a day in London

Pierce and I saw Jay-Z in Hyde Park on the 4th and then spent a full 12 hour day in London on the 5th. Our hostel experience was alright..... we stayed in a 6 bed room (bunk beds) and returned from the concert to find that the other 6 guests were all asleep, which meant we had to be extra quiet (somehow, this always happens to us, even when we come back early). Also, the room was somehow flooded from the shower in the bathroom. Luckily, we got to check out in the morning...and I couldn't complain too much because the hostel was something like 13 pounds a night? Super cheap.


This was my 5th time in London, I believe, so there wasn't much I wanted to do. Nothing much to do other than Notting Hill, obviously. Pierce had been to London before but never to Notting Hill. I assured him it would be worth his time, so Notting Hill was our first stop the morning of the 5th. My dad first took me to Notting Hill my first time in London and it was my favorite day of our family's trip to the UK (although he wouldn't let me go in all the stores I wanted...). Pierce and I spent 3-4 hours there. I have made it a point to go to Notting Hill every time I've been to London so I have a few favorite spots....I'd lying if I said my absolute favorite place isn't Falafel King. Pierce and I got falafel pitas and then I had to stop Pierce from going back to get another.

After this, I stepped into one of my favorite vintage stores. The woman in the store was styling the manequin in the window and struggling over which clothes looked best on it. She told me she liked what I was wearing and asked if I'd style it for her. I did and she said, "You should do that for a living"...I wanted to say, "Yeah, I did this for a living in Stillwater for 3 years."...but I didn't. I did, however, purchase a few things and she gave me a very nice discount that she probably gives to everyone.  But I didn't care!  A discount is a discount.

Following our Notting Hill adventures, Pierce and I went to the Aquarium, only to find out that it cost too much money for our very tight budgets so I decided to get a sweet treat instead. What's ironic is that I ended up paying almost as much for a waffle covered in homemade ice cream and strawberries. And let's face it -- I'd rather have a sweet treat than admission to the London Aqaurium, especially when the treat is as good as this one was (though I really only ate the ice cream and strawberries and gave Pierce the waffle....once again, my parents' voices echo through my head as I think "my eyes were bigger than my stomach").

Following the sweet treat, I convinced Pierce that we should go to Top Shop. 3 hours later, I was convincing Pierce that we needed to leave Top Shop because he wanted to try on every single item on the boys' floors. He also wanted me to follow him around and tell him what looked good and what didn't. I think he spent over 200 USD that day on clothes. Luckily for me, I did not.

I love London and I think I could live there someday. There are few places in Europe that make me feel that way -- in fact, other than Germany and Austria, there's only London. I definitely could never live in Paris. No way. Ironically, a few hours after Top Shop, I was on the Chunnel to Paris. By myself. To see Bubba. (And Emma!)  More to come about that.