Wednesday Feb. 7
Catja went on a field trip with her Performance of Heritage class to Tate Modern in the morning! They are studying dance in museums, so they looked at different exhibitions and locations themed around performance. Then, they brainstormed in small groups what kind of performance installation they would want, where in the museum they would exhibit it, and what the logistics of actually realizing their projects would be.
Zoe spent the morning doing some errands close to home and decided to go on a short run around the park. In the afternoon she finished her homework for class that evening, before logging on to the seminar about spelling interventions.
Catja returned home in the afternoon for a doctor’s appointment to diagnose a painful knee injury that’s been bothering her for months. It was the funniest, strangest appointment she’s ever had. The doctor asked the basic questions about vitals: Do you smoke? Do you drink? Are you married? When she replied, “No,” to the last question, he started saying something then abruptly stopped. She asked what he was saying, and he said, “I was going to ask why you weren’t married, then I saw your age.”
When he asked what kind of exercise she does, she explained that she was a dancer and did a lot of modern, contemporary, and West African dance. He swiveled in his chair to face her and said, “Wait wait wait, now you’re speaking my language!” Turns out, he’s Nigerian, and he was very disappointed when she said she went to Ghana and learned Ghanaian dances. “You must learn Nigerian dances, forget Ghana now, Nigerian dances are the best!” he said! He then proceeded to google Nigerian dancers and show me the best.
Finally, he returned to her knee. She got up onto the exam table, and he palpated her knee for a bit. After having her do some squats (which hurt like h*** after running for the first time in many years the day before), he said, “Very good knees. Great knees. Fabulosa knees,” and Catja said, “Thank you?” After all that, she was diagnosed with patellar tendonitis along with her still injured ankle (she tripped in a hole in January, sprained it badly, then walked many miles around Paris and London the week after… not great for recovery).
At night, Catja got dressed up to review Empower in Motion for thINKingDANCE at Sadler’s Wells. It was her biggest dance review yet, and she realized that taking notes on a pad of sticky notes in a dark theater is really hard! But it was an amazing show to support Children Today charity. She fangirled over Stopgap Dance Company, Daniil Simkin, and Maria Kotchetkova.
Thursday Feb. 8
Catja spent the day writing her dance review and doing some homework in her room. She also had a Zoom call with a writer for OOF Magazine, a small art and football (soccer) publication based in Tottenham Stadium that she wants to write for one day. Zoe has absolutely no memory of Thursday, which means that she probably just cleaned her room, watched TV, and maybe read some of her book (probably very little of the last one). Zoe just remembered that on Thursday morning, she looked at jobs and tried to network, which was very sad and unsuccessful, so clearly that’s why it has been blocked out.
It was a very chill work-from-home Thursday, at least until we realized we had the flat to ourselves at night. Hebe asked Catja if she could learn the line dance from Footloose (2011) a few days earlier, and Catja half jokingly asked Zoe if she wanted to dance the night away. Luckily, Zoe said yes!
We cleared out our living room, put a tutorial on the TV, and spent the next several hours learning the choreography, practicing, adding our own flare, ogling over Julianne Hough and Kenny Wormald, and filming our attempts to send to our friends. Zoe said that her heart rate was higher dancing than when we went on our run on Tuesday. Catja was in her element and felt more assured than ever that dancing was much more fun cardio than running, even if you’re running to Dunkin.
After many hours of dancing and shuffling, we finally headed to bed. Around midnight, Catja opened Spotify to queue up some music to fall asleep. To her surprise, she saw a notification that the one and only Marcus Man, who has been unusually off the grid since October, RELEASED A NEW SONG. Catja immediately texted Zoe and checked @marcusmanmusic on Instagram, but he was still inactive. Confused, she played the song, and it was a completely different vibe from his typical discography. She felt like she was hallucinating, so she went to bed.
Friday Feb. 9
Catja had a full day of classes at Roehampton. She started her day with her favorite technique class: she did the twerk-out warm up, a crazy cardio strength twisty floor exercise, some wacky improv, a contemporary phrase that involved much rolling and folding on the floor, inversions and turns, and a jumping cardio cool down. Her quads were still in so much pain from running on Tuesday, so that was fun. She ended her day with some lectures about the use of AI in technology, and she used ChatGPT for the first time to try to choreograph a dance with AI. It weirded her out, but she learned that Wayne McGregor incorporates AI in less freaky ways.
