London Within Reach

I haven’t posted in a while but I’ve still been having adventures! I went to London last weekend with some friends who were visiting from Scotland. I took them around to all the usual monuments and then we went off in search of food festivals and markets. On one of the days they took off to go to the Harry Potter Experience so I spent time with a different friend in London. I have enjoyed having London so close but I’m still very happy that I chose a location outside of the city. London is exciting and beautiful but if you’re going to spend time there you have to be prepared to also spend money. I’ve, thankfully, been taking friends around who haven’t seen much of it before so we end up doing the free museums or other free activities. Even then, unless you pack food for your day out you end up eating somewhere along the line at a pricey coffee shop or food cart. I’m glad that I have access to the city via the train and that I can go in on a day off when I have them, but also that I have a quiet campus to come back to with a nice kitchen where I can cook my own food and and a cute town just a short walk away. I don’t think I will ever not prefer small towns to large cities. Not tiny towns of only 1000 people, but towns like Hilo and Corvallis and Egham (I clearly follow a trend).

Okay that’s my commentary on where I live… now for some pictures from London yesterday

Kingly Street decorations

We walked around Soho and while running errands and then headed off to the Cereal Killer Cafe (one of those “must see” quirky spots in London) for the novelty.

Then, we went to the science museum and the natural history museum!

Alan Turing’s Pilot ACE computer

Snapchat had some pretty funny filters on Friday… I decided to use one of them

We also stopped by the office of our program coordinators and sat down for a cup of tea with them. We thought it was quite funny that they seemed upset when we told them we were planning on spending our Saturday’s studying and doing coursework instead of going out. There was another girl, who’s studying in London, sitting there with us and she said she was going to go out so I think they were happy with her answer.

We did have a fun Friday evening back in Egham though. My flat hosted a girl’s pizza and wine night and we ended up having a party of about 10 people (we ordered a hilarious amount of pizza). We sat around talking about an interesting range of things: at one point I gave a very brief lesson on the history of Hawaii and the annexation. We did talk about fun things too though, we played games and a girl from Northern Ireland gave lessons on her accent. That, in my opinion, is the best way to spend a Friday night.

So, as it is Saturday and I am not planning on going out today, I should stay true to my word and get back to my coursework… though I might make a snack first.