In London?!?!?!

London Eye

So Labor Day Weekend I went to London.  Emily was going there to see a friend and Andrea was going to visit her sister.  Plus, I've been there twice and they speak English, so I feel totally comfortable being by myself there.  On Friday Emily and I took a taxi, 2 trains, a bus, a plane, a subway, and walked to our destinations in London!  Since I've been there and done all of the touristy stuff multiple times (seen Changing of the Guard 3 times and it is still SUPER LAME!), I decided to have a chill weekend.  Emily visited and stayed with her old college roommate who lives there and I got a hotel by myself for the night (Thank you parents for you hotel points!!). 

Looking down at London!

I stayed in a hotel in the Covent Garden area, which is the in the theater district area so there are lots of cool shops, pubs, and people which makes it a great place to just walk around.  It's also very centralized, which is what I wanted.  After checking into the hotel it was about 5:00, so still daylight, so I decided to take a nice walk try my luck at doing the London Eye (I'm an optometrist, I need to do all things related to "eyes"!!!!).  Ok, so the eye is actually a HUGE ferris wheel in which allows for amazing views over central London.  It's not like a scary carnival ride, where it feels like you are dangling from death.  You are in an enclosed capsule with other people and you don't even feel like you're moving.  It was a GORGEOUS evening and getting close to sunset, so I got some amazing pictures!!!

After the Eye, I caught a cab to the theater where I saw Dirty Dancing.  Originally, I thought I may be going to the play with some other people, but that didn't work out.  So I decided to be gutsy and go, since I really wanted to see it.  I must admit I had some reservations about seeing a play by myself, since that does seem rather loserish, but then I decided not to care.  It was GREAT!!!!  Such a fun show if you like the movie!

The next day I checked out of the hotel and walked around my area of the city a bit.  Had some coffee, went to Trafalgar Square, saw the Texas Embassy, and eventually made my way to Harrods!  Harrods is amazing!  It's a luxury department store/restaurant/market/tourist attraction all in one. The food halls are out of this world!  They have everythings and are first class!  I bought some teas, and some super cute cupcakes to take to a BBQ at my friend's sister's house that afternoon.  I seriously spent like 2 hours wondering around this place! 

I eventually made my way across town to Borough Market.  An outdoor food market which is so neat.  I ate some great food (all natural no lactose/sugar smoothie, a lamb "bap" (sandwich) with mint jelly, and some other cool stuff).  I met up with Emily and her friend Robin, so it made it nice to wonder around.  After roaming around the market for a while I decided to get my stuff and head out to North London where I was staying with Andrea's sister and sister's boyfriend for the weekend. 

Need a fresh rabbit?

P.S.  Did I mention the weather this whole weekend was UNBELIEVABLY AMAZING!  3 days in London, no rain!  Wow!

Made it to North London, found their flat.  They were having a BBQ (with lots of really good wine!) with some of their friends.  They are both artsy people and work in the film industry, so they had some really interesting friends, all of whom were super nice and fun to talk to!  We had a great night in their garden talking, drinking wine, listening to music, roasting marshmellows, and watching a dance party!

On Sunday, we woke up went to breakfast (late) and went to Air Studios.  They know a guy who works there to let us in. Glen is a nice, jolly, man from New Zealand who resembles Santa Clause in some ways.  He also kind of reminds me of Hagrid from Harry Potter.  He was super nice.  Air Studios is like an old church, in which they now do all the orchestra recordings for all of the major films.  We got to sit in the balcony and watch/listen to the 82 piece orchestra record music for the new Chronicles of Narnia movie!  It was sooooo cool!!!  Plus, you get to see clips of the movie as the matching music. 

Air Studios

We then went to Camden market which as a little more funky/artsy vibe and they sell more clothes and stuff.  Markets are always such fun!  That night Andrea, her sister Leah, and her sister's boyfriend Derek went out and had the best Indian food I have every had in my life!!  It was so good! 

Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross Station!!!  If you've seen Harry Potter you get this!

Oh, so they work with Tim Burton, and after dinner we got to go by "Rackham" which is where their offices are.  It was a really cool old house with lots of weird stairs and a lot of character, very appropriate for Tim Burton offices I thought (I mean, they can't work in cubicles!).  I got to see Tim Burton's actual office where he works!  There's a random claw leg bathtub and toilet in there, apparently it came with the house, he doesn't use it as a place to think, I just thought it was random! They were such nice hosts and all of their friends were great which made for a great weekend and an awesome London experience!!!