Having written on our communal flat week-at-a-glance board that she would leave the house, Zoe set off Friday morning to run to Buckingham Palace. It was a lovely day in the mid 50s, and patches of sun peeked through the clouds as she ran through Hyde Park. She arrived at the Palace just in time for the changing of the guard, which she had yet to see since we moved. As the rain clouds started to descend, Zoe made her way to the tube station and rode home. Overall a pretty good running route, with her only complaint being that there are simply too many birds in Hyde Park.
Saturday Feb. 10
Saturday started with a nice, slow morning before heading over to Luke and Ethan’s for an afternoon of rugby. Scotland and France were on first and it ended up being a nailbiter of a game. In the last few seconds, Scotland attempted a game-winning try, which after much deliberation the referees determined would not count, losing them the game. Let’s just say there was quite a bit of yelling at the TV in frustration. As the Spurs game had started half way through the rugby match, we flipped channels and watched anxiously. The team was back in full force for the first time since that dreadful Chelsea game back in November, which was exciting and ended up being exactly what Spurs needed to win another game. Although much like the Scotland game, the Spurs only narrowly won, scoring in the last ten seconds of extra time.
We then headed back home to make some dinner and watch the England vs. Wales rugby match. We watched as we ate, Zoe feeling rather hopeful that Wales, who was winning at half time had a chance of finally winning, but that was soon interrupted by a scoring streak from England.
After watching far too many sports, we decided to prepare our food for the Superbowl party on Sunday, which included 7 Layer Dip and potato skins. Zoe was watching in disgust as Catja prepared all the layers, which was a bit annoying for Catja because she loves 7 layer dip. But our friendship is based on still loving each other even if we don’t understand each others’ loves. So Catja eats her weird food combos and Zoe gets to talk about politics and we balance each other out <3
We then got a fun surprise call from Zoe’s mom, who was sitting in a field of vines she had cut down (classic if you know Zoe’s mom). After a quick catch-up and showing off her scythe (see photo in album), she insisted we make a King Cake for Mardi Gras on Tuesday, which sent Catja down a spiral of looking at plastic baby Jesi (the plural of Jesus according to Zoe) on Amazon. Catja spent the rest of the evening laughing at these plastic babies before landing on two options: 30 white baby Jesi or 90 multiracial baby Jesi. Our group chat voted for the multiracial ones, which showed up on our doorstep the next day thanks to one-day shipping.
Sunday Feb. 11
We met up with Anna and Jake at Vauxhall City Farm again because we saw that the farm was hosting a Pancake Party week in honor of Pancake Day/Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras for us Americans. Naturally, we were very excited for pancakes, especially when we found out they were only £4 a plate! The farm cafe also has the least expensive mocha in London, which makes Catja very happy.
We quickly realized it was less of a party than we hoped for. The cafe was quiet on a Sunday morning, with only a sprinkling of young families and stray older people having a coffee in the sun. We waltzed in, four hungry and overly excited Americans, eager for freshly made pancakes and hot coffee. We lined up at the counter to order, and the young cashier seemed a bit confused and a little dejected when we said we were there for the pancake party. Apparently, party means something a little different that we thought.
We each ordered a plate, took some Instagram-worthy, symmetrical photos, then dug in. They were delicious. British pancakes are more like crepes in terms of texture and thickness, which left plenty of room for a second round. And with that price, we couldn’t resist! Anna led the way back to the counter. “They were delicious, I had to come back for another round,” she told the cashier. “They were that good?” he asked. “Oh yes,” Anna replied. “In fact,” she said turning to look at us walking up behind her, “I think we’re all getting more!”
