Every time I go to the UK there is a heat wave. The problem with this is of course the lack of air conditioning. We are all broiling in our rooms. We can’t even open our windows very much because the pigeons desperately want to come into our rooms to roost. One girl has had three separate incidences where pigeons got in her room. She said she could hear them breathing or something and she thought there was someone in her room. I have been on a hunt for a fan for the past two weeks but the hunt became far more serious now. I wandered all over the mall to no avail. Then I thought to check the boots. I’ve totally seen fans for sale at CVS so I figured it would be the same deal here. Well, what did I find there? I found a three pronged charger that I searched high and low for before and ended up having mom ship to me. I also found a whole Doctor Who section. I bought TARDIS soap (which actually smells pretty good if a bit floral) and one of those mini-figurine things where you get a random character. I was very happy because I got David Tenant J But what I did not find was any sign of a fan. I next tried the super drug, figuring the same theory applied to a different pharmacy, but that was a no go as well. At this point it looked like rain so I almost went back to the apartment, but I decided to try one more store though it was a long shot. I walked into Rymans, which is a stationary store and voila! Right inside the door there was a pile of fans! I was so happy I gladly paid the £15-16. I got it home and it turned out to be super hard to assemble and came with the world’s tiniest screw and nut. Of course as soon as you figured out the trick it wasn’t that bad but it was very difficult to figure out the trick! My original plan was to have the fan I’m borrowing from the program in one room and the new fan in the other room, but it’s so ridiculously hot I have both in one room at a time. It’s so glorious – last night was the first time I didn’t wake up drenched in sweat since I got here. The heat is oppressive right outside the range of the fans, though. Basically you have to sit still with both fans pointed at you.
My friend Emily looked at the weather report and it is supposed to be hot all week, so she asked me where I got my fan. She went to Rymans and they were completely sold out! So we found out where a department store was (apparently it was in the mall but since the makeup department is all you see through the door and it is a department store we don’t have in America I never tried that store) so we headed out in search of a fan. There was like a rush on the fans right when we got there – everyone was buying fans. We got back and I helped her assemble it, and the stupid thing was broken. The head wobbled the crazy, but more importantly, it wouldn’t turn on. So she had to go back out and exchange the fan. Well, it would seem that the city of Cambridge is simply completely out of fans. She managed to talk them into giving her a floor model of a different (and actually nicer model) fan than she had as an exchange for her broken fan. Of course, this is a fancy dan fan with tons of buttons but she didn’t get instructions with the floor model. So she went to look up what the buttons are but of course our internet is down. We have been having increasing issues with internet connectivity. It’s seriously obnoxious.
A group of us went to Byron’s proper burgers for dinner tonight and it was glorious. It was air conditioned, though it could have been more so. But the food was amazing and our server was really nice. We will definitely be going back. Last night we had tried to go to the Eagle for dinner, but they don’t have any air conditioning. We still want to go though, because the Eagle has lots of history. It is where Watson and Crick would go to discuss DNA and there is a room where RAF men would use their lighters to burn their names and squadron info and such into the ceiling that is super cool and unique. But it was too ridiculously hot yesterday so we went to Zizzi’s instead because they have air conditioning and it was fabulous. For lunch today I went to Nanna Mexico, home of the “big-ass burrito”. It was ok, not my favorite, decent but a tad expensive at £7.25 for a big ass steak burrito with sour cream. But it was the funniest thing. It would seem that the British don’t know what burritos are. Person after person ahead of me in line was so confused. Almost all of them had no idea what black or pinto beans were, let alone which one they wanted. Many ended up getting one half with black and one half with pinto so they could experiment and find out which they liked. One woman didn’t even know the difference between tacos and burritos! She ordered tacos and then got confused when asked what she wanted in it. She then said she wanted what everyone ahead of her had gotten, which was a burrito. It was the weirdest thing. I asked the guy (who I think was the owner of the restaurant) if it was common for people to have no idea what a burrito was and stuff, and he said it is very common, but they were worse when he came to town 10 years ago. He had a food truck back then and people did not know about soft tacos – they kept thinking tacos had to be crispy. Last night all the girls went to the bar/ nightclub thing that is directly below our apartment, La Raza to celebrate the birthday of one of the girls in our program. I got an orange Fanta because it looks like a fun drink with the theory that it is non-caffeinated, tasty, and would make people more comfortable than if I had just ordered water. I like my orange Fanta, but paying £2.50 for a can that is only worth £.90 is ridiculous.
I have been spending time at the public library in the mall because it is air conditioned, relatively comfy, and I can get work done there. Some of the girls like to meet at Pret but I prefer the library, personally. They even have a reasonably priced café at the library, though I haven’t tried it yet. Anyways, we are having a movie night tonight so I need to do a bit more reading before I go.