London had a visitor!

Taylor came to London! TGOD

So as you can see Taylor came to visit me in London last weekend! We had a great weekend of touristy activities; mother nature was even kind enough to give us that London rainy/foggy weather so that Tay could get the entire experience. Aside from the nasty weather, we made the best out of running around London, it was a dangerous concept, but in the end we made it out alive! :)

Friday

On friday I had made arrangements for us to go on a cruise along the River Thames (pronounced tems). This was something I had not done yet and I was really excited to see Tower Bridge. The clouds were rolling in but we got some really cool pics before it started to rain on us.

After our cruise we took the tube over to Gloucester Rd. where we went to the Natural History Museum. It's really nice because all of the museums are free here (most of them anyways). I would compare the Natural History Museum to the Science Center in St. Louis. It's fun to wander and doesn't take too long to get around like some of the galleries here. The museum contains a load of galleries of different animals/species found all over the world. The dinosaurs were on holiday though, so that was a little discouraging.

Our next stop was Harrod's. Oh Harrod's. I'm not sure really where to start... we decided that Harrod's Department store could be it's own city. The store has 330 departments, a super market, 32 restaurants, and tons of high end fashion. We spent an hour or two in there just roaming the floors looking at all the beautiful (some rather odd) clothing and accessories. Before we left we made a mutual decision to find a seat at the gelato bar and have a little 1000+ calorie snack. When in ... Harrod's right?

That night we went to a cute pub in Camden town and ventured back to our hostel. ALMOST figuring out the bus system but having to end up in a cab for 7 pounds. Not too bad.

Saturday

Taylor and I went in the London Eye, for my second and final time (hehe). As soon as we were getting off of the giant ferris wheel, several fighter planes flew over for the Queen's Trooping the Colour. From what I gathered this is the "official birthday" of the Queen and they throw a parade every year. We considered going to the parade but decided to stick to the sidelines and avoid the massive amounts of people.


After the Eye and showing Taylor the traditional landmarks we took a bus on over to Hyde Park. By far my favorite park I've been to in London. We rented those fancy Barclay's bikes again and strolled throughout London's largest greenland. This is one of my favorite pictures I have taken on this trip aside from Tower Bridge:

I even captured Noah from the Notebook on the right there ;)

Saturday night Taylor, Rebecca, and I went to a pub and then to a club for a little London nightlife. Oh and we had the buses down pat this night, no taxi for us!









Sunday - The Finale


Taylor's last day in London was unfortunately miserable weather. Our only option to escape the rain was to take immediate shelter in some shops along Oxford Circus. I would say we did a pretty good job at this. And then of course to carry on our motto for the weekend... eat, drink, and be merry... we had one final Strongbow before I sent her on her way back to Italy.

All in all I had a wonderful time with one of my best friends from home! So glad she came all the way to the UK to visit me! Thanks Tay!!!





Next weekend = Barcelona, Spain. Tata!

High Pimp!

That's high "five" in Welsh. Why am I speaking Welsh all of the sudden?? Well I went to Wales last weekend! Molly, Rebecca, and I had a fun weekend at an adventure lodge in Pembrokeshire. I can't say enough about how awesome the staff and accommodations were at our lodge. If you are ever in Wales and need a little adrenaline rush, check out Preseli Venture. They catered to us all weekend with delicious food, comfy and spacious rooms, and awesome adventures! The first day we went coasteering in the morning and then on a 7 mile hike in the afternoon. Coasteering is basically a form of making your way through the cliffs on the coastline. We climbed up them, jumped off of them, I even ate half of a limpet off of one. Here's a picture of a limpet if you have never seen one. This is as close to sushi as I have gotten this entire trip, which is definitely on my to-do list when I return to the States.

Limpets

The second day we went sea kayaking. Since I had never been kayaking before, this was a good introduction into the sport. It was very calm and really helped us take in the scenery. Wales was a beautiful place. I got some really great pictures that I'll share at the bottom of this post. All in all it was a wonderful and relaxing weekend. The only noise we ran into were the two stag parties taking place at the lodge. A stag party is a bachelor party. Kidding of course, the guys were great and just having a fun time! Although I can't say that I have been to a bachelor party recently, my assumptions formed from The Hangover did not quite meet the agenda for these boys' stag party. Although they did go out and drink, I did not see a tiger or Mike Tyson at any point this weekend.

Today after work Alison and I went to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. We saw some incredible paintings including Van Gogh's Sunflowers. The rest of the week is work and then Taylor Browne makes a trip to come see London!

Happy Monday!

