First Week of January!
We’re back! After a little hiatus for the holidays, we are finally back into a good routine of school and social events. Zoe came back from Spain the same day Catja, her mom, and Mikka came back from Paris, and we had a lovely little reunion. January was off to a slow start with getting back in the swing of things, but we quickly found our feet and got as busy as ever!
Read this recap of our adventures up north to the Peak District, birthday celebrations galore, our induction into Six Nations fandom, trying haggis and whisky on Burns Night, finding a farm in central London, and running to Dunkin Donuts for a taste of home.
Weekend of Jan. 12-14
Friday marked the end of the first week of term 2 classes for Zoe. This term, Zoe is in only one class on literacy interventions, which means that she has far too much time to sit at home and take weekend trips for big birthday bashes. On that note, on Friday morning, Zoe, Catja, Hebe, Luke, and Ethan boarded a train up north to stay with Luke’s family for the weekend in Stockport (a town near Manchester). Upon arriving in Stockport, we headed to Luke’s house and enjoyed a nice cup of tea and a chat with Luke’s mom. We then headed out on a walk with Obie, Ethan’s dog who was also celebrating his birthday. We wandered through some horse pastures, saw the iconic Stockport Pear on Pear Mill, stopped to watch the water turbine on the River Goyt, and walked around an old church before ending our walk at a pub.
As the sun set and it started to get a bit cold, we headed back for dinner. We enjoyed some fish and chips from a local favorite shop and ended the evening with many rounds of Stop the Bus (a game we have now all agreed we played far too much of).
We rolled out the next morning at 7 am to make our way to the Peak District for a nice day of hiking. Zoe and the crew were experienced hikers, so Catja was feeling excited but a bit nervous to keep up. Luckily, the weather cleared, and the views from the peaks were the best incentive to keep going. After a few asthma attacks and many sheep pictures, we finally made it to the peaks of Mam Tor and Lose Hill. The crew surprised Luke and Catja with a lunchtime birthday celebration, with lots of ginger cake and prosecco and matching birthday badges.
We began our descent back into Castleton. We witnessed a proposal at the edge of Lose Hill which was very heartwarming. Then Catja kept slipping and sliding down the mud, which was less heartwarming. We finally made it down to the Cheshire Cheese Inn for a few pints and much needed rest. We drove back to the McClures’ home, showered and changed, then lounged until dinner: a home-cooked delicious curry. Later, we swapped stories by the fire and warmed up with hot chocolate. We ended the night with a final heated battle of Stop the Bus.
We ended our weekend in the North with a lie-in and a lovely breakfast, featuring American-style pancakes, prepared by the McClures. We even tried our very first Colin the Caterpillar cake in honor of Luke and Catja’s birthdays. We spent the rest of the day in the living room chatting and watching Planet Earth, before boarding our train back home to London.
Weekend of Jan. 19-21
Catja was exhausted after a long week of rehearsals for Peter Darrell’s Economy in Straitjackets, Room for Movement, a contemporary ballet from the 70s originally choreographed for Scottish Ballet. So to put a cap on birthday/rehearsal week, we organized a group Mean Girls movie night at a local cinema. We took the Tube to Finchley Road and laughed along to the remake of the iconic film, with snacks from Sainsbury’s smuggled in our jackets. We had mixed feelings about the movie: we had a great time reliving our favorite scenes and laughing at new jokes, but we didn’t love the music mixing - it felt disjointed from the story.
After, we lounged in our flat and ditched our plans to go to a pub because the week had drained us all. Instead, Luke brought over some sticky toffee pudding and custard, and we played Mario Kart into the night.
Weekend of Jan. 26-28
Saturday started bright and early for Zoe, who had eight hours of class ahead of her. The day was filled with guest lectures, trying out new intervention games and strategies, and one really awful presentation. Zoe quickly made her way home to prepare for Burns Night, a Scottish holiday in honor of the famous poet, Robert Burns. Catja, Zoe, and Hebe, all made their best attempts at Scottish attire (aka Zoe and Hebe wore plaid and Catja unsuccessfully tried to dress like a Highland Cow) and walked over to Ethan and Luke’s place for an evening of Scottish festivities.
We got to try haggis, neeps, and tatties. We will spare you a description of haggis, but neeps is swede (rutabaga for the Americans) and tatties are mashed potatoes. Before the meal, we all recited one line of a Burns poem (some of us had better Scottish accents than others). Catja and Zoe were slightly wary, but we thoroughly enjoyed the taster of the traditional Scottish food. While we waited for our main meal (Domino’s pizza), we tried some Scottish whisky, which Catja accurately described as tasting like the smell of big jugs of craft paint. Zoe, having never had straight liquor before, was only minorly dying :). After enjoying some pizza, we decided the best way to honor Robert Burns was to watch the Disney classic, Brave.
