unionjack.jpgI woke up on the earlier side of the morning, so I decided to make use of the breakfast and went down to the dining room to have myself a bowl of cornflakes. The morning’s lecture was on Commercial Mortgage Backed Securities, which was interesting because basically, the entire MBS field implies that wherever there is land, there is someone who will own it. Since mortgages are regarded by banks as assets since debt assures repayment (and interest), it is possible to take the mortgages, use them as collateral, and sell securities based off the asset.

We also discussed in brief our upcoming visitation to Morgan Stanley. And finally, Professor Flowers gave all of us the final, take-home (well, more like take-back-to-the-room) exam that’s to be due by 9am on Wednesday. With all that in mind, it was time to pick up something to eat and then head over to the Camera Cafe so I could get some web access, work on posting some web site entries, and then working on the final exam questions. Before that though, I stopped by All Star Lanes and made a reservation for the 9 of us for 9:20 in the evening.

After completing a sizeable chunk of the exam, I headed back to the hotel and hung out in the room and in the lounge before grabbing Charles and then heading out for some vegetarian Indian food with him, Amish, and Mahesh. The place we went to was on Marchmont Street, off Tavistock Place and I ordered some onion bhaji and saag aloo. Normally I’m partial to some chicken tikka masala (which is apparently available at London McDonalds), but I found the saag aloo extraordinarily filling. By around 9ish, we headed back to the hotel to see if there was anyone left to walk over to the lanes with.

Charles, Amish, and I got to the lanes, ordered some drinks, and waited to see whom else was going to show. Around 9:15, Tim and his girlfriend came, and then Seema and Marisa came and by then we were all bowling. A half hour later, it was like the rest of the crew magically showed up and for the first time, everyone in the seminar was out in the evening together. With drinks all around, it made for a great first half of the night, but after bowling a 57 and 110 (that was the liquor), I joined everybody else and headed to Night & Day for one last romp.

The long and short of Night & Day had us imbibing on quite a bit of alcohol, but really getting to bond as a group. It was a shame the nine of us hadn’t done anything like that earlier in the week, but was a great relaxing night nonetheless.