The beach in Wales

Showing off my newly developed kayaking skills!

Bank Holiday

Bank Holiday, the equivalent of Memorial Day (minus the stripes and stars and beer), was a great day to go to the Victoria & Albert Museum! I woke up this morning at a wonderful hour of 11am, finally got to sleep in. Then went for a run in a park nearby, where I saw the second most adorable labrador. We all know who the first one is. :) Then came back home to clean up and head to the V&A Museum since I have yet to go. S works at the museum doing different textile exhibitions and projects. Two of hers are currently on tour in Canada. She gave me two free tickets to see the exhibitions that are on display this month. I took the Piccadilly to Gloucester and walked to the museum on this lovely day! My umbrella was of course in my bag but I figured there was no use for it on such a sunny day (ahem).

The V&A Museum is a huge display of art and design. They have six floors of anything and everything. I spent about 2-3 hours there today roaming around looking at the various exhibitions and displays. When I first got there I went to the Cult of Beauty exhibition which S had given me tickets to. The display followed the Aesthetic Movement from 1860 to 1900. The artists involved with the movement concentrated on the idea of "art for art's sake." Meaning that their paintings were just art, they didn't have a story... they were just meant to be beautiful. One of the paintings that I remember was a huge portrait of a girl in a white dress in front of a white curtain. The description next to the painting explained what the author wanted to express from the painting: a girl in a white dress in front of a white curtain. The exhibition had furniture, ceramics, textiles, etc.. but I found myself concentrating more so on the paintings.

The second exhibition at the V&A Museum I went to was called Figures and Fictions. It was a photography collection of pictures from South Africa. I enjoyed this one a lot because it was contemporary. One photographer that really caught my eye was Kudazai Chiurai. If you're twiddling your thumbs check him out. His series, The Parliament is what was featured at the museum. In this collection he created a fictional goverment parody. The pictures feature some pop icon over in Africa (obviously I have never heard of him). Here's one of them:

After that I came home (in the pouring rain might I add!), ate some dinner, and here I am now. I thought I would put a picture of the map that I stare at everytime I leave to go somewhere. Here's the tube map, I live right down the road from the South Ealing stop on the Piccadilly line (blue). 

(click to enlarge)

Here's what the tube map sometimes looks like:

Have a great week!

Bath, Stonehenge, Windsor, Oxford

Saturday

So I've been all around England in the past two days! Well not really... we've been on two day trips, both were about an hour drive. We left London yesterday and the early time of 8am to head over to Stonehenge. If you are not familiar with Stonehenge it's these guys:

Recognize it now? Thought so. Although you use to be able to go up to the stones and get a better perspective of them, that's not the case anymore. We had to stay about 40 yards back on a sidewalk. The history is pretty neat, basically the stones date back to around 2500 BC and there are several theories as to how the structure was formed seeing as they did not have cranes and bobcats back in those days. Weird huh? My personal favorite theory was the one about aliens lending a helping hand. This is just ridiculous.... aliens would have no interest in helping us build a stone formation. ;) It was really cool to see but I personally enjoyed our trip to Bath.

Bath is in the southwest part of London. The Romans built several "baths" and a temple around natural hot springs.. apparently the only ones in the UK. You could literally see the steam coming off of the the baths.. I would call them pools. We took a tour through the temples, unfortunately they would not let you swim in the baths. Although at the end you could pay 1 pound to drink a cup of water from the baths.. we did not find this to be necessary. After the temples we roamed around the town. They had several shops ranging from souvenir shops to H&M. The town has two universities and apparently really good nightlife.




To the right here is Jane Austen's door! She lived in Bath several years of her life and many of her writing influences came from the town. We rightfully watched Pride and Prejudice on the way home.








Sunday


Today we went to Windsor castle and Oxford. Windsor castle was BEAUTIFUL! While we waited in line for our tour we watched the royal wedding on a TV. It is actually the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world. The Queen stays there every weekend in the Round Tower...

After Windsor we made our way to Oxford. The town had a lot of history (like everything in England) and is home to Oxford University! Lots of smarties :) Our tour guide gave us a brief walking tour and then we ventured around the town on our own. My friends and I went into Christ Church College which is rumored to be the influence in naming Christchurch, New Zealand.

Here's a picture of Rebecca, Alison, and me in Oxford.

Cheers for now!

"We'll figure it out!"

Yesterday... all my troubles seemed so far away... haha we went to an AWESOME Beatles store today!! But as I started out.. we'll talk about yesterday first. I had class all day but the second half we walked around Soho and went inside the Dominion theatre. This is where "We Will Rock You" is performed. Our professor walked us around Soho and gave us the history. We went into a trendy little record shop where I found these guys...





