Let's see, I left off with my extremely boring week after spending time in Leeds with Hayley, so I'll pick back up on Thursday when exciting things start to happen again. Thursday morning I have my classic art history class as always, only this week we were meeting at the Globe Theatre (note the incorrect British spelling) which was so exciting! It was Allison's birthday on Thursday, so her and I rose quite early and headed off to the train station without the rest of the class so that we could have time to grab something to eat before we had to meet up with everyone. We ended up sitting in the middle of the train station eating bagels (yes) and drinking chai lattes. Life was good. Then we walked along the Thames to meet up with our class. I love southbank. It's probably one of my favourite areas of London. I just think it's so pretty and traditionally "London" because you can see Big Ben and the Eye and stuff. Loves it.
So we toured the Globe and got to learn all about the history there, even though the original one was burned down (#ThatchedRoofProbs), so this was just a historical recreation. Still awesome though, and gotta love Shakespeare and learning about him. This was probably one of my favourite tours that we've done. When we finished, Alex, Alexa, Allison (I pretty much only hang out with people whose names start with A) and I went out to lunch at a little Italian place further down the river. It was great and I drank tea out of a little tumbler which was strange, but the food was delicious so I could not complain. Then Allison headed back because she wanted to Skype with her family for her birthday and I followed her shortly after so I could work on my paper for a bit before I had to pick up Hayley at the train station.
Wherefore art thou Romeo (Niall)?
Pasta obvi
Sick ceilings even in the Globe
I would love to say that this was an awesome group photo of my class, but sadly it was some primary school group that happened to be there at the only moment I could've taken this picture, so here we are.
So then I headed to King's Cross to pick up Hayley, yay! I grabbed her and then we headed to campus to drop her stuff off at mine and freshen up before heading back to southbank with everyone to grab some food and drinks for Allison's birthday. Seeing the city at night was so breathtaking, the Eye was all lit up and southbank was decorated for Valentine's Day, and it was so fun to see Hayley's reaction to really seeing London for the first time (girl was freakin'). I am falling so in love with this city it's crazy. It was freezing outside and it was so windy since we were right on the river so we warmed up with some food at Wagamama's and then walked towards St. Paul's to grab some drinks at this little pub that was actually in the middle of the water (not really at all). Such a fun night to celebrate such a great person!
I am the greatest Valentine I could ever ask for
I love this place
Curry is really important to me
The next day, everyone else had things to do so they were going to grab breakfast super early at a place down the street, but Hayley and I slept in a bit later and then went to a place in Clapham Junction that I found on Yelp! that supposedly had the best American pancakes in London (obviously we had to be the judges). It was raining, of course, but the place was so worth the journey. The food was literally so dope and not expensive at all. Also, they had bottomless tea, so Hayley was happy (she's actually become addicted to tea and it's kind of worrying). I'm usually not a French toast person, but this French toast literally spoke to my soul it was so magical. Basically no better way to start Valentine's Day than fueling my love affair with breakfast food.
Like damn shawty
After we gorged ourselves on English breakfast, we headed to Kingston to look around and to buy penny boards, eek! We've decided that when we go on our massive trek through eleven European countries at the beginning of April, the quickest way to zip (or fall, in my case) around will be on these precious little skateboards, so we found a shop in Kingston that sells them and bought those bad boys up thanks to the help of the cutest sales girl ever. We were planning on pracitsing skating around, but it was pouring rain so we ducked into a precious little café and grabbed one of the most delicious hot chocolates I've ever had to try to wait out the rain (which was a fail). The downpour was unrelenting, though, so we ended up just heading back to Roehampton.
I've named her Josie and I'm quite fond of her.
I'm really surprised it took me over a month to get a picture like this.
Actually a spiritual experience.
We just hung out at mine for the rest of the afternoon and then made some food for dinner before our night that included heading to an Anti-Valentine's Day party that Alex had found and getting blown over by the extreme wind on the way home. Probably one of the greatest Valentine's Day I've ever had.
Yay mates
Saturday we got a (somewhat) early start and headed to central to show Hayley around. We hit a bunch of the major sights, including Chipotle, which was fantastic. We took the train to southbank and then skated (can't believe I can actually say that) to Trafalgar Square and got a bus to Chipotle (holy grail) because it started raining. This is the first time I've had Chipotle or anything even remotely close to Mexican food since I've been here and it was legitimately an answered prayer. Only they gave you a lot less food than the ones in the States, and the concept of me asking for "extra rice" was apparently completely foreign to the homegirl who was working there because she looked at me like I'd asked her to help me commit murder. Regardless, it was a beautiful experience and I'm glad that I was reunited with my one true love.
