I have yet to blog about last weekend updates on Team Bunkbed’s latest adventure in Europe. I’m sure I’ll get around to that later in the week, when I’m procrastinating writing the paper due a week from tomorrow, and not procrastinating writing the paper due tomorrow, which is my current situation (speaking of, how has Jersey Shore been?). In the meantime, it feels right to update on some of the local things I’ve been doing, the things that have made me truly fall in love with London.
This is the first weekend that I really feel like a Londoner. It hit me at some point last week while I was walking around Westminster in my business causal with all of the other working people. I finally feel like I fit in here. I’m sure it has something to do with the fact that I can pay for things in coins without examining the numbers on each one, but I’d like to think that’s only part of this new feeling. I’ve been here a month, so it’s about time I suppose. I’ve learned the subways, I’ve learned the area around my apartment, campus and job pretty well, and I’m really settling into this giant city. It feels good.
We have three day weekends here, so I decided to waste all of Friday hanging out, exploring, and not thinking about the paper that’s due tomorrow. I spent the morning finally unpacking from last weekend, organizing my room, hanging up pictures and newly purchased posters, and generally lounging around, because I could. It was the first day in three weeks I hadn’t needed to wake up to an alarm, and it was wonderful.
After running a couple of errands, including a high-stress trip to the post office to return boots I ordered online, I set off towards Whole Foods in SoHo in search of soy cream cheese. On the way, I had one of the most relaxing and fun days in London yet. I walked through the shop and restaurant-packed Covent Garden, doing a little bit of damage at H&M on the way. Then I wandered through Leichester Square, which is Times Square, only less sparkly.
The funny thing about Whole Foods in the US, is that I only go there for a few things, since it’s expensive and I don’t really know the brands there. But being in Whole Foods here, I actually knew more of the brand names than I do in British supermarkets. I bought my cream cheese (which was gross, annoying!) and chocolate soy milk, then wandered back through SoHo to Leichester Square to meet Kelsey for dinner.
On the way, I went into an apparently famous vintage magazine shop, which is basically a whole basement stocked with teen magazines, Playboy’s, LIFE’s, Vogue’s and everything else you can think of from recent years all the way back to the 40s. Most of them were in special packaging, so you couldn’t flip through them, but I’m a media geek and could have spent hours just looking at the covers. It was such a cool place. Upstairs had a ton of posters, including copies of vintage movie and concert posters. I may have to go back there near the end of this trip and pick up a French Wizard of Oz poster and a Beatles poster from and Asian country I couldn’t decipher the writing of.
Excuse the cheese, but it was just a really great afternoon for being in my own perfect wanderland.
Kelsey and I ended up getting dinner in Chinatown at a place called the Crispy Duck, which was much more delicious than it sounds. Chinatown was decorated with hundreds of Chinese lanterns in preparation for next weeks Chinese New Year, so it was even more fun to walk around.
Since we never miss dessert, after dinner we decided to find a gelato place in Covent Garden I had read about in my guide book. It was a phenomenal plan, Scoop is owned by an Italian woman, and all of the gelato is made fresh there every day. The gelato and sorbet was fantastic, not the quality of Rome’s Giolitti’s gelato, but right up there. I ate too much, but it was amazing so I couldn’t stop.
After an afternoon of working on my paper yesterday, Kelsey and I decided we needed to go out for dinner again. At this point we’re so used to traveling every weekend, that it’s almost like we need to be somewhere new in London to make up for it. Blame it on the wanderlust.
We ended up going for dinner near Picadilly Square (right in the area I had been the day before) at this amazing place called Melati on Great Windmill Street. The food is Malaysian, Indonesian and Singaporean, and I wasn’t familiar with any of those cuisines. I ordered a couple of things off the menu without being sure what I would really get, but it was all absolutely delicious. I think we’re going to try to go back again soon.
It’s just been a really great weekend in London, we’ve had beautiful weather. I haven’t worn my winter jacket all weekend, and I hear the East Coast is covered in snow. I know the weather thing won’t last, but I’m prepared for it. I’m just really happy to have had such a relaxing and enjoyable weekend in a place I can now happily refer to as home.
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