London Loops

This past weekend (starting Thanksgiving) I was in London visiting Kristiana. I’m very grateful that she let me stay in her room and even share her bed (I think this was a tough one for her). We were together for the most part, and it was a relaxing yet exciting change from Paris.

If you look back a couple posts, you might recall my incident with almost missing the train…. well seemingly I never learn and I almost missed the train again! I took the Eurostar from Paris to London and back and it’s really convenient and simple. BUT of course I didn’t account for things correctly. I didn’t realize that there would be check points for security and customs which is kind of dumb of me. The other time I went out of country, we went by bus and there were no customs stops. And the other times I’ve taken the train, it’s been within France so you just go straight to the train. So long story short, I literally barely made it. Thankfully I did though!

When I arrived, I met Kristiana at her dorm and got a bit settled. I think at that point she had something to do for an a few hours so I went to her schools campus center or what felt like a campus center. It was nice because I did have work to be done. I think it’s mostly psychological, but London had a certain je ne sais quoi. I tried to explain to Kristiana but it’s kind of difficult. It’s just the feeling that you know people speak English and that puts me more at ease. I guess you would say it’s comforting. Not that you will talk to people, but knowing that if you do, you won’t have any problems or doubts solely on the level of language.

We reconvened in a Pret a Manger and ended up staying there for a while just talking and debating (low-key arguing but that’s just how we are together). I like hanging out with Kristiana because we always discuss things that I usually don’t feel like talking about with other people (like ethical issues). She has strong arguments and the knowledge to back it up so I feel challenged when we debate. I love the other Smithies in the program, but there are only a select few that I feel like I can have these conversations because I have to feel like the other person has the ability to understand the experiences I try to convey before I can really share my point of view. Ya feel?

Anyways, after that, we did various things. We went to the National Portrait Gallery for about an hour. It was nice but when it comes to old dead royalty, it’s not the most interesting to me. The more modern portraiture is always more fun. The next task at hand was to find a dinner worthy of counting for a Thanksgiving. We settled on this curry katsu place that ended up being perfect in my opinion! It was definitely a ton of food. Oh yeah, before that though, we went to this Filipino dessert place and I had a really good ube ice cream blog. Recommend 100%!! After that, we were very tired (especially me) so we headed back.

The rest of the trip, it’s hard for me to differentiate what happened which day… but it was a lot of eating really delicious food (I’ll just put photos!) and looking at shops. Friday, I was alone for a while because Kristiana was volunteering. So I just got work done in a cafe. We went to a Moomin shop?! That was so cute!! We got free face masks from Lush (pro tip: go to different Lushes just for sample size face masks which is actually enough for probably 3 uses and never have to actually buy them haha). At some point, Kristiana convinced me to buy an egirl looking dress…. We walked across this romantic bridge several times.

Kristiana being scared to take a photo with this dumpling guy because a lady who worked there was standing outside the door. But when we did ask her she was super nice about it so we were just being scared babies

The attack on the London Bridge was Friday and I was just chilling in a coffee shop (while Kristiana was volunteering) when it happened. No one in the shop seemed freaked out, and afterwards, we just carried on the rest of the days like normal. Which is weird to think about, but I guess there’s not much else we could have done.

the matcha latte I was having...

ugly (this is a slideshow display so click through)

My last day, we went to Nando’s and saw a movie we were trying to see the other days. We met up with one of my good friends from the Paris program, Katie, for the movie. The price was a bit ridiculous but we were committed to seeing it so it happened. The movie was Last Christmas, and it was…. interesting. I won’t spoil anything, but it wasn’t what I thought it would be. I think the ending was quite controversial but personally it just gave me a good chuckle. In reviews they were saying it was a love letter to London or something, so I think it was a good end to the trip.

just some cheeky nandos

Another thing Kristiana and I did was attempt to plan out winter break plans. Because the first week I’m with Lucy and Malika but the second week Kristiana and I were going to travel together… now I’m unsure about what’s going to happen. I acted a bit early, and I have un refundable tickets to Nuremberg, Germany now… So it looks like whether or not Kristiana is there, I’ll be there for New Years. It’s because she lives about an hour from there and it’s the closest bus/airport and we were saying we could just stay at her house in Germany. But for her dad’s work, they might be moving again and it’s uncertain whether or not that move will happen before the period in question. I hope it works out….

But anyways, I had a really fun time with my good friend Kristiana, and I’m so grateful that she was able to hang out most of the time. After all, we’re both busy students and all….

In other news, there’s going to be these huge strikes Thursday where practically all public transport will be out of commission. It’s supposed to be Thursday and continuing on indefinitely, so I don’t know how much things will be affected… But anyways, it’s good because my classes are cancelled haha.