SECOND!

The past few days' adventures:

The day before yesterday (so, the 19th?) I went to Spitafields Market, which had a lot of Bangladeshi restaurants nearby and I'm told when it's open is very "quirky, historic, modern, tatty and smart", but unfortunately our brilliant RA's chose to take us on a day when the market was closed. haha. Oh well, at least I know where it is now! We went to a restaurant called Giraffe, and "Love, Eat, Live" is their slogan. A few of us seemed to live by that (hai, fattiez!) so we took a picture for fun.

(I had minestrone soup and grilled toast, in case you were wondering, and it was deeeee-lish.)

The next day, we went to a boat party on the Thames. A lot of drinking went down (not I, said the hen, for I have no money!), but I managed to meet some very nice people and miraculously avoided being dry humped by over-zealous study abroaders. : ) This was taken from the window, and is the eye of London. An enormous Ferris wheel with glass compartments for sitting in. I think it's under repair right now, but I know their permit (which was only good for 5 years I think?) is up. Only time will tell if the Eye stays standing.

Here's a few more from that night:



(This one was taken under London Bridge. Luckily it didn't fall down on us. Har, har.

It's fairly non-descript, actually. I was expecting something more grandiose, for some reason, but it's just a bridge really. It's pretty at night, though. They put red lights on it...obviously.

There were some people walking over when we passed under, and they waved at us and said cheerio. Cute.)



That is Tower Bridge, aptly named because it is located next to the Tower of London.





































It looks like a castle, doesn't it? It was painted blue to please the Queen (or future Queen? I forget what our tour guide said...) at the time (who's name Wikipedia won't specify) of opening, because her favorite color was blue.

I didn't take many pictures on my Kensington Gardens excursion yesterday, mainly because I didn't feel like looking like a tourist and whipping out my camera every five seconds. However, it's lovely. And expansive. I was glad a bought a croissant before I left, or I would've been starving! (There was a whole issue with coinage, the first incident I've had with not being able to count. Durr. It was embarrassing AND it was a French pastry shop, so the girl asked me if I wanted it for takeaway in French and I had no idea what she was saying. Suffice it to say that I was beet red by the time I left the shop!)

I spent about two hours walking around the gardens and walking back--though part of that can be attributed to the fact that I got a bit lost downtown walking back. ha. I just kept going until I hit a main road, though, and then I was set.

It's really neat. Inside there are a few memorials, an Italian fountain (where I stopped to write a letter for a while!), rose gardens (obviously not flowering right now), sports fields, groves of trees, running and cycling trails, and an enormous duck pond. I swear, there had to be at least 200 ducks, Canadian and snowy geese there, and people feeding them! It was also sweet to see moms and dads pushing their kids in strollers to feed the ducks. On Sundays, artists gather outside the gardens and hang their works on the rails, so I passed a few blocks of "art galleries" on my way home.

Because I'm a huge loser, I get a real kick out of this "Fresh paint" sign on the Ambassadors door. I also did not feel like a huge creep taking a picture of it.

Heading out to send a few postcards now. If you're lucky, you might be receiving one!