eM in England (part two)

I've realised the key to all new places is figuring what they call the shop where they get their booze from. I've done thekhas and wine shops and now off-licences, and I am fully confident that once you figure out what people call their liquor store, you're in, baby. Seriously. (Out of curiousity, if any of you are from a part of the world where they call liquor stores something else, do add a comment, it'll be fun to see what the "key" to other places is.)

Anyway, I haven't just been sitting around and twiddling my thumbs since the last time we spoke. I have actually been quite a busy camper and if you don't believe me, here is a list of things that have happened to me in this cold (but still so pretty!) country:

1) I have taken FULL advantage of a very, very rapid internet connection and got a lot of Grey's Anatomy/How I Met Your Mother watching done.

2) I have been ID'd (!) at a bar, proving conclusively to myself that I do indeed look under 18 years old. (This is getting slightly ridiculous. It was cute once, but how long will I bear the burden of looking 12?)

3) I have been sooooo very drunk. Margaritas and tequila and vodka and English boys who drink more in one sesh than I could in an entire year at Zenzi makes for a very hungover person the next morning. Which leads me to point number four.

4) JC has shared with me his Ultimate Hangover Cure, Mexican food, which was so so good that even now typing 'Mexican food' is making my mouth fill up with drool. Also, I haven't eaten anything. This is because while I have become awesome around the kitchen with the making myself coffee etc, JC is my number one provider, as in, he can cook and I.. well, I can not. And so all my mealtimes consist of a dialogue before where I go: "I'm hungry" JC: *Sexual innuendo* Me: "No, I'm serious, I'm actually hungry for food." JC: *little bit more with the innuendo-ing* and back and forth we go. He'll finally tell me to make it myself, I will tell him for the, oh, FIVE TRILLIONTH time that I can't cook, he'll do some more this-and-that-ing and then maybe forty minutes later, I will get some food.

5) Sights have been seen, people have been visited. The British Museum, the Tate Gallery of Modern Art, walking on the riverbank, looking at Sherlock Holmes's statue, bumming around Covent Garden and watching the street performers, and later this week MAYBE Bath, if we can get it together and Hampton Court Palace. Sadly, I leave on Saturday and I'm SO not looking forward to it. Primarily because I'm returning on my own and it's going to be a long distance relationship again for us for at least another month and this makes me sad. But also, I feel very Ruth Pravar Jhabwala and I'm going, "The heat, the dust!" Just spray paint me white and call me a memsahib, I guess. Where's my sola topee? Ram Laul, chai lana! (Heh. Only joking. After watching Slumdog in irony of ironies, a little theatre in the heart of British suburbia, I feel very Mumbai meri jaan also. I really liked the movie, by the way, despite the fact that it seems to be fashionable to hate it.)

Well, work to do, boyfriends to nag, columns to write. Away I go. See you all back in Bombay next week!