Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage!

I am about four days behind…and all of the days I feel like have so much to blog about!! So this is going to be a little long… here goes…This was a phenomenal 4 day weekend!!!

February 23- Thursday

            The day started with a solo grocery trip to the Tesco Metro. Class was a group project day, but part of my group was headed to Barcelona for the weekend, so that means we had a 4 day weekend! Anyways, the weather was absolutely gorgeous! I was unaware of this when I left and was sweating my north face was so hot. Anyways, it was definitely food shopping time because everything here is very fresh which means it all goes bad in a couple of days. So American bulk shopping doesn’t go well here. Plus there are 2 fridges for 8 girls, so we need to be conscious of our space…

            After that I just spent some time in a local Café, drinking my white chocolate mocha, and reading for school. After bumming around most of the day, Katie G (Neenz in future references) & I decided we really wanted to walk around. So after dinner we & 2 of the guys took the tube into London to walk around at night. We walked through Trafalgar Square, around Piccadilly Circus, and Leicester Square- picked up a bunch of postcards too! (If you don’t get one within the week don’t worry I still have much more to do…but if you send me your address I’ll definitely get the hint). We even stopped into M&M World-super touristy but hey why not. 

We didn’t do much else except enjoy the beautiful (sweater no jacket) weather that London has freakily been blessed with! That’s it for Thursday.

February 24-Friday

            The day started off with filling in those postcards I bought. Not too exciting, but it was time to send some mail off. After that Neenz & I decided to go exploring. She has a friend that used to live in Hamstead Heath, & we’ve heard that was a really nice (or posh) area so we decided to go exploring. Golders Green is another neighborhood that we’re assigned to for our GST group project, and since the two are right next to each other it was a good excuse for our work too. Hamstead Heath is so nice!!! Apparently Pierce Brosnan has a house in the area, and one of the spice girls used to…. Very very classy. It was another beautiful day too, so we were able to walk around a beautiful park, take artsy pictures with flowers, and just enjoy the sun and blue skies!

We even stumbled across some sort of zoo with deer, an ostrich, and lots of birds….

           

On the way home Neenz hadn’t been to Platform 9 ¾ yet so we of course had to stop. This time there was a line to take your picture!

Please note the contrast between my clothes last time I went & this time…so fantastic!!

We also stumbled across an M&S (Marks & Spencers). Not too exciting, except this place is one of many in London following a new trend…clothes and food. To me that just sounds really bizarre…but apparently it’s the new thing…we’ll see if that catches on.

Anyways Friday night, someone’s friends from Wales were visiting so we checked out Los Locos- a Mexican restaurant turned club. It was fun just dancing with each other! Most of us left early enough to get the Tube home (which closes around midnight).

February 25th- Saturday

            So Ginna Claire’s British brother Tim’s 26^th birthday was Saturday! So he invited some of us to his party. So that morning, Neenz & I decided we were going to go find new outfits! So we trekked to Primark. I’ve blogged about this place before, but it’s indescribable. A crazy, huge, cheap, fantastic, horrible experience you really have to experience on your own. Anyways, after getting separated looking for dresses & waiting in line for 15 minutes to try them out…it was a success! I bought 2- 1 I wore that night & one a friend borrowed that night.

^yes that is bright green & yes that other one has owls on it.

*London Fun Fact*: animals on your clothes are the next big trend.

So after shopping, buying a new pair of sunglasses, and having a nice lunch at Pret A Manger (which is one almost every corner here). We headed to go watch Tim’s league play rugby! It was another gorgeous sunny day, so we sat outside at watched a match!

         Rugby is so unique. People are falling down, being picked up, yelling obscenities followed by “sir,” and saying instructions such as “crouch, touch, pause, engage.” It was quite an experience watching it, needless to say, it felt very British. Sadly, they lost, so we headed home to get ready for Tim’s birthday party!

So the party. There is so much to blog about, I’m doing it in bullet points…

            -Tim is pretty well off so we started at his very nice house/flat to meet his friends

            -Felt very adult showing up with a bottle of wine for him & mingling with all of his professional friends

            -social cues are definitely different, but once we started mingling it was fun

            -next stop Public, the club

 ^Neenz, me, Ginna Claire

 
 So the club.

            -had to be on a guest list. We were on Tim’s guest list, but not the VIP one which meant higher coverage & lots of confusion.

            -eventually we had a blast with the 4 of us that were there plus Tim & his friends.

            -super super posh. Like even beyond posh (apparently the royals have been spotted here & the entire Wales rugby team arrived later on, but after we left)

            -we had fun dancing with each other & it was such a different experience!

            -about 12:30 three of us decided it was time to catch the night bus home.

So the night bus.

            -took over an hour & a half

            -lots of local 20ish guys on the bus rapping about Piccadilly circus on the way to a casino for a friend’s birthday….

Tim’s birthday party ended up being a lot of fun. It was definitely a different scene being with locals, especially locals that are pretty well off in London, but still so much fun.

I’m sure I’m not talking about nearly as much as I want to, but this brings us to:

Today, February 26^th.

Around noon, quite a few of us headed into Camden to check out the market. I absolutely loved today & fully intend on going back! The first part we walked through was much more of a New York market style with people bartering & trying to get to buy their things. I actually made a purchase of this big super soft sweater that I haggled from 25 pounds to 16! I was quite proud of myself!

 The main street has lots of open stores, stands, etc, along the sidewalk. This scene is definitely an arsty scene. It’s a high student population too. Once we kept on walking, we got past that market and made it into the Camden Lock Market. This was more our scene. We found the food area with ethnic stand after ethnic stand, and I really enjoyed my fresh dumplings & rice for lunch! (And of course a Strawberry Dream Boat crepe later for dessert) I could eat every meal there for a week and never get bored!  

Anyways we kept walking, ended up making another purchase of a British shirt with Neenz (2 for 20…I had to help her get the deal), and just loved walking around!

 We honestly probably didn’t even see a quarter of all the market had to offer. There was everything there from clothes to jewelry to art to music to food…Can’t wait to go back! And of course it was another beautiful sunny, blue skies, kind of day! I know there's so much more to share, but I kinda have work to do....yes I do go to school here too...

This weekend was phenomenal…I wish I could put my finger on why. We explored a lot, had a great time, the weather was beautiful… 3 months is not enough time to do everything & travel everywhere! This week will be a bit more of business work, and then Neenz, Liz, & I are off to Paris on Thursday!! So excited!!

  

*London Lingo*

“That’s quality”

“He was steaming”

Mate, chap, sir, miss

Sorry- not lingo, but they say it all the time!

Loo