The weekend

I got my hair cut by a very friendly Japanese lady on Thursday, which was great because my hair was feeling so heavy and gross.  The best part was when she tried to get all the knots out of my hair for about five minutes.  I don't even know how those got there.  Regardless, thank you to the Danny Oh salon for such a great haircut and head massage. 

Friday, I took a brisk walk to Chancery Lane and met my friend for Korean food!  I hadn't eaten out all week, so I was super excited to try out Tohbang.  All the reviews were spot on; this place is extremely delicious.  I literally could not even talk to my friend in front of me because I was too enamored by the food.  We commenced conversation like twenty minutes later.  After lunch, we stopped over at Bubbleology, a bubble tea shop with a very scientific feel to it.  I think it was my first time going to a bubble tea place that didn't look/feel super Asian.  Everyone was wearing lab coats inside!  I want to go again.  Our bubble tea stop was followed by a trip to Portobello Market.  It has all your typical market things like clothes and cheap produce, but my favorite part was looking at all the antiques and vintage items.  The further you went down Portobello road, the more genuine it felt.  

Later that night, I ate at Franco Manca with some friends and was able to taste some very savory and fresh pizza made on sourdough bread.  The pizzas are very reasonably priced, especially for how good they taste.  We snagged some bags of popcorn and headed back to the tube stop to head over to the London Eye.  After going through the 4D London Eye experience (which was just bizarre), we hopped on board the London Eye!  It was exciting, but it was also not as dark outside as I would have liked.  It also started raining, so that didn't help anything (rain is pretty unhelpful at times).  After our thirty-minute go around the wheel, we walked over to London Bridge to see the Olympic rings.  It was quite a long and rainy walk, but seeing London lit up at night was worth it.  

Saturday was spent finishing my research paper.  It was painful.

And as of today, so far I have gone to church, eaten some sushi, and taken a trip to Hampstead Heath.  Also, it has yet to rain today!!  Yaaaay!

Ping pong

Got a ping pong ball kicked into my face today during work (followed by much laughter and apologies), ate a huge thing of falafel from Pilpel for only four pounds (so like $6), ate a twizzle (marshmallows hand-dipped in white chocolate and rolled in deliciously crunchy sprinkles)from Starbucks, which looks like:

And ended the day by running through sporadic showers of rain in order to buy some fresh apples.  

Good day!

I'm actually on an eat abroad trip

Yesterday:

• There was a lot of rain, but I walked to church anyway.  The tube just seems so stuffy and smelly to me now...
• No shoes are waterproof in London.  NO SHOES.  
• 11:00AM service 
• Singleness is a gift
• Lunch at Wasabi
• A woman from the church I go to overhead the conversation I was having with my friend and joined us.  ChristChurch go-ers are so friendly!
• Dinner at The Breakfast Club (but by dinner, I mean I had an English breakfast)

I think when people ask me what I did this summer, I'm just going to say I went on an "eat abroad" trip.  I spend more time eating and thinking about eating than I do studying . . . let's be honest.  

Haha studying.

July 4th

July 4^th is not a big deal here in London which I’m sure no one finds particularly shocking.  I saw one girl with the American flag peaking out of her backpack while I was walking to work, but its nonchalant waving in the wind made it seem more like a style choice as opposed to an act of American pride.    

A fellow intern and I were sent on a small excursion during work yesterday (I wrote this on the 5th, so on July 4th).  I can’t give away much detail, but basically we had to go find a nice, white, jewelry/fountain pen box for free.  Though we were both unsure of this task at first, it was exciting to leave the office for a couple of hours.  We headed over to a shopping center near St. Paul’s and politely asked as many jewelry/high-end stores about their availability of nice boxes.  To my surprise (and to my friend’s as well), everyone was very nice about our bizarre question.  We were able to snag some boxes from a couple of companies, but even the ones who couldn’t give us the boxes recommended us to other places.  The more we asked around, the more suspicious I felt.  Our interactions usually went like this:

“Hey, we’re working on a project for our company and we need a nice, white jewelry box…for something…so if you have a spare one…you know...but yeah….”

I don’t even know how we ended up with three boxes.  Many of the employees we talked to expressed that they were afraid of counterfeits popping up if they just gave out boxes, which made sense to me.  We returned to the office and handed in the boxes, hoping that at least one of them would be helpful.

I have been asked if the people of London are rude, inconsiderate, or spiteful toward Americans.  For the past month I’ve been here, I have yet to encounter such a person.  Everyone has been very kind and friendly.  I have nothing but pleasant things to say about the Londoners. 

and then my feet were like "why are you doing this to us?"

Yesterday, I walked around Regent’s Park for about two hours.  Regent's is really beautiful, but I don’t think my existence has ever experiencing walking so much.  I was trying to meet up with a friend (it was her last day in London), but after searching for her for two hours I headed back to my dorm and realized I had misunderstood things…so then we met around my area and got some smoothies.  And then we said farewell!  I’ll see her again in a month, though.  Yay Texas.

