adventures with aamna

Not too many people are lucky enough to meet someone they immediately click with, which is why it is simply too unbelievably awesome that I have an Aamna. First off, we are practically each other. We wonder how we can still be friends because people who are this similar simply do not get along this well. 

We met because we live on the same floor and were hanging out in the kitchen with several other people around 1am, talking about Communism, as you do. But after that, neither of us can really pinpoint why we became such good friends -- we pretty much live together now. It might have been that she'd just come home from a 5-week vacation in the States and hanging out with her American cousins. She, therefore, kept getting all my jokes and understood all the weird American terms I was using. Maybe we bonded over our shared adoration of "The Office" and all things Dwight Schrute. Whatever it was, it stuck. 

And within days of meeting me, she experienced me entirely on crack. (By 'on crack,' I mean unimaginably hyper. Not on drugs. Drugs are bad.)  See, I'd planned on keeping the weirdo in me locked away until I felt comfortable enough to be that weirdo that is the essence of me (aka until I figured my friends liked me enough that they wouldn't just ditch me when they figured out what they were really dealing with). But I couldn't help it. I was fasting that day and then there was the sudden on rush of sugar and food and energy bubbling up inside. Aamna just happened to be there to witness this. And it during the first of many Fire Safety talks. We laughed throughout the ENTIRE talk. For goodness sake, there were FLAMING SHEEP ON SCREEN, okay?! It was NOT OUR FAULT. We were hyper and giggly and really, this talk just spurred it on. How, you might ask, could a fire safety talk possibly spur on hysterical fits of laughter? We have no idea. It just did. And then we were friends.

That night, there was some sort of pub crawl going on and some of my friends were going and I figured it might be fun to go along and watch the drunk people and since I didn't want to be sober all on my lonesome, I convinced Aamna to come along. This is a recurring theme in our relationship, how easily persuaded Aamna is. It's very convenient. For me. Because this quality of hers is how I get her to go anywhere with me, anytime, like to Oxford or Action Palestine meetings or 3 hour long ticket lin-- queues.

Off we go, sober party buddies. We get to the first pub which almost in town. First of all, there's no one in there because it's early. Me and Aamna just stood around there kind of awkwardly, looking around. And then we asked each other what the heck we were doing there. So we started talking about who knows what and I mentioned that the Flobots were performing at the local gig show place. Aamna didn't really know who they were but she said she'd be my concert-goer buddy and I got all excited because the show had only just started and if we left fast enough we might be able to catch a good bit of it.

We decided to walk all the way back, which is about a 20-30 minute walk, just us two, nearing 11pm. We didn't stop talking for one second all the way to the Student Union. When we got there though, the show had just ended and so we left a little dejected, picking up a concert calendar to make sure we could plan ahead next time. 

We had nothing better to do so we started walking back to Gabs when Aamna got a sudden craving for Mickey D's. On the way, we were welcomed by the deceiving bright lights of McDonald's golden arches, much to Aamna's delight. Turns out it was closed and the lights were on because an employee was mopping up. Third disappointment of the evening. 

We were about to turn the corner to our street when some guy walked by eating a giant cone of ice cream. Aamna and I watched him and his delicious ice cream pass on by until we turned to look at each other. She asked if I was craving ice cream. I was. 

Our Hall is on the edge of what is called the Curry Mile, a long road of Indian, Pakistani, Middle Eastern, etc etc restaurants, groceries, and shops. Which, of course, means that we are privy to the delights of really good mostly cheap food whenever we feel like it. Aamna knew of a place called Moonlight that had all sorts of desserts a couple blocks down. It was packed so we had to wait out in the cold for a bit but the thick banana milkshake I got was so worth it. Really, it was quite delightful. 

Then, on the way back again, we passed an Indian takeout restaurant which smelled amazing. It always does. Every morning walking to lectures, I hate/love walking down my street because it smells delicious and I can't stop and get something to eat but oh it smells so good. Anyways. We went in, got ourselves a small pizza -- WITH PEPPERONI!! Yes, I am that excited. You don't know what it's like not to have pepperoni for so longggggg. So I enjoyed it immensely. We ate, just us two, in the basement kitchen, talking about nothing and everything and simply having a lovely time.

That was our first adventure. 

Aamna and her broken umbrella numero uno.

There have been several afterwards, each including us attracting weirdos, getting lost because we had no idea where we were going, taking "shortcuts" and getting lost because we THOUGHT we knew where we were going, going places on a whim, ruining umbrellas, getting lost IN A MALL after we'd READ THE MAP that told us EXACTLY WHERE TO GO, getting fat off kilos worth of sweets at the cinema, getting soaked, waiting for buses in the rain for an hour and getting soaked, seeing chavs beat their dogs on buses, fearing for our lives, getting charged on the free bus, and other such epic experiences.

The usual weather for all our escapades.