Alright so I didn't keep up with my promise..it's been exactly a week. Tomorrow I depart for Istanbul! I'm very excited to go to this beautiful city; we have a very exciting schedule planned. I can't wait to write that blog post.


First of all, I got my provisional internship: London Music Masters, which, "London Music Masters is a non-profit organisation promoting young classical artists and providing programming. Targeting socio-economically challenged inner-city boroughs, the Project encourages children, their families and their communities to develop a life-long appreciation for classical music in all its varied forms. In particular, this project aims to help increase the ethnic and socio-economic diversity within professional music ensembles by reaching out to broader communities from a young age and preparing them to participate and succeed in the classical world." 
I'm SO excited about this. This is music therapy from a different perspective than I was thinking I was going to get, or that I was thinking in general. I really hope that I'm able to benefit this organization and that it'll inspire me further to peruse a career in this field.


Thursday was one of the most exciting days for me in a very long time. Jiro, my dad's 'brother', lives in London and has just returned from Japan last week. We were finally able to get together for dinner last Thursday night at Da Marias, which is apparently where Princess Diana loved to eat in South Kensington. I haven't seen Jiro in over 6 years because he is back and forth from Japan and London, and of course I live in the states. I had the best time I've had in London so far with him and I can't wait to keep seeing him. 


Other than that, this past week has been one of the slower weeks in my London adventures. Friday after class I went into Oxford Circus as Yasin napped and walked around for almost 5 hours just venturing in and out of the shops. I wanted to buy one of the cliche British boots but couldn't find a pair a decent price. I was more interested at the fashion, all the different cool shops, and people watching. Plus, it's fun getting lost in London. Unlike New York, it's not a grid, and yet somehow you always find yourself in an area you know or on a block you can figure out where you need to go. My main mission was to go to Primark, which is like the Forever21 of the UK. It was over a mile from the Oxford tube, and after finally getting there, I realized I had made a huge mistake. This 2 floor department store was busier than a mall on Black Friday. I wandered around aimlessly for almost an hour just being shoved and pushed around as young girls threw themselves at pantyhose. The stuff in this store is very fashionable and very cheap, I saw handbags for between 4 and 8 pounds and dresses for 5 pounds, but girlfriend, you don't gotta shove me out of the way for it. I got so overwhelmed I only ended up buying a cool pair of stockings, a pair of earrings, an anchor necklace, and a travel bottle set for my luggage. Nothing really that exciting for my first highly upped Primark experience. After a few hours Yasin met me and I walked her back to Primark where luckily she didn't want to stay too long either. 


Saturday Steve, Rob, James, Yasin and I were up bright (or grey) and early to get up for Stonehenge and the city of Bath. Stonehenge was absolutely freezing; it was in the middle of a bare field and I'm not sure I've ever been so cold in my life. I know people hate that I'm going to say this next thing but I don't care: I think it's cool that these rocks were dragged hundreds of miles and everything and have some sort possible mystical powers, but when I'm freezing in the middle of a field and theres a perimeter around the freakin' rocks that I can't even go up and touch, all I'm thinking is...it's just a bunch of rocks. There. I said it. However, the city of Bath completely made up for it. Starting off, Bath was a lot less cold, Secondly, I felt like I traveled back in time as soon as we pulled up in Bath. Bath was build when the Romans invaded Britain, so it has all original Roman architecture. It's beautiful, and the people there are so different than Londoners. On almost every corner there are street performers, musical performers of every age, or random magic acts just trying to make a few pounds. People are out and about in the city streets and there are many many cool shops. Plus, the Roman Baths (which I suggest you Wikipedia) are really interesting, even though the tour was crowded and kind of boring. When we got back, we kind of had a fail of a night, aimlessly piss walking around Piccadilly, but with a hot somosa waiting at home, a warm bed was all we needed to seal the long day. 


Sunday when we woke up it was, surprise, sunny? In London? what? So Yasin and I decided to take full advantage of the nice weather. I decided to exchange my pounds for Turkish Lira in preparation for my trip (this was a stupid move on my part. In our meeting for the Istanbul trip they said don't wait until the last minute to get your Lira because they might not have it at the exchange place. Well, I didn't leave myself that many pounds for the rest of the week so after spending 20 pounds on a blazer marked down from 80 at Urban outfitters for my internship, I was left with about 13 pounds for the rest of my 4 days in London. Stupid). Anyway, we decided to walk around Camden market, where Yasin and I somehow convinced one of the guys on the street to give me a dress for 5 pounds. After walking around all day, Jomar ended up at our house and honestly, he hasn't changed one bit either. 


Last night Christina and I made our way out to Brick Lane to try and catch some hiphop/dubstep for our ethnographic project for our music class. On Vibe Bar's website it read that they were having a hip hop/dubstep/rap night so we walked through what seemed to be the Indian Mile where people were trying to hustle us for Indian food. Like, of all things. We finally get to the Vibe and we walk inside, it reeks of weed, and it was apparently free acoustic Monday. We show the bartender the ad on the website and he shakes his head and just says 'nope'. The singer then announces that he's from New York so Christina and I cheer, the whole bar just stares at us, and we decide that its our cue to leave. We walk back feeling really defeated, but then we find a guy with a BBQ outside cooking corn on the cob. I decide to  splurge with what little pounds I have left for the week and get corn. We also stop in an Indian dessert store and get little Indian desserts which were like doused in what tasted like maple syrup...but it was so delicious. 


The rest of the week besides last nights fail has just been work work work. I had my Islam midterm today which was very long and Hameed changed the questions he had given us originally. I still have so much work left to do, but as Yasin said: who does homework abroad? Kelly comes to London next weekend! And we planned Spring Break last night...just wait until I post those epic plans. Just. You. WAIT.