairs. The entire program was gathered by the front door. Everyone was groggy and in pajamas. The professors ran around frantically trying to find the source of the commotion. Finally they deduced that there wasn't any immediate danger, got the alarm turned off, and sent us back to bed. They told us that if the alarm went off again, we would need to come back downstairs. As soon as we hiked back up all 70 or so stairs and got back into bed, sure enough the alarm went off again. Again, I pulled my jeans back on, but then it is shut off. Changed again and got into bed. Thankfully there was no fire, but it was quite a shock. We found out the reason for the alarm... there actually could have been a fire, if we hadn't been alerted. There is an old lady caretaker who lives in the building. She apparently thought that her private kitchen was too cold in the mornings, so she turned on the oven and left its door open when she went to sleep. The kitchen got so hot that it set off the fire alarm. When they finally woke her up and entered her apartment, the kitchen was about 100 degrees. So I guess it was a close call.

Super tiring though.