You Sound Like You're From London

It's been a great weekend! We did so much in so little time, and I really enjoyed London, I could see myself living there some day.

First of all, let's talk transportation. After all the horror stories I heard about flying RyanAir, it wasn't so terrible getting to London and back on my own. Sam had booked a bus for us for midnight to take us into the city close to his apartment, and my flight was supposed to get in around 11:30. My flight was delayed on the way there by about a half hour, but I'm a savvy enough traveler to be able to make up the lost time running through the Stansted airport quicker than any other of the passengers. However, they caught me at customs. Italians customs wasn't a huge deal either way, coming or going, but once I hit the London border, it was an intense wait with serious passport control. As I handed my customs form to the uniformed woman, she noticed I'd left blank where I'd be staying during my two-day trip. When I failed to answer ("Boyfriend's appartment" didn't seem to suffice as an answer. How was I supposed to know!) she still stamped my passport and sent me on my way. I was too tired and stressed from the delays to care. I ran through my final stretch of the airport and found Sam waiting for me with baby yellow roses and a pink gerber daisy and a water bottle (I was parched). Lucky he's savvy enough to realized a 12am bus wasn't going to cut it an rearranged our transportation so we caught at 1am coach. An hour bus ride later, we hopped in a cab and pulled up to his apartment.


Friday morning Sam and I made omlettes and a big breakfast (I'd been craving breakfast food SO BAD since I've been here...Italians don't do breakfast really) and took our time getting out the door. We hopped on the Tube and began our day at the Tower of London, thousand year old fortress that is home to the crown jewels, and was home to several famous kings and queens and prisoners. We got a "tour" (It was raining so we sat in the chapel and listened instead) from a Queens Guard who I thought was in character, but is actually a military personnel for the queen with a great public presence. He told us the history of the Tower, and told us where we should check things out in the fortress. Anne Bolyne's private quarters are at the Tower, so is her beheading site and her tomb. The other two Henry VIII beheaded queens are there are well, Jane and Mary. Sam was excited for the jewels, so we took our time oohing and aahing and picking and choosing which diamonds I'd like in the future.

Tower of London

Right next to the Tower of London is the Tower Bridge over the Thames, where we went and saw Dead Man's Hole, where official would fish out dead bodies from the Thames. Charming. We made our way over to Dickens Inn, where we dinned on fish and chips and Sam taught me the proper way to drink a Guinness.

After lunch we hit the Tube and made our way to Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. We continued to walk around these big landmarks in the rain as I gawked at the Romanesque architecture (we only have Gothic architecture in Italy...the climate doesn't permit large use of stain glass windows in churches because then the churches become oven-like here in the south of Europe) and made our way to the National Gallery around 4. We had a play to catch at 5, but Sam "conveniently" needed to use the restroom at the National Gallery, and I told him it'd be cruel to put me in a museum like that for a short period of time. Too bad so sad, we were going anyway. And man was I glad we did!! It wasn't nearly as large as I'd expected it to be (in terms of architectural space, it did have a large extensive collection) but it's literally a treasure trove of paintings. I just so happened to stumble upon Da Vinci's "Madonna of the Rocks" and the sketch of "Mary, St. Anne, and Christ" which I just so happen to have to write papers on for my Leonardo class. No big deal, just wandering around the National Gallery, stumbling upon some priceless Renaissance works. It was amazing, I was so happy.

We dashed off to Liecester Square, which is the Broadway of London, to catch our matinee of Avenue Q. We got there with perfect timing, and I was laughing from the moment the lights went down til the final bow. Oh my goodness, it was one of the best performances I've seen in my life. Sam was the perfect person to see it with, no way could I have seen it with you guys, its very raunchy and modern and uncomfortable, in the funniest ways possible. It's like Muppets out of college trying to figure out what to do with their lives. I loved it. Sam enjoyed it too! Though after our big day and our late night Thursday, he was tired and said he didn't know if he was going to make it through the second act. We grabbed ice cream after and made our way back to his apartment and called it an early night, I'd finally hit my wall too.

Borough Market

Saturday we slept in and ate breakfast on his terrace with some London sun shining. Our plan was to check out the London markets and explore Hyde Park together, maybe do a little shopping. We started at Borough Market, which is now officially my favorite place in the whole wide world. It's a food market, and when Sam was explaining it to me, I figured it was like a farmers market. No. It's the most wonderful place I've ever seen. There are food stalls selling every kind of delicacy you can imagine, from wild boar and venison kebobs to curry stands to Turkish delight to different kinds of cheese and sausage stands. We sampled everything that there was to try, and then decided to grab lunch at one of the hot food vendors. I got a lamb kebob sandwich that came with a spicy marinade, coleslaw in the bun, and greens. Sam went for the wild boar and venison. Mine was definitely the more flavorful of the two, I think Sam was a little disappointed his didn't taste super exotic. We washed down our lunch with hot mulled wine. My only regret is that I didn't get a bag of turkish delight to bring back. Sam's coming to Florence in 10 days though, so maybe I'll put in a request...

After lunch we headed towards Tate Modern, one of the biggest modern museum collections in the world. It was a really cool couple of galleries, but it didn't hold the same fascination for me as did the National Gallery. Though when I walked into one gallery room to find a Pollack on one wall, a Rothko on another, and a Monet on the third, that was pretty awesome.

We left Tate to find our sunny London day disappear to fine London mist, but we hopped on the Tube

Globe Theater with Sam

anyway towards Hyde Park to find the elusive Peter Pan statue. It was actually a hop skip and a jump around the corner and not so elusive after all, but it was a nice walk around the park despite the weather. Lots of Londoners seems to be out anyway.

Then it really started to come down, so we headed back to Sam's apartment to refresh ourselves and make dinner for a potluck at his friend's apartment. We made a great tomato meat sauce and headed over in the now-pouring rain. Unfortunately the Tube now decided to get tricky on us, and because of several closed stops, we had to transfer a couple of times. But we got there, and we weren't late after all, and helped with final preparations for dinner. Jordan, the girl who's apartment it was, made ratatouille with Mary (one of Sam's roommates), Mary also made a caprese bruchetta, then we joined in with Sam's sauce and pasta, and Dan and Erick (Dan is Sam's roommate, Erick is one of Sam's best friends) brought more bread and the wine. It was great dinner, and Sam's friends are really great and REALLY funny. Did I study abroad in the wrong country?

We were going to go out to a pub after dinner, but by the time we'd cleaned up and rallied the troops, it was still pouring, the Tube workers were on strike, so we had to walk home in the torrential rain, and we all got back to Sam's apartment cold drenched messes around midnight. Sam and I settled in with hot tea and a movie, it was all perfect nonetheless.

Beautiful family dinner

An early wake up call (7am) later, Sam and I headed out around 7:50 after a quick breakfast and packing up to take the bus back to the airport. Sam rode with me and took an 11 bus back. My flight was at 11:20. I headed through security, straight to my gate, got right on the plane, no delays, everything went smoothly. I changed my 4:10 bus from Pisa to Florence to the 3:10 bus, and got back to Florence around 4:20. By the time I caught my bus to the other side of the Arno, it was about 5:20. I've unpacked, regrouped, waiting patiently for Anna to come home and feed me dinner, and now planning our Florentine adventures for when Sam gets here in 10 days.