Yesterday was such a relaxed day, I loved it. After our bus tour, Kate and I hung out in our flat for a while and napped a little bit. Erin, Daphne, and Sammi came over later to hang out. We all sat around and talked for a while. Then the five of us and Anna started discussing our plans to travel throughout Europe while we're here. We talked about Prague, Ireland, Italy, Paris, Scotland, Spain and Athens. I'm definitely going on the Italy and Spain trips, maybe Athens if we can tack that on to the end of the Italy trip for a good price and maybe Paris. I can't decide if I'm more excited for Spain or Italy. I'm excited to experience Spanish culture and speak the language, but I'm really looking forward to good Italian food and seeing all of the places I've learned about in history and Latin class. We're going to Madrid around November 18 for the weekend. It was the cheapest place in Spain to fly to, about $60 round trip. We're going to Venice and Rome for two days each during Reading Week, which is the week of November 8. Can't wait!
After we discussed traveling, we bought tickets to a tour of Buckingham Palace for tomorrow. We're going to watch the changing of the guards at 11:30 and take a two hour tour at 12. It should be pretty cool and it was only 15 pounds.
Erin, Kate and I tried to cook dinner after that. I put a mini pizza in the oven and didn't leave it in long enough, so the bread was all doughy. Kate made pasta that was pretty good with some sauce from Sainsbury's, but it was a rough clean up because the pasta got sticky. Then we watched Mean Girls with Kingsley and two of our flatmates, Jake and Lucy.
This afternoon we met around 12:30 to go to Canary Wharf to go shopping. The district line on the tube was shut down so it took us a while to get there. We thought Canary Wharf was going to be lots of shopping but then it turned out to be a little more of the business district, so there were shops, but they were extremely expensive. Jeans at the Gap cost 70 pounds (around $110). I bought earrings and hair clips, but that was it. There were a lot of people shopping so I guess they're used to paying that much money for clothes and stuff. I couldn't bring myself to buy anything big.
We ate dinner/lunch at Nando's. Our flatmates had been talking about it a lot and it was really good like they said. You ordered at a counter and they brought the food to you. It was mostly chicken and fries or mashed potatoes. (They call fries, chips and mashed potatoes, mash.) I ordered chicken with hot sauce and fries, I'm sure a lot of friends from home will appreciate that i got hot sauce. Everyone else got chicken burgers. The sauce on the chicken was so good, it was actually hot. They had bottles of different degree hot sauce and I got a 'very hot' one for my fries, but it wasn't hot at all, it just had some weird flavor. The 'hot' wasn't hot either, I was a little disappointed.
We took the bus back instead of the tube and had to wait outside for about 15 minutes. It was freezing outside today, around 50 degrees. I'm not used to that weather yet and it's super windy. I don't like it. The good thing about it here though is that it's really flat, so at least we don't have to walk up or down any hills while we're freezing.
Speaking of walking, I'm doing so much walking while I'm here I'm not used to it. I would guess that I walk at least two miles each day, but I can't be sure. All I know is that my feet hurt at the end of the day and I'm really really tired after we go somewhere. I'm about to take a nap now anyway.
I got a phone in Mile End after we got back. I got a pay-as-you-go T-Mobile samsung phone. It's pretty dinky, but it works and it's fairly cheap. It cost 20 pounds and I put like 10 pounds of minutes on it I think. I couldn't really understand the guy, he had an Indian accent, but I figured that was good because Sammi, Erin and Kate all did that to theirs. I've just been kind of floating around without a phone, I liked it. I figured I had to get one eventually though and today worked as well as any.
Every single day we ride the tube it's always packed. I can't believe how many lines there are and still, no matter what time of day or which line, each car is always packed. The transportation system here is ridiculous. The buses are also pretty packed too, similar to the pat buses in Pittsburgh. I can't believe how many people live in London. I like living in Mile End though. Villanova would love Queen Mary's diversity. Nova's number one priority is diversity and there's not much there. At Queen Mary I would guess that there is every race and religion, and tons of different countries represented. It's pretty cool to be surrounded by so many different kinds of people. I can't remember if I said it before or not, but Mile End is a very diverse neighborhood. There are a lot of Indians and Bangledashis (I don't know if that's the correct term, but I thought I heard people use it), as well as white British people. I'm not sure what everyone's religion is, but there are quite a few muslims here and a mosque or two on the street. It's very different to me but I think it's exciting. I would never have the chance to experience something like this if I wasn't here and as far as I know, I probably will never live in an area like this again. London is much more diverse than I realized and I like it.
M
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