“Bloody hell,” he said, eyes wide. He told the chef our orders, and she seemed less than pleased to make more pancakes. “They shouldn’t advertise a pancake party if they don’t want to make pancakes,” we all concurred. Catja said, “Honestly, if it’s a burden, I’ll just pay the money and go back and make them myself. It’s not that hard.” Luckily, the second round was just as delicious. We sheepishly made our exit, and the cashier was nowhere in sight, likely hiding in case we ordered more. We pet goats and sheep, said hi to the bunnies and chickens, oinked at the pigs, then went our separate ways.
Later, Zoe and Catja finished prepping Super Bowl food before we walked over to Luke and Ethan’s place for our viewing party. We chowed down on wings courtesy of Luke, baked mac n cheese and brownies courtesy of Zoe, and 7 layer dip and potato skins courtesy of Catja. It was all delicious, even though some people were afraid of the seven layer dip (but not afraid to hate on it).
Lucy and Hebe had to leave early to sleep for an early placement day on Monday. We had 2.5 hours to kill before kickoff at 11:30pm, so we watched “Remember the Titans” featuring Catja’s alma mater, George C. Marshall High School, in the final game versus T.C. Williams High School. We were critical of how southern the accents were because no one sounds like that in Northern Virginia.
Finally, it was game time. We forgot how long football games go on. Add the time difference on top, and we were in for a very late night. We hyped up the commercials to Luke and Ethan, but they were quite underwhelmed. They were overwhelmed by the number of celebrity cameos and sheer amount of capitalism injected into every second of the broadcast. Ethan listed the many things wrong with the US, including the fact that we have to do our own taxes (Catja didn’t know that other countries’ governments just take your taxes out for you and now she’s very upset). So, valid criticism.
We were pleasantly surprised by Usher’s halftime show, and the end of the game was a nailbiter. Luke was fighting back sleep (and failing) while Catja was fighting back sleep-deprived delusion (and failing) on the couch. When the game went into overtime, Luke was horizontal on the couch, and Catja had cocooned herself in a blanket and was perched on the arm of the couch. Zoe and Ethan were sitting upright and acted like normal human beings. Finally, the Chiefs made a big comeback and won the game. Side note:Fritz, we are very sorry for your loss and hope your grieving process is ok.
Ethan refused to let Catja and Zoe walk back home like we usually do and kindly ordered us an Uber. We finally made it back home at 4:30am. So. Sleepy.
Monday Feb. 12
Following our late evening the night before, Zoe woke up bright and early for absolutely no reason :(. After cleaning the kitchen and her room, before Catja emerged from her room, she headed off to Lidl to do the weekly shop. This week’s meal is pasta and meatballs! Zoe returned home and told Catja she was going on a run, but after Catja left, she had little desire to do that, so she started on the King Cake, which ended up being a good decision as it took six hours to make…(thank you to my mother for not telling me that part).
Catja had a slow start to the day luckily, but she finally got the energy to take the train 90 minutes to Richmond Park. Her brain was very low-functioning after such a late night, so she wandered around the park enjoying the warm, sunny weather. It was a gorgeous day! She sat on a bench and started reading Sharp, the book Zoe gave her. It’s all about feminism and girl boss writers, everything Catja aspires to be. She wandered over to Roehampton as the sun was setting. She sat in the library staring at her computer for three hours before walking to the studios to rehearse her straitjacket dance. She crashed into bed when she got home and slept like a rock.
Tuesday Feb. 13
Somehow Zoe has convinced Catja that Tuesday runs to Dunkin’ should be a weekly occurrence, so we woke up early and headed to the Dunkin’ on Baker Street. It was a lovely run minus the fact that it was raining the entire time, making our socks and shoes rather wet. We arrived at Dunkin’, ordered our coffee and donuts, and headed to the station to ride back home. After trying the donuts here, we have decided that Dunkin’ donuts are much better here than in the States due to the fun flavors and lower amounts of sugar.
Pretty much during the entire run and the rest of the day, we listened to “Texas Hold ‘Em,” Beyonce’s new country song, which is a bop and we highly recommend. We genuinely have been playing it on repeat for about 5 hours now. We ventured to the library to print our annual silly Valentine’s cards for our friends then returned to cozy up and blog.
As it is Fat Tuesday today, aka Pancake Day here in the UK, we will be enjoying some pancakes tonight alongside the King Cake. A little cultural fusion if you will.
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