I have an unbelievable amount of catching up to do, but I want to include everything so this will probably be a really long post. I'll talk about Italy in my next post, later today.
I'll start first with my birthday weekend, which I still haven't finished talking about. Friday night, October 29, as I said I went to dinner at Hayfield with all of my friends and they got me a lot of presents and I had Kerahi Chicken for dinner. (I don't know how to spell it.) Then we went to Whitechapel for a party at the Griff Inn. That night we came back to campus and Kate picked up some pumpkin seeds at someone's flat for us to eat yum. Saturday was my actual birthday and Erin, Kate and I didn't do too much during the day. We mad Toy Story mac n cheese and sat around and talked, it was very relaxing. That night we decided to go to Fabric, which is this pretty famous club in Farringdon. Last time we went it wasn't that great but I was hoping that it would be better, and also I had no other ideas about what to do. Before we left, everyone surprised me by singing Happy Birthday to me in Flat 4's kitchen. Kate and Erin bought me chocolate ice cream and a 21 candle and I got more presents (21 bars of Galaxy chocolate, my favorite.) It was so sweet of them.
We went to Fabric and it ended up being pretty stupid. Inga and Peter met us there, we had a group of about 10 or so. They had three rooms open but all they played was techno music. Apparently Vijay had been talking to the bouncer at the club next door before we went into Fabric and got some free passes, so we decided to go there. That place ended up being a lot of fun. It was much smaller and they played a lot better music. The majority of us stayed there until early in the morning, and then we wandered around London trying to find a bus to get home. It was a really fun night. When we got back, I hung out in Flat 4 for a long time. That probably wasn't the best idea, I should have gone to bed, but instead we decided to have a slumber party in the hallway. We got blankets and pillows and a bunch of us slept in the hallway. It was fun for a while until one of their other flatmates woke up really early to talk to all of her relatives on the phone and therefore woke all of us up that were sleeping in the hall. Either way it was a fun night. Oh and that night Kate, Erin and I were jersey shore characters. I was JWow and Kate was Snookie.
Sunday, Halloween, was a pretty chill day. Erin and I went into central and saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Parliament Square, the changing of the guards at the Cavalry Museum and Diwali at Trafalgar Square, then we got dinner at Chipotle. It was a day of stumbling upon things because neither of us knew what was going on at the Museum until it actually happened. We just saw a bunch of people crowding around the horses so we decided to watch. At 4, there was this big ceremony for the guards to take the horses in for the night. All of the guards lined up and yelled some things, shuffled around, got off the horses and took them in. After that we continued up the street and found Diwali in Trafalgar Square. That was even more amazing because at first we both tried to figure out what it was and then we realized it when we saw the dancers on stage. There were so many people there, it was crazy. It was really cool, the music was good, and everyone was dancing and singing and yelling. We stayed there for about an hour until we went to get dinner. That night we watched Hocus Pocus, or at least part of it. On Monday I had class and a paper to start, so I did that in the morning. After that Erin and I went to Harrod's to look around. It was so cool, so many floors of so much stuff. We even got a Krispie Kreme donut (to share, because we're poor college kids).
After Harrod's I had my Villanova class so she went back to my flat. Around 11:30pm, Erin, Kate and I went to Victoria Station because Kate had to pick up her friend and Erin had to go to the airport around 3am. We dropped Erin off and picked Colin up and then tried to figure out how to get back to school since the 25 bus was on diversion. Eventually we got back and went to sleep.
Most of the day Tuesday and Wednesday was spent writing papers that were due on Wednesday. I turned in my Poetry and History papers on Wednesday afternoon and then spent 2 awful hours on a bus to Queen's Park to volunteer. Normally the trip takes me 40 minutes, but there was a tube strike and the trains from Mile End were bezerk. Volunteering was fun, I helped some kids make masks, and the tube was better by the time I was done volunteering.
My family arrived on Thursday, I went to see them around 3pm. My mom, Aunt Helen and Aunt Carol stayed in the Blu Radisson in Portman Square, a few blocks from Marble Arch. Thursday night we went shopping on Oxford St and ate dinner in the area at Spaghetti Warehouse. I stayed in their hotel that night (it was a really nice hotel) and Friday morning I got up early to volunteer. After I was done volunteering I met them at Roaster's in Mile End and showed them my campus and my room. I don't think they were expecting the Mile End to be how it is, but that's part of the experience. We left Mile End to go to Camden around 2pm. We shopped there for the rest of the day. I bought a lot of jewelery and they all bought some souvenirs for people. I left them around 6:30 and they ate dinner in Camden while I went to meet some people to watch fireworks.
I met Sammie, Talhah, Chris, Anna and Vijay at school and we went to Clapham to watch fireworks for Guy Fawkes. We ended up missing the fireworks, but we hung out in the area for a while. I felt like I was at a festival in Hyde Park at home or Munhall or something. There was actually grass and trees and not a million people everywhere. We went into a pub but it was crowded so we left and went to Piccadilly. We ended up at a club called Bar Rumba.
The next morning I met my family for breakfast at the hotel, it was so good. We went on the London Eye and took an Original Bus Tour to see all around London. We walked along the South Bank, which was so awesome, Leicester Square and Piccadilly and went to Oxford St. again. That night I went back to campus to bring some food back and I ended up walking around London with Talhah and Vijay that night. We started in Piccadilly and walked so many places. At one point we were sitting outside of a military base playing a game. We also sat in Hyde Park for a while and talked. It was a ton of walking and I was tired but it ended up being really fun.
On Sunday after breakfast I did more of the bus tour with my family. We went to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. It was different than the one that I went to last time because we saw it at Buckingham Palace and at St. James's Palace as well. We learned about the five divisions of guards and all about St. James's Palace, which is where Princess Diana lived. I even got to pet the police's horses.
Later in the day I went to the Tower of London with my mom and saw all of the royal jewels. It was freezing outside that day but it was so cool to go there, it's something that I've been really wanting to do. I think my mom really enjoyed seeing them too. They have all of the crowns and spires there, including the real diamonds. The room is in a big fault and there's security everywhere. The whole thing closed rather early though so that was disappointing, we didn't get to see everything in the Tower of London. After the Tower of London we took a boat ride back to Westminster and then a bus to Oxford St. We ate Pizza Hut for lunch, which made me really happy because I love Pizza Hut!
Mom and Aunt Carol left Monday morning and Aunt Helen left in the afternoon. It was really nice to see them I'm glad they came.
This past week was reading week, aka fall break. I volunteered on Monday and had my Villanova class, and then I left for Italy on Monday night/Tuesday morning! I'll write about that in my next post...
Tower Bridge at night
Did I mention that my family got me wonderful birthday presents? Because they did, I was so happy! Annnddd Mom bought me nail polish so I can finally paint my nails!
M
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