My London weekend with Adam

I've been to London before this last weekend. Each time I was a bit disappointed. It's just another big city. I didn't really feel this culture or eclecticism one suggests they feel when they explore the city. However, in London's defense, I was always there on a mission i.e. an appointment at the American Embassy or LIMUN participation (see March 27 2010 post.) I didn't really get time to explore. This last weekend, I did!

Adam is working for 2 weeks on placement (internship) with the BBC World Service Africa Department. I'm not really good at being away from my best friend, so on Friday night I took the 3 hour bus ride to London and spent the weekend. We had such an amazing time and now...I kinda want to live there. Crap. I'm not supposed to like London! It's too expensive!

Saturday morning we went to Covent Gardens which is a big market full of higher class foods and wares. We walked around for a while, dreaming of all the things we would buy when we had a job and money. Then we went to the food area of the market. This was my favorite part. Fresh bread, fresh oysters on a half shell, fresh cheese, fresh everything! We walked around for a good 45 minutes trying to decide what to buy and finally decided on a loaf of bread, a Greek cheese, cherry tomato and thyme spread (this was amazing) and some sheeps milk cheese (surprisingly delicious.) We sat down on a curb and watched an older man sing in the street. Apparently the guy had been discovered by a movie director who paid him to record only one of his songs to be used for "The Upside of Anger" with Kevin Costner and Joan Allen. His 15 minutes. That was pretty cool. After that, we had 6 oysters on a half shell. They were fantastic. It was such a lively part of town! Every vendor was extremely nice and outgoing. They all wanted to talk; for some reason a Scottish man dating a little American girl is worth looking into. One guy walked up to us, trying to get Adam to buy me a rose. Of course we tried to politely walk away (it was a pink rose) and he said something that made me laugh. He then looks at me intently and says, "Are you American?" I replied in the affirmative to which he quickly replied, "I thought so! Nice dentist! Nice teeth! Nice dentist, nice dentist!" It was kind of embarrassing, but also flattering. I like my teeth but I didn't think they were worth yelling over in the middle of a market.

After that we walked around and decided we would try to see a play on the famous West End. We looked all over for something cheap and came upon Avenue Q, a play intermingled with puppets who teach things about life and sing songs. It was hilarious! Then after, we walked down to Westminster--an area in London--and saw Parliament, Big Ben, the London Eye, the rebuilt Globe Theater (Shakespeare's theatre) and walked the Thames.

The next day we went to Camden Market. This place was insane but so cool! It was right on a canal and the way to get to the market was to cross this really old, curved, cobblestone foot bridge. Inside there were tons of world foods (Peru, West Africa, generic South America, Poland, Italian and tons more.) We had two Arepas (a type of corn bread) stuffed with chicken (me) and beef (Adam.) We also had fresh squeezed lemonade, a commodity in the UK because their 'lemonade' is Sprite. Behind the food section was the biggest wares market I've ever seen. It was deceptively large, in fact, because it had ally ways and tunnels that lead to other large universes of tents and stores. We were there for easily 4-5 hours and hardly dented the place. After, sadly, it was time to depart for Cardiff.

Adam took me to the coach station and saw me onto my bus. I was sad. My weekend, however, was phenomenal. I can't wait to go back...with money!

I made a video (my first one) if you're interested. I completely understand if you're not. It's almost 10 minutes long! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H7iX9YSA-U