WHOA WHOA!

(Just a note: no idea why the font is freaking out throughout this post. Try to ignore)

After uploading all the photos for this blog, I realized how massive it is about to become. It's daunting. It's frightening. It's like trying to shove an entire weekend of London adventures and euphoria into a tiny little cardboard box and then shipping it off to California, all the while hoping that the small crappy souvenirs you've picked out will do justice to your indescribable experiences. Yeah. No good.

Well here's my crappy box of dinky souvenirs:

THURSDAY NIGHT:

After TACOS, we did our first night of pub hopping. It was glorious. We headed out into the rain in search of a not-too-crowded, not-too-deserted, fun-looking pub that preferably wasn't full of people with silver hair and glasses with 2 inch thick lenses. When we saw the sign for "Youngs," we jumped on it. Here, we quickly discovered the most amazing juice known to mankind. It goes by the name of J20 and comes in several flavors, although Orange & Passionfruit is the most commonly on-hand variety. Which is fine by me, because it's absolutely delectable. It's only available in the UK and Ireland, so I'm going to be enjoying it while I can. Here we are at Young's:

Pub #2: Insert name here. I'm getting all my pubs confused because we vetoed so many based on lack of elbow room and abundance of silver hair. Anyhow, pub #2. Here, we journeyed up the stairs where we could all sit together at a table in front of the "football" game. Also here, we found a disturbing notice:

NBD, right? The floor isn't rotting or anything....Sheesh. Leaving for a much safer oasis, our last stop was "The Victory," right across the street from our flats. An easy favorite, it is set up with comfy couches and a fun, really-good-followed-by-really-not-so-good music selection. Plus, the toilets look like THIS:

Gotta love it.

FRIDAY:

Bright and early friday morning, Andrew, Zach, Rainey and I began our quest to queue up for cheap day-of tickets for "The Misanthrope" at the Comedy Theatre, starring the lovely Miss Keira Knightley. (Insert Andrew and Zach's lustful faces here.) We arrived at the theatre (after asking several non-helpful street-walking Brits for directions) and were met by a queue consisting of one man standing on the steps, newspaper in hand. Feeling fabulous about waking up entirely too early, we wasted time by going on nearby adventures two-at-a-time, the other two saving our place in line, which ended up being completely unnecessary. The newspaper-reading queue man ended up striking up a conversation with us and sharing his front page news (about the death of J.D. Salinger, author of Catcher in the Rye) and his non-front page news (about his run-in with the cops in Columbus, Ohio after J-walking). When they finally let us in, the newspaper man went to the box office and snatched 2 day-of tickets at like £54. We all had mini heart attacks, but easily navigated our way to £15 tickets in the lower balcony. Only set-back was it was standing room only. More on that later.

We decided to waste some time around Piccadilly Circus, AKA the center of London's West End. Think Times Square (sidenote: totally had to ask Steph and Rainey, "What's the Piccadilly Circus of New York?" Gee, I'm already forgetting The States...) Here we are in the center of it all:

Realizing we had quite a lot of hours to kill, we decided to do it the free way: The National Gallery. We all walked through the first rooms incredibly slow, gazing carefully at every baby Jesus depiction and trying to not think they all look the same because we figured everyone else was seeing the amazing artistic differences. Only later did we find out that no one REALLY wanted to take so much time with those rooms. (sidenote: Rainey and I planned to start a "Baby Blog" focused on all the creepy, too-scrawny-with-adult-faces, non-cute babies depicted in old paintings.) I could say SO much about the museum though, because I was like a little kid in a candy store with all the impressionist paintings, but I will refrain. Besides, it was a beautiful, sunny day in London not to be spent entirely indoors.

Here we are outside of the National Gallery, with Trafalgar square in the background.

Fast Forward past Pret, meeting up with Alice and Steph, checking out the quartet concert rehearsal at St. Martins, tube, eating at the flat, blah blah blah....

This would be me and Sir Andrew with Keira. Notice the lust.

The whole group, alive and well even after 2 hours of standing in the back of the balcony and listening to Keira speak with an obnoxious American accent. Alright, it was more like "leaning" because we had armrest rails in front of us, but still, the accent was enough to tucker us out.

SATURDAY:

(And I officially feel like I've been writing this blog for 5 hours. Just sayin')

The boys and I got up early and took the tube to the South Bank, where London's oldest food market can be found. Introducing Borough Market: site of yellow and red umbrella stations, harboring edible goodies ranging from vegetable burgers and fresh fruits to turkish delight and flavored hummus.

After a quick walk thru, we settled on Wild Boar sandwiches for lunch. Andrew, being the adventurous foodie that he is, went all out and ordered a large with peppercorn sauce. His bravery and subsequent taste approval was enough to convince me the peppercorn was essential. The result? Happy taste buds, full stomach, fabulous documentation:

Speaking of fabulous documentation of face-stuffing.... here is me with Steph, sharing an eclair from a small bakery in Hampstead Heath "Lady and the Tramp style." (Yes, I am skipping the entirely ridiculous travel adventure from the South Bank to Hampstead, because it would just drive my mind up a wall. Although, the discovery that, after a 10 minute walk, we were NOT at a tube station, but at a TRAIN station, was pretty hilarious.)

The little bakery. Name unknown. Brain fried.

The park at Hampstead Heath.

An absolutely gorgeous day in London. No matter how cold it is, blue skies equals glory here.

Me and Alice with the Bookend boys

Me and Alice. My London euphoria captured on film.

SUNDAY:

(Notice the days getting shorter?)

To follow our newly established tradition of attending a new church each Sunday, we picked St. Paul's for week #2. Besides the utterly obnoxious beeping throughout the service (Microphone system? Smoke detector yelping for new batteries?) and the apparent stench of urine (according to the others at least), the service was nice, the cathedral was stunning, and my choice to wear flats as opposed to the heeled boots from the week before? Genius. Just sayin'. I suck at being a girl.

This picture was def not taken on Sunday. That morning, the boys were smartly dressed in their khaki slacks and jackets as usual. But, this is them in front of St. Pauls the day before. Take care to notice the blue sky:

And just for fun, here they are at the TRAIN station, being absolutely classy.

And me, joining in on the classiness.

And just to end on the similar topic of silliness...

Sunday also led me on a fabric hunt because I wanted to make a rice-filled heating pad. (Which, btw, came out gloriously and everyone is digging it.) Well they don't have Jo-Anns or Beverley's here. They have Jason's Fabrics which sells super expensive designer fabrics...and they have Cath Kidston.

Here we have a 360 view of "Cath Kidston," AKA "The Estrogen Boutique," along with Rainey's reaction to it. Notice the background music:

Favorite New Slang: TEETER. (edit: or more commonly now, TOTTER) Defined as a block on the pavement that is not entirely stuck down, therefore "teetering" when one steps on it. I made up this slang because these make me happy, and will continue to do so until I roll my ankle on one.

Favorite Accidental Slang: Reflectory. As opposed to ReFECTory, the name for cafeteria. (Courtesy of Steph)

Most Epic Fail: Transportation to Hampstead Heath, including attempts to understand train station booth man with thick british accent.

Favorite Indoor hang-out: The student lounge, downstairs in the Darwin building of Regent's.

In closing, I love London and wish I could share it with each of you in all its amazing glory. But the souvenirs you're getting don't tell even half of the story. It's always better when you're living it. (As my fellow london bloggers can attest to.) So now I'm going to get off my laptop and get back to the London life I love :)