Making London our own...

Cheers from cold-weathered windy London!

Seriously - cheers- everyone says it all the time. Time for a blog update - my favourite part of the day most days. I'm sitting here in the hallway with my scone and raspberry jam (one morning I'll sacrifice and just eat yogurt) and I'm ready to write for you guys.

Let's start of with the weather. Definitely fall and it's only supposed to get worse from here. I wore my peacoat this evening because well, it was cold. Anywho I will go back to the beginning of the day. Did I mention that Kemper and I sat down and planned out our weekend on Thursday? I know it sounds great - but four day weekends can be a mess. You really don't know what to do with yourself if you don't tell yourself what to do - if that makes sense.

Anyway I slept late this morning (you're allowed to do that on Saturdays...) and I woke up around eleven thirty. I was the only one in the kitchen so I blasted the Beatles off of my computer and cleaned up the sink. (I'm pretty sure there was some awkward dancing and singing.) Then I made myself an egg sandwich and hopped on over to Kemper's flat. She and I had planned to go pick out our artists for our Art and Architecture presentation on Wednesday. We had to go to Tate Britain, one of the many London art museums. So - that was our cultural thing for the day. :)

Of course, we get out of the flat and realize we have no idea where we're going. Neither of us had a map either of course, so we called Mandi and asked for directions. We ended up walking along the Thames because from the directions she gave us we understood that the museum was near Parliament on the path on the North side. Well...today there just happened to be an international rowing regatta going on. So...we had to look at that.

There were definitely people from different countries, and uhm...different levels of skill all over the place. There was this one boat of elves. Not kidding. I took a picture you'll see what I mean. Anyway, we enjoyed watching the mess of boats glide down the river as we searched for our quarry. We finally found the museum and walked in.

We have to pick an artist from the time period spanning the 1500s to the 1900s. I picked John Martin, who is famous for his series of biblical paintings entitled "The Last Judgement" and so on. I meant to take a picture of his paintings. There are two in the museum and they are huge - which is partly why I picked him. I love huge paintings - mostly because I feel that I would never have the patience to paint something huge. Anyway, the colours in the paintings are AMAZING!

We hopped a ride back on the tube from Pimlico station (no idea how to pronounce that one). And when we got back we headed to the Senate House Library (UL's library) and all I can say is that that library has it out for me! Sheesh. I couldn't figure out how to access the online scholarly journals. It was so frustrating. I was going to get enough information on John Martin the English Painter today and then I wouldn't have to worry about that homework anymore. WELL...I will just go back on Monday afternoon and use a couple of the reference books. The library closes at five something on Saturdays.

After that escapade of frustrating unfruitful searching, we came back to the flat. I made some really good vegetable stir fry. I liked it a lot man. (Probably I was just hungry. I don't know. Haha.) Anywho, after that we both (Kemper and I) wanted to go chill at a nice little coffe cafe place. WELL...the thing about London is that things close down really early. Even their student union thing closes down at seven thirty. I wanted some coffee and she wanted some food - so...we had to consult google.

It was about six or something like that. We found this place online called Candid Cafe that is open until ten. WELL it was also within walking distance of the flat. TEN is totally late over here. I can only figure that things close even earlier on the weekend because most of the city is full of commuters? I don't know, but I know it's frustrating because I don't want to sit in my flat all the time. No - especially because the walls are bright white and I don't have my infamous wall of Jimi Hendrix, Rolling Stones, and Beatles posters...

Anywho, so we made our way to the cafe. It was little sketchtastic...but not really. Let me explain - we got there early enough to where there was still light outside, but we had to go to the second floor to get to the cafe. The cafe is literally located on a little cobblestone alley right off of a busy main street. There was a hopping bar not fifteen feet from the sketchy door. Anyway - we walked up the really spindly stairs and we opened this door that led to a darkened hallway. We were both about to turn around when I just decided to open the other door.

I could hear music on the other side and there was a definite warm light glowing through the fuzzy windowpane. Anyway, we opened up and walked into a lovely little cafe. It was decorated with a definite eclectic style and had red walls. The people were really nice and they had an even better Mocha than Grace does near St. Pauls. Anyway we got a nice little chair and a couch to sit down at, and we had a little chair. There were candles all round and weird art things. I haven't felt some comfortable in an establishment here yet. We didn't feel rushed or like we were being stared at or anything and we were definitely in a local place. I didn't hear a single American accent.

Anywho - we spent our evening there trying out annotating different sections of Shakespeare. We have a commentary like thing due in two weeks and we want to get a head start. We also read bits of the guardian and such (quickly and quite obviously my new favourite news publication)...anyway. It was a good time. Yes, we did walk back in the dark, but we were safe. We were two, not one, and we walked quickly.

Now I'm sitting in my flat all warm wondering if it's going to snow whilst I'm here? I can't wait till Mom and Dad get their butts over here there's so much to see. I like when Kemper and I can make London our own by finding little fun cafes like that. Who wants to sit in a dingy cold flat all the time? I feel like London (the city) and I could maybe be getting closer to being friendly with one another. I miss you guys so much.

These are pictures from the past couple of posts - so read the captions! Enjoy!

Cheers!