long time coming

I don't want to overwhelm y'all, but I'm sure some of you have been waiting for me to tell you about my spring break that was...oh, you know, like over a month ago. Well technically a month ago it was still happening. I was in London, actually traveling to Paris. Whatever. So here's part 1 of my Spring Break as I finally recorded it in my journal more or less. My hand cramped, but it needed to be done there before technology took over. Sorryboutcha.
My last day of classes was April 6. That was Good Friday. So I went to this Seder dinner with my friend Maddie. It was...interesting. and forever long, full of lots of Hebrew singing/chanting and odd food eating. The dessert was my favorite: flourless chocolate cake with a side of grapes. I miss grapes so that was really yummy.  The next day, Saturday, my mom and sister, Katie, arrived in the afternoon! That was an adventure getting in contact with them, but eventually we did and it was great. We ate an early dinner at Nyam Nyam Italiano, where I got pizza for the first time since I had Papa John's way back when. I can tell you this pizza was much better than PJ. Then I decided to take them up Arthur's Seat. Go big or go home, I say. We also explored this old chapel ruin that I'd always seen everytime I've climbed Arthur's Seat, but never walked to. It was built in like 1500. or maybe it was 1300? Either way it was super old. The next day was Easter, so we went to this church I'd been to once earlier in the semester. It was nice to go to church since I haven't really at all this semester. I know it shouldn't be an excuse, but I never really found anyone to consistently go with or a church to go to consistently. Regardless, Easter Sunday was nice. We went to The Piemaker which is this little shop that has pies and pasties and deliciousness for super cheap. In the afternoon, we went to Sandy Bells, this little pub Mom had heard about or found online that has folk music every Sunday afternoon. It was quite the small establishment, but the music was lovely. One of the guys played multiple harmonicas at once! So yeah that was pretty much Sunday.
Monday we had to catch our train from Waverley Station sort of early to get to London! The ride was about 5 hours and I picked the seats on the side of the train that would give us the best views of the coast. It was really pretty! We got into London King's Cross Station sometime after noon. Of course, our first stop was finding Platform 9 and 3/4. Really, we only went there for me. What can I say? I love Harry. But not as much as Ron. After that pit stop, we snacked and then tackled the tube system. The tube is great. We got to our hotel easily. It was quite nice, though we had a bazillion steps to climb up to the top, foreshadowing the crazy amount [read: over 1000] of steps we would climb over the rest of our trip. After we settled in a little, we took a double decker bus to Trafalgar Square and the London National Gallery of Art. We didn't stay at the Gallery long, just enough to see the Arnoldfini double portrait that I studied in my History of Art class and Van Gogh's sunflowers among other random things. It was rainy when we left to walk to Westminster Abbey [or possibly we took the tube? either way, still rainy.] But first we took our picture with the lions on Trafalgar Square. That was fun. Ha. I'm not a climber and it was wet since it was raining, but somehow I got up there. Getting down was another story. Thankfully a burly, foreign man hoisted us down. Haha. So we walked to Westminster to go to the Evensong Service. It was really cool to be in there and enjoy some lovely choir singing and there was scripture reading and some prayers too. After the service and kind of walking around and taking in the beauty, we ended up walking to Buckingham Palace. Around then, we tried to figure out what to do for dinner and it started raining again. Classic. We checked out the original Hard Rock Cafe but it was super busy and the wait would've been way too long. We did go in and attempted to sit at the bar, failed, and thus, left to eat somewhere else, not before seeing one of Elton John's crazy outfits and some of the Beatles drums and stuff. Legit. We ended up eating at Pret a Manger, this European chain restaurant. It was really tasty and had environmentally friendly food and such. Whatever they have left over they donate to homeless shelters and hostels, etc. How fab is that? Then we tubed it back to Marble Arch and saw another Pret still open, so we stopped because Katie and I were still hungry. I got a poppyseed bread thing. It was super lemony and really moist, but alright. We planned our next day and hoped it wouldn't be rainy. But we'll make the next day a new post to, like I said, not overwhelm ya. =)

going to hogwarts!

lion statue at Trafalgar Square

classic London. Big Ben and Parliament