The best laid plans of mice and men....

Another big trip into the city today! Our plan was to head over the the London Eye, walk around for a few hours, tour Buckingham Palace (open on a rare occasion when the royal fam isn't home from their summer place yet!), and then walk the London Bridge at night. Good plan. 

However, there were major closures on the tube today for engineering work, and so Rena and I spent the first two hours of our journey going back and forth between three or four tube stations trying to find a way to get down to Westminster. After much confusion and much riding in circles, we finally made it down. We walked along the southern bank of the Thames for a bit, had lunch at the National Theatre's cafe, perused the book market under the Waterloo Bridge, and then headed over to the Palace! By the time we were done it was dinnertime, and then it was late, so we never did make it to the London Bridge. Another day!

The Eye from the pier.

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The Golden Jubilee suspension bridges.

Rowers on the Thames! (Note the rather large boats...)

Ben from the South Bank.

On the bridge!

Posing with my homies. 

The amazing view from the bridge.

Visit to the Palace!

Back side of the palace, facing the gardens.

Tea and (gorgeous) pastries after the tour of the palace!

Ben from Westminster.

Stumbled on this Japanese festival in Leicester Square!

Friday

Day off today (I have no classes on Thursday or Friday). Went on a walk east down Mile End to explore. There wasn't much to see, but I did get to chill in Mile End Park and read a book for class.

The fountain in Mile End Park. 

After lunch, Rena and I headed back over to Brick Lane to keep exploring. The whole road north of Mile End is a smorgasbord of cool thrift and vintage places (including an underground vintage flea market!!) as well as cute cafes and restaurants. Discovered a small square off the main road with a little gathering of food trucks, so we stopped for some amazing shredded BBQ beef for Rena. I however, was set on a reunion with Beigel Bake.

Rena and The Caboose!

UPDATE: After testing out the second Beigel Bake I determined that the southern most one is infinitely more heavenly and amazing, and am therefore dubbing it the 'real' Beigel Bake. The northern place, however, does have good plain bagels, and are really cheap to buy in bulk.

Once again, we need to come back to Brick Lane so many more times before we fully explore all its secrets.

First British rain!!

Finally! It rains in London!!

A robot on campus.....

So there was a giant purple robot outside my window today he was big a purple and he played music and said undecipherable things about recycling or something. His head came right up to my window.

#collegelife

Remember to recycle kiddies. 

Thriftin' and eatin' (all the important things...)

East End thrift shop today with Rena! About a 20 min. walk from campus, this places was hard to find (it's down a little back alley off of Mile End) but totally worth it once we got there! 10 quid to fill a bag, and fill we did! I got two pairs of jean overalls, a white leather skirt, a leather jacket, and a flannel lined jean vest. And I even convinced Rena to buy a little jean vest :)

The place was FILLED with leather jackets and jean overalls! Why? Who knows!

Stuff a bag for 10 quid (this took some finangleing, but fortunately Rena is the queen of fitting into tight places...)

My FABULOUS jean vest lined with super cozy flannel.

Next, it was off to Brick Lane for some bagels from the famous Beigel Bake on Brick Lane! It took much wandering and much more walking to finally make it to Brick Lane, but we stumbled on the cutest little neighborhood of vintage and thrift stores on Chesire Road! We must go back to explore!

The cute store fronts and graffiti art on Chesire Road off Brick Lane.

Beigel Bake itself, however, is AMAZING. It's literally life changing. I had a bagel with salted beef and mustard and it was indescribably wonderful. Rena and I loved our bagels so much, after chilling in a nearby cafe, we came back for a second round to bring home.
(Funny story: after buying our second round of bagels, we discovered that there are actually TWO Beigel Bakes, two store fronts apart on Brick Lane. We are actually not sure if we went to the right one or if they are the same owners or what, but we will have to go back to see if this other Beigel Bake is just as amazingly wonderful...)

Beigel Bake! (The right one??)

Look at it. It's perfect. It's literally perfect. 