Then CAPA paid for us to have tea (I had coffee) and a pastry and a cute bakery. It was delicious!!

Today Molly and I had a fun typical Friday in London. Prepare yourself for my weirdness on this one... I had this thing called a fish pedicure. I had seen them at the Camden Market but those tanks looked fishy (hehe) so I decided to look up some nicer spa's. I found one in Kensington.. AquaSheko.com if you're interested. Basically they take these fish from Turkey and you place your feet inside of a tank and they eat the dead skin off of your feet. I know I know, sounds gross.. but now I have silky smooth feet. Ha! Here's a picture of the little guys...

Then I met up with Molly for an amazing lunch! We then visited the London Zoo to check out the new penguin beach they just opened. Also, Molly had found a two for one deal online. I have to say that St. Louis zoo puts the London zoo to shame. As you may or may not know I'm not a huge fan of zoo's. I love animals but I feel like they should be in their natural habitat. This is not an invitation for debate btw. haha. The point I'm trying to make is that I feel bad for the animals at the STL zoo which is beautiful, but I reallyyyyy felt bad for these animals. They did not have a lot of room at all! We didn't stay there for too long, then we rented bikes to ride around the city. Barclays has these bike rentals everywhere where you can rent a bike for 1pound for 24 hours. And you rent the bike at a certain station and then return it to wherever you end up. It's really a neat idea and a lot of people utilize them including locals. Here's a pic of the bike stand where we dropped ours off.

Finally we stumbled across this AWESOME store!



They had a ton of Beatles things, it was really cool! My personal favorites were the two Beatles themed jukeboxes. After that I took the tube home and now we are currently making our plans for the evening. Hope everyone is staying safe in tornado alley!

Love and miss you all!

:)

PICTURES!!

Today was my first day of work at the "hospital." I use quotes because I'm actually in an office with some IT workers. I have my own desk, computer, and phone line. Not sure all of that is necessary but I'll take it! Just when I said I was getting the hang of this public transportation thing I get on the wrong train to work. Ugh, an hour late for my first day. Good thing I have some awesome employers who totally understood and joked with me about it. Definitely won't happen again though *knock on wood*.

Here's the great part, I uploaded pictures! I'm not going to take a lot of time on this blog talking, but rather showing you all what I've been trying to describe in words.

So here's me just checking the time on Big Ben.

Here's a view of the London Eye. 

Here's a view from the London Eye

And Here's the Tower of London. 

Check out facebook for more pictures and clever captions :)

Camden Market

Camden Town was a cute little town that we visited yesterday. There were several markets that we wandered in and out of, my favorite being the Stables Market. Several vintage shops and cool things to pick up along the way. The market had these really cool statues of horses everywhere. I know it's awful that I can't find my camera cord but you will get real pictures soon enough.  There are over about 700 shops in the Stables alone (this doesn't include the several other markets throughout Camden). We found several of the stores to be very touristy, William and Kate flags, "Mind the Gap" souvenirs, etc. We ate this interesting dish for lunch, some sort of fish on top of noodles. Alison has been taking pictures of her meals that she buys but this one I think we'd rather forget. haha.
There is a lot of history with Camden that we learned in a local "Castle Starbucks." Crazy right? Two of my favorite things, castles and Starbucks, put together! According to Wikipedia, Amy Winehouse grew up in Camden Town and is still a regular. I was rather disappointed that we did not see her, bummer huh?

After Camden Town I jumped on the tube to go to the Apple store in Oxford Circus. I'm getting the hang of this public transportation thing! I do sort of miss riding in a car though. When I got home I went for a run around South Ealing. There's a park just up the road that I went to which was very nice.

This morning I had an interview with Kings College Hospital where I will be doing marketing work. I start work tomorrow morning at 9am. Sounds not too bad but to get there I have to take the Piccadilly to the District line to the Victoria station. From there I get on the Victoria train station to Denmark Hill. This is about a 1:30 commute. And I thought my drive to West County was bad last summer. But I'm currently reading that amazing book I told you all about in my last post so it goes by fast.

Tonight I met up with Alison and Emily in Gloucester Square. I ran into a casino real quick, lost 3 pounds. Not too bad for my first time on the slots. Actually, I only played that game where you drop the coin and other coins get pushed off the edge. Brittany Magee, if you read this I think you'll enjoy that last bit. :)

That's all for now, have a brilliant week!