On Sunday, everyone was very busy finishing up papers before our finals, so I just went to Kensington Gardens and read for a little while. I think I might have said once that I live right on Hyde Park; that's not actually true. Directly to the west, connected to Hyde Park, in Kensington Gardens. It's kind of confusing, but that's the park I actually live on. Anyway, the forecast before the week started was for regular, overcast London weather and rain, but overnight the whole week's forecast changed to sunny! I was very excited. It's been warm and beautiful out, so I got to enjoy the temperature and the flowers in the park.
Monday evening/night I met my friend Steph in Notting Hill for dinner. We went to a pub called the Old Swan (that I realize I had been to earlier in the semester when we got there) and had dinner and drinks for a few hours and finally left when these creepy old Canadian guys were talking to us. It was nice to walk around Notting Hill for a bit because it's a really cute area. Before we went, I wanted to check online for filming locations from the Notting Hill movie to see if there was anything I haven't seen but wanted to. There wasn't, but the site I found said that Julia Roberts' character's final movie premiere is at this theater in Leicester Square that I've been too. I'll have to watch that movie when I get home so I can be obnoxious and point out all the places I've been (like outside the Ritz). They actually hold a lot of premieres in Leicester Square. I don't think I wrote here that about a month ago I was there to see Confessions of Shopaholic and I heard this really loud screaming. Across the square was a huge crowd of girls waiting outside a theater for the premiere of 17 Again, Zac Efron's newest movie. Maybe I did write about that... but it was pretty funny. And loud.
After class on Tuesday I met up with my roommate from sophomore year, Cherelle, and went to a bar in Covent Garden called Dirty Martini. It was really cute, and I got a very interesting Cherry Blossom Martini and a yummy chocolate martini.
Wednesday morning I went to Covent Garden to just check in for the last time because I didn't really do anything the night before but go to the bar there. I did make a little detour before the bar to get a picture of the Drury Lane street sign. Unfortunately, there were no bakeries on the street for me to buy a muffin at. I think this is really dumb; somebody could make a killing off tourists if they had a bakery on that street called The Muffin Man.
I decided to walk to the Mandeville Hotel, where I was meeting Alice, even though it was a half hour away because it was so pretty out, so I got to walk down Oxford Street and stop in at Selfridges again. We met at the Mandeville for our last British afternoon tea, which was served in an adorable room with cute furniture and decor. The teas were interesting, too. Alice got a rose flavored tea that had little roses floating in the pot, and I got a jasmine flavored one. Unlike the other places we went to, they didn't leave the teapots on the table, but instead came and refilled them for us whenever we ran out. There were also, of course, scones (YUM I LOVE SCONES AND DEVONSHIRE CREAM), little sandwiches, and cute cakes and fruit things. It was all very yummy.
I took a little break after that, and then went to check out Little Venice with another friend. I imagine the real Venice will be more impressive. This was just a little canal with some boathouses in it. And no Italian restaurants nearby. I did, though, get to go to the Warwick Avenue tube stop, which was fun because there's a popular song called "Warwick Avenue" by a singer named Duffy, and she talks about meeting by the entrance of the Tube. Except, actually, she pronounces it the way it looks -- War-wick -- but my boss said it's actually pronounced "war-ick" and Duffy is Welsh and an idiot. And the Tube announcer said "war-ick" too. So I guess Duffy just doesn't know what she's talking about.
Thursday started out with my final, and I didn't have time to do anything fun because I had packing and a bunch of other errands to do. We celebrated a friend's birthday that night, though, so we started drinking at around 6:30 -- totally normal by British standards -- and went to a pub called O'Neil's near Leicester Square. I got kind of choked up on the way home because we walked through Piccadilly Circus, which we do a lot when we go out here because that's where a lot of the good nightlife is. It was also the first touristy thing I did when I came here in January, so it was all kind of coming full circle and I got sad.
Today, Friday, I took a quick trip to Shoreditch to check out Spittalfield's Market because I had heard it was great, but realized when I got there that it was the market I stumbled upon a while ago when I was in the area to go to the Madonna exhibit. We got lunch, saw that, walked down Brick Lane, and came back to the Crofton to finish all the crazy errands we had to do, like bring out suitcases to Heathrow to store. I went to the Stanhope Arms, a pub, for dinner with Alice, where a guy questioned us about Americans using ketchup on everything. The whole time I've been here, I never noticed that the Brits don't actually use ketchup. I guess they put vinegar on their fries. Ew.
Also, yesterday some British guy asked me for directions somewhere and I was able to tell him! I was so excited; it was the perfect sendoff. Especially because it wasn't somewhere easy like Piccadilly Circus or Buckingham Palace, but a really obscure place: the Royal Thai Embassy. Granted, it's right down the street from me. But still.
And some last pictures of, respectively, my room, my kitchen, and the sign above a Barclay's "cash point" (ATM):
Now, off to Venice, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, and Paris! I'll try to update if I can!
XOXO
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