Today!  Woke up at 11:00AM, ate a quick breakfast, wriggled into some clothes, popped on my new shoes from Peacocks (only 10 pounds!), scurried down the stairs and made my way outside.  I walked over to the Old Spitalfields area (after making a wrong turn and fighting some crazy wind/rain combination) to meet up with some friends (more like friends of a friend) for lunch.  A mutual friend back in Texas brought us together, but after conversation started I felt like we had always been friends.  I really enjoy meeting new people.  There’s something eye-opening about crossing paths with people who don’t belong to your “circle.”  We ate at Scarlet Dot and parted ways, but not before snapping a couple of photos together.

Took the tube over to Knightsbridge and met up with a friend at Harrods.  Harrods is probably the most extravagant store/place/everything I’ve ever seen.  It’s like all the luxury stores packed into one building.  Everything is priced ridiculously high.  The most entertaining part of the store was the “Egyptian Escalators.” They was decorated very ornately and even had a woman signing from a balcony…in a room full of escalators….

We did some souvenir shopping afterward, walked around Hyde Park, picked up some more souvenirs from an Olympics store, and ended the day with a tasty dinner at Tortilla (as my friend put it, the British version of Chipotle).  Good day!

Bath, a bullet points edition

Day 1

• Took the train to Bath from Paddington. Train was pretty nice, but the best part was passing by beautiful scenery and taking in the countryside.  Also, COWS EVERYWHERE!!  
• Checked into our B&B.  It is not as bad as all the reviews say!!  TripAdvisor is just mean. I very much enjoyed my stay there.  
• Ventured over to The Crescent. 
• Strolled over to The Circus.
• Went to the Fashion Museum and got to try on some fabulous Victorian dresses.
• Walked by St. John's.
• Saw Bath Abbey.
• Went to the Jane Austen Centre! Was definitely falling asleep at this point...my apologies to the woman who gave the presentation.  I will never sit in the front row again.

Day 2

• Went to Stonehenge.  It's a very interesting thing to look at.  I listened to an audio guide for about an hour about all these different theories as to why Stonehenge was created.  My favorite was the one about Merlin the wizard.  I bet it's that one.
• Made our way over to the Roman Baths.  History everywhere!  I dipped my hand in the water and had this yellow film on my fingers afterward.  Cool.
• Ran through the rain to get to The Beau Nash to get some dinner and watch the Span v. France game.
• RAIN RAIN RAIN RAIN

Day 3

• Enjoyed my last full English breakfast (sausage, bacon, toast, fried egg, mushrooms, beans, and more) of the weekend
• Went to a worship service at Bath Abbey
• Holburne Museum
• Lunch at Cafe Au Lait
• Victoria Art Gallery
• Ate some ice cream while enjoying the sunny day
• Bought a copy of Jane Austen's Persuasion from a local bookstore
• Took the train back to London!

Excellent weekend.

Boyce Avenue

I am officially a City University student!  I was able to register today after slogging through the rainy weather, only to be met by waves of humidity as I walked back from grocery shopping.  Groceries are so heavy!  There's only so much I can buy at a time, which I guess is a good thing.  I kind of miss cars and not having to carry groceries...but walking is also nice.

Headed over to Camden Market afterward with some friends.  As cool as markets are, I always feel like the people at the stalls are very sketchy and want to take as much money from you as possible.  It makes me very antsy and wide-eyed, and I end up looking like:

 
Anyway, I was able to get some pretty cool things after some sad/successful attempts at haggling.  Every time someone would "lower the price" I knew they were just acting like they were being kind.  Stall owners seem to be very deceptive, or maybe I'm just being cynical.

We walked around the area for a while, browsing around and pointing at all the things that entertained us.  It's a pretty hipster/punk park of town.  We somehow ended up strolling through Regent's Park and ended our walk at Regent's College, where one of my friends is staying.  After resting our feet for a bit, we ventured out to eat at Gourmet Burger Kitchen.  Good meal!  And it also came with a 40% student discount!

To end our night, we made our way over to the Hammersmith Apollo to see Boyce Avenue!  I was surprised that the concert was sold out.  Who knew Londoners were such big fans of Boyce Avenue?  The line we waited in to get inside was crazy of all kinds.  We ended up missing the very first opener (Alex Goot) because the line was so long, but after getting inside and finding our seats we were able to catch the second opener (Tyler Hilton).  And then Boyce Avenue!! They were very good, as expected. A man proposed to his girlfriend on stage during the concert!  Good thing she said yes.  Concert would have been super awkward otherwise...

Leaving for a weekend trip tomorrow!  I'm visiting Bath!  Fun times await.

Also, everyone needs to try eating Coco Shreddies at least once in their life.