This weekend, my friends Harper and
Jon came to visit. I met them both through our mutual friend Amber back home.
Amber majors in Jazz voice (which is why I know her) and ecology? Amber also
reads this blog, so if I got that last part wrong, she will know I wasn’t
paying attention. It’s science something and she works her tail off for it,
even in the summer, I’m positive about that. Sorry, Amber. I promise I’m only
marginally fake.
Anyway,
Harper and Jon and Amber and I all have something in common. We go to the same
school. But Harper, Jon and I are studying abroad this semester in different
countries. Informed by Amber that Harper was studying abroad in Wales this
semester, I invited Harper to stay with me if she ever needed a place in
London. She replied in a most likely affirmative manner, and a couple weeks
later asked me if both she and Jon could stay at my place for what is now this
past weekend. The more the merrier I always
think, so I found myself with two people over six foot sleeping on my student
accommodation floor this weekend, one on a camping mat, the other on a
makeshift, folded duvet mat. It works.
On Friday, we went to a student
Thanksgiving social at a family’s house in London. I’ve been going to hang out
there every other Friday night, and this time the Americans brought a
Thanksgiving meal potluck style, while Eea, the woman of the house, made
turkey. Jon had arrived the night
before, so he helped me make cranberry sauce until it was clear that the knives
in our kitchen were not suitable for a novice and his eyes could not handle the
onions. Then he went around and cleaned. Which was super helpful to say the
least. On Friday afternoon, we picked up Harper from the station, walked to
Saint Paul’s Cathedral, walked back home, packed up the cranberry sauce, and
headed out to the only Thanksgiving meal at least two out of the three of us
will have this year. Dinner was definitely yummy and the company was great. To
say I am ashamed that I went back for thirds on Friday night would not be an
untruth. While this is perfectly acceptable behavior at home, I’ve noticed that
English appetites are a bit less piggish and a bit more proper.
On Saturday
the three of us toured London armed with a list of the things we had to
accomplish before bedtime. Getting out at about 10:30 in the morning when all
was said and done, we saw the following in no particular order: Marble Arch,
Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace, the African exhibit at the British Museum,
Primark, the London Eye, Big Ben, Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square, Cambden
Market (where everything looks like Christmas and we got homesick), and the
Golden Jubilee Bridge. To top it all off we rode a double decker bus and ate at
Nandos and some hole in the wall fish and chips place. On Sunday Jon left, and
Harper and I, although well-intentioned in our desire to go to church,
overslept. This is hard to do. My church is only fifteen minutes away by foot
and doesn’t start until 11. But we managed. Instead of church we went to London
Bridge and King’s Cross Station (where parts of Harry Potter were filmed). I
showed her Tower Bridge, Borough Market (where other parts of Harry Potter were
filmed), Little Dorit Park, the George (a tavern that Charles Dickens was known
to frequent), the site of the Clink prison in Southwark, the Monument to the
Great Fire of London. Harper treated us to climb up all 311 steps of the Monument
to view London from the top, and I pointed out well-known office buildings
according to their nicknames, Shard, the Cheesegrater, the Gerkin, and the
Walkie Scorchie.
And thus concludes the synopsis of
my weekend. I’m including pictures, but I’m not really sure what I did with my
camera again this time. I’m failing at camera lately. So there are very few
pictures that turned out in any remote sense of the word. I think I’ve corrected my settings now, but
we’ll see next time I post pictures.
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Gotta get that telephone booth photo. |
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Jon at Buckingham Palace at 4:30 in the afternoon. With such a bright smile, who needs sunshine? |
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Again...Who needs sunshine? |
But you keep avoiding Westminster Abby A great Church of England. Beautiful and it has that space where all the poets are buried. It's right there next to Parliment and Big Ben. Gotta see it, girl! Longfellow buried there and Chaucer among others I love it's architecture. Go?
ReplyDeleteI went with a class. I saw it. It was nice.
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