Adventures in London: Issue 99

This week I went to go see SATC 2. I know what yo are thinking, "I thought Tini just saw SATC 2 and was not a fan." The answer is yes, but I saw it with my NYC gals. So, when it came time to watch it with my London gals I was not going to pass up the opportunity. As a bonus, the pre-show dinner was going to be at the newly opened CHIPOTLE!! Yes believe it or not, but Chipotle has made its way across the pond to London. What next? Best Buy! Oh wait we have that too. Now what?! Taco Bell? Yup getting that too. They are giving it another shot and opening locations here in England! Getting back to SATC 2. Watching it in London did not make the film any better, but the time zone did ensure that I stayed awake to watch an horrific movie depicting Americans in the worst light. I have my opinions on SATC 2, but I won't get into them here. In case one of you is a fan of the second movie then I will not rain on your parade.

AT Boston University there was the GSU. As I was a SMGer, I spent most of my day time either in the student lounge, Starbucks and later the BU Pub. I did however, occasionally go to the GSU for lunch or school events. What I am trying to say is that whilst in uni, I did not hang-out much at the student union. Now that I am 8 years out of uni, I found myself hanging out at the LSE (London School of Economics) student union. On Friday, after having a quick drink at the Mindshare bar, a bunch of us decided to migrate to the "student union". Thinking this was a clever name for the bar, it in fact turned out to be the student union. It was not bad actually; we all grabbed some drinks (£1.5o pints) and hung out outside until grandma (me) got hungry and required some food.

Saturday was the day of sports. The afternoon kicked off with the Korea Republic vs Greece match at noon followed shortly by the live online streaming of the New York Mini 10K in Central Park. I was rather gutted that I was going to miss the Mini 10K. The Mini 10K is truly one of the best women only races hosted by NYRR. I have ran the race a couple of times and the last time I ran it was truly memorable for a number of nerdy running reasons. Not only would this race see the finest women racing it, but Kara Goucher and Paula Radcliffe (both 6 month pregnant) would be running it as well. Granted an easy run for them is running a 10K in 42 minutes, which is still far from my reach, but it was truly remarkable to see the two of them out there. I was pleased that NYRR streamed the race so I could be apart of the fun and cheer on the runners even if I was 3000 miles away. But to see that race in person...that would be have been bliss.

The 2010 FIFA World Cup has officially started. Yesterday was the official kick-off of the 1 month battle to the finals. 4 years ago I was introduced to the World Cup (and Magners with ice) while living in NYC. It was an absolute blast watching and cheering on the teams. As you can guess the World Cup is not the biggest sporting rage in the States. Living in London now, I can say the sentiment is completely opposite. World Cup fever is on and hotter than ever. On the second day of the World Cup, the long awaited question came to reality - which team would I support? Have no idea what I am talking about? Well on Saturday, was the first match of group C - seeing USA play against England. Get the dilemma now?

The big debate now was where were we going to watch the match. Should be congregate in someone's flat? Or should we be brave and find a pub. Thankfully LL came across an event for all of us. The University of Texas London alumni chapter - aka the UK TexasExes has been known for their American parties. We all decided to join them for the USA vs England match. It's been a while since I have watched a live sporting game in a pub. We've gathered to watch the superbowl and the American football game in London, etc, but its has always been at someone's flat. It truly brought me back to weekend in the Wharf watching tennis, baseball, college basketball, American football with Molly and Jen. How I miss those days. Suppose if I want to have some reminisce of that here, I need to start following rugby or football or dare I say cricket. Will need to rally the others too, cause watching solo is just NO FUN!

Dressed in my Red Sox jersey (as I have had to finally admit that my JFK USA shirt is a bit too small), my UT cap, my I heart NY socks and my pac-man belt I was geared and pumped to cheers on team USA. It was a bit unnerving when England scored not even 4 minutes into the match. England was off to a good start, but the early goal only ignited team USA. 34 minutes later (and thanks to butter fingers Green), USA scored to even things up. From there it was just a series of almost goals, yellow cards and some amasing defense from the USA goalie. After missing that first goal from Gerrard, nothing got passed him. If only our offense showed up, maybe we could have won the match. Drawing against England though was not too bad - at least we all could show up to the office on Monday ;-)

Hope you all are enjoying the world cup fever!

xoxo

T