Ironically, "Holy Grail" came on as I am typing this. How relevant
Then we walked to Oxford Street and went in the giant Primark, Topshop, and a couple other stores before skating through Piccadilly Circus back to Trafalgar Square and then to Covent Garden where she was introduced to the beauty of Shake Shack. Incredible. So Covent Garden was extremely crowded because it was a Saturday afternoon, so we took shelter in a Starbucks so we could charge our phones and warm up before meeting up with the rest of the girls at Somerset House for the London Fashion Week show.
Alex texted me when they got there and so we ran over there and it was probably one of the weirdest environments I've ever been in. There were people who looked fabulous, and they all went inside the show, obviously, but then everyone else had weird coloured hair and was wearing strange patterns and bright colours (when did that become fashion) and carrying big cameras and taking pictures of random people. I've actually never felt so out of place because I had chucks and a skateboard, so. Allison got her picture taken by a random though, which was funny (famous). So we walked around, but we couldn't get in anywhere obviously because we're nobodies, and I wasn't dressed for the occasion, so I couldn't even pretend like I was cool enough to get in anywhere. Best moment was when some girls passed us handing out free bags of popcorn and literally everyone else was death glaring them and not taking it, but Hayley and I were like, "Free calories? Yes. Thank you." so we got to eat delicious popcorn that had been rejected by fashion people (#swag). Then Hayley, Allison, and I left and went back to Roehampton and made dinner and watched This Is Us, again. Good times.
I'm actually shocked that no one kicked me out.
Sunday we (Hayley, Allison, and I) woke up and got breakfast (obviously) and then went to Harrods which was actually the most overwhelming experience of my entire life (probably tied with the six-story Topshop on Oxford Street). I heard a rumour that you're not allowed to take pictures (as if that's ever stopped me) and I was afraid of getting kicked out of such a beautiful place, so I didn't even risk it like I usually do. We were there for almost two hours and probably saw 1/16 of the entirety of anything. We basically hung out in the food places (home) and then briefly explored the clothes and shoes. Also we used the bathrooms which were nicer than any home I ever live in will be. The best part of it was The Cosmetics Haul (yes, capital letters are necessary). It was home to the most beautiful cosmetics counters I've seen. Chanel. Burberry. Lancome. YSL. Dior, to name a few. I died. I wanted to touch everything, but I was equally stricken with fear at messing up the perfection of it all. The clothes were all beautiful and more expensive than my entire life. A magically spiritual moment happened in there though; we were walking into a giant room of shoes and "Show Me" by Kid Ink started playing and if my entrance to Heaven isn't exactly like that, I'm going to be disappointed.
Bill's. Breakfast. Babes.
Yum tho
Memorial to Princess Di on the ground floor of Harrods.
After a very extended period of sensory overload in there, we decided to just head down to Oxford Street to go to church. I just love church. It was great. We ended up getting there early so we stopped at McDonald's and got some fries and used their wifi before heading to the Dominion. Church this week was different, they called it a "touching Heaven" service, and there was no message, just extended worship. It was amazing. There's this one little guy that leads worship and he just jumps around and is so full of joy and he was leading and he just makes me so happy. He was bopping around like he'd had five shots of espresso beforehand. Such a pump up. Then we headed home and made food and I finished my paper and we went to sleep because Hayley's train left early on Monday morning so we had to leave here earlier than usual because rush hour.
Such a great weekend with Hayley and I'm so glad that we've been able to spend so much time together and live our mutual adventurous dreams together in the UK and I can't wait for our month of adventure in April, eek! I hope y'all are doing so well and I apologise again for the extreme drought that has existed on this blog during the month of February, but I'm going to work harder to do better, I swear! Also, I finally figured out where the post box is to send things (I suck, I know) so expect mucho postcards in the near future! Much love to my homies.
xx
If you want to see video documentation of my weekend with Hayley in London you can do so by clicking here.
Also, I'm trying to win a free ride to the airport at the end of my program so I don't have to carry all my bags on public transportation and be a sweaty mess all over the city of London. Basically, all I need is the most Instagram likes on all my pictures with #CISLondon, so if you would like to help me out with that you can do so here.
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