Wednesday 5 May 2010

London, Anatomy and the Best Mussels in the World

I had a big exciting week because mr came to visit and all the plans we had so carefully made fell into place beautifully. It was so nice to come home from work to find him there to greet me, but it’ll be a long time before it’s like that again. He came down Wednesday and we went out that night clutching an Orange Wednesdays voucher for 2-4-1 pizza at Pizza Express and cinema tickets to see Kickass. The film was really good - a little more violent that I was expecting, but awesome nonetheless, and I can now be mostly found singing under my breath ‘Don’t give a damn ‘bout my bad reputation, na na na na na na naaaa’.  Thursday saw rowing, with mr coxing (he’s an amazing cox :-D) and a lovely meal in On the Waterfront. Friday we went to a comedy night which wasn’t as good as Mitch Benn last time, but was still pretty funny and a good night out.

Saturday we were up super early (for beans, I don’t really like being up before about 8.30-9) to go to London! Being from a little city (city only by default because of the cathedral) London’s quite scary for me because it’s so big and busy. I get quite excited about going, and I’m always really proud of myself at being able to navigate the tube and not have anything stolen (I might have a slightly naive view of London!). I say always, it’s only the second time I’ve properly been to London, other than school trips to plays. The first time was when mr surprised me with a trip for New Years to watch the fireworks. This time he was surprising me with tickets to watch Avenue Q – I love musicals. This one was good, not my favourite - I feel a little bit wrong having watched puppets have sex, but it was very funny and cleverly done, with some amazing singers. We walked through Kensington Palace gardens, Hyde Park, stumbled across Harley Street, which was very exciting, (mr asked if I wanted to wander down and pick out my office :p) went to Camden Lock and went to the V and A but quickly left for the Natural History museum, science geeks that we are :) We had saved up our Tesco vouchers to have a meal in Loch Fyne where I had the nicest, most creamy, melt in the mouth, biggest pot of mussels in the world! The pot was as big as my head, I was in heaven getting very messy in the middle of the posh restaurant, can’t take me anywhere! :p I had started to eat them with a fork and spoon, but they put a finger bowl on the table so I tucked in :) Another thing about me – I love my shellfish (apart from oysters. I read a book where the murderer killed by hypnotising people to swallow their tongues like oysters, can’t have them now). Mr’s smoked roasted salmon was pretty awesome too. I think we’ll be going back there. There was much sleeping and more rowing on Monday, and in the evening mr kicked my ass at Mario Kart for Wii. I will beat him at something!!!!

Back to the medic-ing. I had the best time on the train journeys up and back :) We took the flash cards and blitzed bones of the body - front and back, parts of the ribs and most of the major arteries of the body. On the way up we were sat opposite a lady whose daughter’s a second year at UEA med school. She was telling me that only UEA and PMS do PBL (wrong? V v wrong…) and she was going up to drop off a fancy cardio stethoscope she had bought for her daughter because her daughter was too poor to buy one and had been borrowing one o_0. She did tell me of a web site to try and get some funding. I’ll check it out, but given her other medical knowledge, I don’t hold out much hope. It was fundfinder.org. On the way back, we were sat opposite a PMS third year who had been based at Exeter for his first two years who was really nice. Apparently, I’m a medic-related magnet (there was a microbiology Dr on the last train journey I took before this back from Derby). He was telling me all about the course and the PMS ethic that they don’t like revision or cramming, nothing in the first term counts at all and the pass mark for the first exam is 3%. He was really nice, and gave me his email in case I had any more questions. This encounter only made more excited to go - there is renewed bouncing. Also, when mr came he was bearing a present from his parents – Grey’s Anatomy for Students (spoilt bean again!) So I shall be genning up on some surface anatomy before I go I think - the third year said that would be useful, and trying not to forget the bones and vessels I learnt on the train :) I’ll bounce off now, have a great week, and good luck in your exams IB people!

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