The Whimsical World of Carson A. Byrd: London Bridges

Good morning Memphians!

Here in this fabulous city it is 11:45 and I am procrastinating a science paper, but in memphis I believe most of you are scurrying around your houses getting ready for the day.

Sorry my post is late this week, I had a very busy weekend that you will read about in a second and was consumed with researching Aristotle and ancient medicine for my paper that I need to finish by thursday so I will be able to enjoy my weekend in Munich. I know, what a hard life I lead.

This weekend I was reminded of what a wonderful life I do lead. It was reunion week in London as all of my friends reconvened in London for the one and only Azzurra Alliata's 19th birthday. I'm incredibly jealous she has almost an entire year of life more than I do. Friends flew and trained in from Switzerland, Italy, Germany, it was a fabulous three days of fellowship and remembrances of times had. New memories and incredible pictures (shown below :) ) were created, something our "group" has become known for in the pepp circuit.

Friday, when everyone arrived, we took an incredible boat tour of the Thames and saw all of the wonderful touristy things like the London Eye, Big Ben, the London Bridge, etc. Then we ate at my absolute favorite pub in the world Trafalgar Pub on Kings Road, I will be taking anyone who visits me there immediately! Then we went to a club in the Oxford Street area called Alta, luckily, Zu, with her great connections had been given a few promoter contacts and we were able to secure a table, the only way to go out as far as I'm concerned. Very fun!

Saturday was the absolute best. We had a huge picnic in Hyde Park and witnessed one of the most hilarious things I've seen in my entire life. There was a group of women celebrating a Hen Party, bachlorette party in "american", near us and they were doing something called Grass Skiing. Its basically exactly what it sounds like. All of the women had helmets and pads on and were "skiing" down many of the rolling hills by the water where we were. Most often they would fall on the way down. Needless to say, it was one of the most entertaining things to witness.

Wee took the group to a few museums they wanted to visit and then we went to The QUEENS RESIDENCE, as its known, and took some great photos in Green Park and outside of the gate. This was followed by an early dinner and back to Zu's friend's, Arabella's apartment to just relax after such a late night on friday. Sunday, we took the gang to a great market and they brought Azzurra a cupcake and a present and we sent them on their way!

At Pepperdine Abroad, we have "free" aka it comes in the tuition bill, meals three nights a week with the group. This is something my friends and I dread, walking into a restaurant with 50 annoying American students who all want their salads without pine nuts and cheese pizza at the Indian restaurant. HOWEVER! Once a month, we are taken on mystery dinners, where the group is ten people and one of the faculty members takes the group to a secret locale. Last night was our first mystery dinner and we signed up to go to a traditional fish and chips place with Jenny, who is the assistant director of the program around 28 and very sweet. IT WAS FAB! I DIE! Better than any catfish I've every had and if you love green peas and steak fries like I do, then this was the place to be! YUM! An excellent change from group dinner if I don't say so myself.

We, by we I mean myself, Claire, and of course Zu, returned to the house and surprised Azzurra with a red velvet cake from Hummingbird's and the pink chiffon dress we saw her trying to bargain for at the market we went to on Sunday :)

Tonight, the most celebratory night of all, we are going to Cipriani, an amazing Italian restaurant that also resides in New York and is opening in B Hills soon. Famous for their desserts, amazing pastas, and known most of all for their bellinis. I am told I will never be the same! Then we are going to see the September Issue, which is a documentary about the creation of the largest edition of the magazine Vogue. Basically tonight= heaven for us :)

Back to reality on wednesday when I HAVE TO FINISH MY PAPER and most of all start a diet that will be put on hold again for the weekend and recommence monday. ugh.

School is going very well and I am enjoying all of my classes, especially English where we have been reading plays, four so far, and will start attending them shortly. In a month or so, we are supposed to take everything we have learned and write our own, one act play, I AM SO EXCITED, I love doing that sort of thing! Humanties is great, we are learning about the Black Death, more in detail than I did in high school. The most interesting fact so far is that many believed the Jewish community was responsible because so many of the Christian leaders were dying and the townspeople began burning entire communities of Jews. This was on such a large scale that it is estimated more Jews were killed during this time than the Holocaust, three fold.

I am loving learning history over again from a different perspective, it is making my world view much more succinct.

The most exciting thing is my Poly Sci class. Even though that man makes us read billions of pages of billions of different books and articles and nonsense, I am learning so much AND we will be touring Parliament soon :) WOOHOO. So into that!

Something else that I will share is the London fall program also has a Law section. The students are here for their classes and in the library, but don't live here; however their director, a fab woman named Coleen something, has her office here. I STALK HER. She is always on the BBC doing conferences and she worked in Washington for a number of years with Condleezza Rice, gag me. BUT I love her, even though she wears suits. My goal is to strike up a convo with her and become BFFS. Definitely a great connection, maybe she can lead me in the direction of what I want to do with my life, when I figure this out. SO that is my goal for the semester, besides making good enough grades for grad school and seeing the world, blah blah blah. :)

Love to you all! Here are some photos of what I've shared with you!

xoxo and CHEERS from London,

Carson