It’s London, Baby!!

Posted on April 18, 2012 by whatisshedoing

this is the only picture we have from the Duomo because I refused to go anywhere near the edge.

Just three days after returning to Florence from spring break, Rebecca came to visit in Florence! She was only here for two days, so I’d consider her stay a crash course in Florentine culture. I took her to see my BFF, the David, the Boboli Gardens, and we climbed the Duomo. So I’ve climbed the Duomo once before but I guess I forgot how much I hate it. I’m deathly afraid of heights, and so when we got to that part when you circle around the inside of the dome in that tiny corridor, I freaked out. Like almost refused to continue walking, Rebecca had to hold my hand, freaked out. I ended up walking around that part like a nut-job, looking straight ahead to Rebecca, holding her hand as she talked to me, and touching the inside wall with my other hand. I also freaked out at and screamed at a tourist going the wrong way. I’m mentally healthy. But we made it to the top, and it was gorgeous! Definitely worth the terror.

On Friday we went to get salads from our favorite salad place to eat on the train to Pisa where we were catching a flight to London. As we were waiting I was leaning my hand against a wall, and apparently it was actually a door frame because the owner slammed the door and my fingers got trapped in it. My finger was bleeding and swollen and gross, but I survived. TYPICAL.

The flight was our first RyanAir experience. It was terrible. It is insane what people will do when a window seat is at stake. I’m pretty sure there was baby trampling in order to be first on line. The flight itself was uneventful except RyanAir called itself the “On-Time Airline'” and claims that 9/10 of its flights land on time. Well this one didn’t, and I kind of think we deserve an explanation. We got to London pretty late so we went straight to sleep.

we like to experience the world around us.

The next day we had breakfast before hitting up Camden Market. Rebecca took us to this store called “Planet Organic” and it was the greatest food store to exist, ever. They had freshly baked gluten-free bakery items. I had a carrot-apple muffin and a banana walnut and both were delicious and I was so happy. We also noticed a lot of Pret a Mangers around, which was comforting because, well, Steph and I are obsessed with Pret. We took a double-decker bus to Camden Market after breakfast, and it made me wish I skipped the GF muffins. They had every type of ethnic food imaginable AND they gave out free samples. So what if I ate my weight in tiny morsels of food on toothpicks. Camden also had a lot of good shopping- the most I’ve actually done since being in Europe- and I almost purchased a giant British flag with a picture of Will and Kate on it. But the people in the store were creepy and didn’t want to give it to me. Oh well.

After Camden we headed out to afternoon tea at the Chesterfield Hotel. I love tea. They brought out a little tiered platter of the most delicious sandwiches, scones, and pastries I’ve had and I stuffed myself to the max. Clotted cream is essentially butter, but its so delicious and doesn’t taste like butter and I would like to shmear it on everything. Especially with jam. The sandwiches were all delicious too- the first sandwiches I’ve had in a really long time and they were SO good and all on different types of bread.

After tea we ventured out to the Buckingham Palace, or as I like to call it: Home. The flag was up, which meant the Queen was IN. Obviously, it would have been rude of her to leave when she heard I was arriving in the area for an important meeting. The Palace was gorgeous and the whole time I just kept trying to imagine what they did with all of that space. Like how many rooms are there in that place? Additionally, they didn’t have a backyard. That’s upsetting for them.

We walked around a bit, hit up TopShop (weirdest store EVER. Not a fan) and rested a little bit and then prepared for my second most anticipated meal of the trip: Indian Food. We went to Brick Lane and Steph and I split Chicken Tikka Masala and Bengan Bharta (Steph loves eggplant.) This was Steph’s second experience with Indian food and she LOVED it. NEW CONVERT FOR SANGAM THURSDAYS! UP TOP! In fact, she licked the bowl clean which was both admirable and disgusting.

Rebecca left to go to the Canary Islands that night, leaving Steph and me alone to take London by storm. We went to see Big Ben, Westminister Abby, the Parliament, and the London Eye first thing in the morning. Of course, it was a Sunday so Westminister was closed. That was pretty unfortunate. We waited online for the London Eye and had a very interesting interaction. This woman was on line in front of us with her son who looked to be about 9 or 10. She had to go to the bathroom, but he didn’t want her going and leaving him alone. I, of course, chimed in and told her that we’d save her spot on line if she wanted to take him with her. She looked at me and then completed ignored me. Kk, I was just trying to be nice. Then the woman in front of her who was there with her 3 grandchildren offered to watch the boy and the mom agreed! WHAT. I thought offering to watch someone’s child was overstepping boundaries way more than offering to save a spot. They ignored us the entire time we were online and then we were in the same container as them on the eye and they continued to ignore us and the two families all hung out. Steph and I felt very left out.

We then headed off to see MATILDA on West End! Everyone who saw it LOVED it, and it recently just won 7/9 Olivier Awards however I’ve got to tell it like it is: I wasn’t in love with it. The Matilda’s were incredible, Ms. Trunchbowl was great, the dancing and special effects were incredible, but I maybe just didn’t LOVE show itself.

We then walked around the Theatre District, which I LOVED. I got gluten free red velvet cupcakes from Hummingbird Bakery, Steph got the pear cidar she was looking for, we ate fish and chips for dinner, and walked around. While perusing the streets we saw this sign posted on a door, which I thought was strange: This is not a brothel. There are no prostitutes at this address”. Okay, but I didn’t suspect there were any until you said that. Now I’m not so convinced. We baffled over that for a bit, then went to see THE HUNGER GAMES.

Movie theatres are weird in London- we had assigned seats, there was a mezzanine, and it was huge. The Hunger Games were incredible. I cried. I need to see it at least a couple of more times once I get home, it was just so well done and I thought true to the book. I’m just so glad I got to see it. I honestly thought that I should have been cast as Katniss (but really. I actually looked into that sophomore year.) but Jennifer Lawrence was AMAZING and I think they did a fantastic job at casting her. It could have gone poorly because the movie really lies in her portrayal of the character. There was also an advertisement for a candy based on “The Marshmallow Test” which I’ve learned about in all of my HD classes, so that was pretty cool.

The next day we woke up, got gluten free muffins again, and went to meet Miranda at Camden Market again. This time I held nothing back. I had 4 deep fried oreos, a tapas platter, a smoothie, a lemonade, and helped Miranda eat these pancake-like balls with nutella. NOM NOM NOM NOM. It was so great to see Miranda- I’ve really enjoyed seeing all of my school friends here, even if it is just for short visits. I miss them.

Steph and I then went to Kings Cross to take a brief trip to Hogwarts to see our other school friends, and then we went back to Florence. London was a really fun trip, I absolutely love the city and want to go back.