Weekend of Feb. 2-4
It was finally time for the long-awaited Six Nations rugby championship to begin. Ever since Luke, Ethan, and Callum convinced us to watch rugby for the first time during the World Cup, they have been preparing us for the great European battle. Zoe and Catja prepped by watching the Netflix docuseries “Six Nations: Full Contact.” It was helpful to learn about all the players, but the editing wasn’t the best in terms of the greater competition narrative. Zoe decided to support Wales as she always does in major international competitions, and Catja switched from Italy to England after learning that Marcus Smith was a fellow Filipino (even though he’s currently injured and not playing).
Friday night came, and only Ethan, Zoe, and Catja were available to watch the opening game: Ireland v. France. Catja and Zoe were supporting Ireland under Zoe’s principle of “never support France,” which turned out to be an excellent choice. During half-time, we somehow started debating medical ethics. We took a brief pause to watch the second half, but then the debate got intensely philosophical and hypothetical. We ended up talking about the nuances of ethics, medical malpractice, and how to define harm for THREE HOURS. Catja’s brain was melting after thinking so hard, and Zoe was entertained watching Catja attempt to logically explain the concept of harm. But eventually, we ended the debate when we realized it was already past 2 am.
Saturday was another big day. Ethan, Luke, Hebe, Catja, and Zoe gathered again for the Scotland v. Wales game, with Ethan avidly supporting Scotland and Zoe cheering for her beloved Wales. Scotland absolutely dominated in the first half, with Wales not scoring a single try. The second half featured a shocking comeback from the small country, ending the game with a nail-biting 26-27 Scottish victory. Afterward, we made pizza with Zoe’s best batch of homemade pizza dough yet. It was rising faster and growing bigger than ever before! Catja realized they forgot the chorizo they bought earlier in the week and was close to tears because she legitimately looked forward to chorizo pizza every day that week. Luckily, our flat is only a 15 minute walk away, so she played her high-energy gym playlist and sped-walked to our fridge and back.
Ethan had to go study for a big exam, so Hebe, Catja, Zoe, and Lucy (who joined straight after placement) all hung out and had a chill girls’ night in the boys’ living room. It was a bit odd just hanging out in their flat without them in the room (Luke had to run off to a night shift), but their living room is bigger and cozier than ours, so we made the most of it!
On Sunday, we reunited with Anna and Jake to check out Vauxhall City Farm, a small farm tucked away between MI6 headquarters and huge residential and commercial buildings. Catja found out about the farm from her Performance of Heritage class resource list, and we were all intrigued to see what a city farm looked like.
It exceeded our expectations to say the very least. We saw alpacas, a goat in a kilt, many goats without kilts that we fed grass pellets, horses, the roundest pigs we’ve ever seen, ducks, chickens with wild hairstyles, rabbits, adorable guinea pigs, a glimpse of a chinchilla, and sheep. I think our favorites were the goats since they were so friendly. We sat in the cafe for a while after, weighing the pros and cons of adopting guinea pigs even though our flat isn’t pet-friendly (landlord, if you’re reading this, we decided against it… but we were very tempted).
We meal-prepped for the week when we got back home, then Lucy surprised us by cooking a spectacular roast dinner. Zoe and I hadn’t had a proper Sunday roast yet, and we were so spoiled by all the yummy food. Luke came over for a quick bite before another night shift, and we had a lovely evening chat to round out a busy weekend. Finally, since Catja had never seen Footloose, we watched the 2011 version, mostly because Hebe said she wanted to learn the “Fake ID” line dance and Catja said she’d learn it and teach it to everyone.
Bonus Weekday Fun, Feb. 6:
On Monday evening, as we sat in the living room eating dinner, Catja mentioned her longing for a Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee, to which Zoe pitched a little Tuesday morning adventure. Having tried and failed many times to get Catja out on a run with her, Zoe floated the idea of running to the Dunkin’ in Wembley, a nice three-mile jaunt from our house. Somehow, that was enough to get Catja to agree. (Catja would like to add that the last time she ever ran was a 5k at age 15 in P.E. class and running is scary with asthma and bad joints and any other excuses she can find. But she is highly motivated by food, angry Spotify bangers, and Zoe’s coaching).
So, this morning, we left the house at 9:30 and ran the three miles to Dunkin’ Donuts. Catja got her long-awaited iced caramel latte and Zoe opted for a classic hot latte. We were so impressed by British Dunkin’ because the donuts were so much fancier than in the US. We sipped and walked to Bread Ahead, one of our favorite bakeries in London, to try their new donut flavor, Crème Brûlée. It was absolutely delicious! We sat and chatted for a little while before heading back home. Zoe again somehow convinced Catja to run back home, making our total run and walk distance for the morning eight miles.
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