A Royal Evening

This morning I got up to meet Emily, a Psychology student at Middlesex Uni to partake in one of her tests. Emily was measuring the response to pictures versus cartoons. Electro receptors were placed on my fingertips, wrists and ankles, much like Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. The computer screen would show an image and then I would press a key indicating if it was pleasant or unpleasant. The pictures and cartoons ranged from David Beckham to Hilary Clinton.

In the evening the international exchange and Erasmus exchange students all boarded coaches outside of our campus to take us to central London. Everyone was dressed up since we were going on a Thames River boat disco. The bus ride was quite long since the Tower Bridge was stuck open, and they could not figure out how too get it down, thus backing up traffic throughout town. When we finally arrived we pulled right up to the Tower of London, a medieval castle on the bank of the Thames and walked down to the dock to board our boat. It was really incredible to go under Tower Bridge at night, I had no idea how massive it was and we had a great view up top on the boat. The boat had three levels and on the first was a dance floor.

The most memorable moment during the dancing was when the dj began playing some Indian Pop music; as if in a musical, the dance floor cleared immediatly and all of the Indian students began dancing traditional Indian dances. The men would lock their feet and spin around balancing on one foot, the girls moved their arms about in a flowing motion and spun around rapidly - it was quite a sight, and everyone cheered them on.

After the dancing, I sat with three Greeks; Despina, Teripsy and Joanna – I have code named them the “Greek Club.” They are a funny group of girls that have actually extended membership to myself, but I am a little lost when they began talking Greek – and that is where I have to draw the line because I don’t know if they are talking about me; but they never would do such a thing.

The boat travelled all the way down to the Thames River barrier, and turned around near the Millennium Dome – a giant domed structure that was built to commemorate the Millennium and featured in the James Bond movie “Die Another Day.” The structure has been thought of as a major waste of money and a failure, but it will be able to prove its worth when London hosts the Olympics in 2012 as a sporting venue. It was a Royal night, with many great memories.