Rena in the adorably rustic Kahaila Cafe nearby!

First Cornish Pasty!

Free in the quad outside my dorm :) Happy Thursday!

First British beer!

First British beer (and first legal beer) last night at The New Globe with Rena was a Fosters!

The bartender kinda looked at us funny when we asked for a recommendation...

But when the bar closed he let us carry it out in plastic cups. Surprising, since I'm pretty sure that's illegal in the US!

At the beach

Met a few of my flat mates tonight, they all seem so old, but they are just 19. Seems like they age so much faster than Americans do though!

One of them, Matt is from Ireland. But when I told him about living on the easy coast and being a big beach person, he told me he didn't really understand what you were supposed to do at the beach. Like, just sit there and be cold? So funny how the culture is different!

Westfield Stratford City

Rena and I visited Westfield Stratford City this afternoon, which despite it's name is actually a mall that is actually a small city. Based on size, it is the largest shopping center in the European Union, with 1.9 million square feet of retail space. There are 4-5 floors of stores, plus two hotels and a casino, as well as free charging stations for cell phones (because this place is so big you need to rest/gamble/charge your phone before you make it all the way through). Many of the stores are multiple floors high. It was kind of overwhelming.

A few store highlights:

Disney store cause #duh. 

Crocs store. Why. 

Free (!!!) charging stations for phones where you lock your phone into the little cubbies and come back in 30 min. Cause lets be honest, this is necessary. 

And TK (not J) Maxx. Cause apparently K is a more meaningful letter to Londoners.

Also, fun fact about the Stratford Tube station:
The floor tiles generate energy through the collection of the kinetic energy of people's footsteps. The technology is called PaveGen Tiles.

First dinner in London!

First dinner in London was with this beautiful lady at The Greedy Cow about a block from campus:

We just happened to stumble on this place after the first restaurant we tried was actually only a bar (awkward). They describe their fare as "steaks and exotic burgers", which means they serve camel, kangaroo and ostrich burgers. And as if that wasn't enough, they also are famous for their milkshakes, including bubblegum flavor (with steak??). 

Here's my camel burger with homemade lemonade:

So good, like beef but sweeter. I want ten more. And I need to go back and try all the other crazy kinds now. Also, their cheesecake was like whipped white fluffy goodness with a similar taste as American cheesecake, but more magical. Great night out!

A walk to Boots...

Walked to Boots today with Jayne and Rena and the gang. Quite a trek from campus but saw some great signs! 

First, some Xanax for the crazy London traffic:

Then MANSIZE tissues (not sure whether to laugh or be offended). This tissue box was GIGANTIC. Also, mansize IS a real word, according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, literally meaning a job or portion big enough for a man. Cool. 

Finally, this. What is humped zebra I don't even know. 

A life in bags

Well, packing sucks but then it's done and it makes this underwhelming pile:

Now off to bed for a 2am wake up call (ooph)!

What's in a blog name?

In the search for a perfect name for this blog, I have spent a full hour using online name and word generators. While I eventually settled on my original title, The London Log, here were some other honorable mentions:

#yolondon.blogspot.com

My personal favorite. Hashtags are classic and perfect for dating something within minutes.

abitabroad.blogspot.com

This one was kinda cute, but a little too cute.

2london.blogspot.com

Cute, but sounds like something a adult comes up with while trying to seem young and hip.

foreignstudyclub.blogspot.com

...or some variation. Very Dead Poets Society, don't you think? (Note: I have never seen that movie.)

londoning.blogspot.com

A jewel from a random word generator. Still considering hashtagging this throughout my blog with reckless abandon. 

Why we keep a travel journal

"A true journal presents us with the more riotous and disorganized reality. The various stages of development are there, but they are jumbled up, counterposed and repeated randomly. The selves jostle for prominence in these pages... It doesn't make sense; the logical, perceived progression never takes place. The true journal in time understands this fact and doesn't try to posit any order or hierarchy, doesn't try to judge or analyze: I am all these different people-all these different people are me."

"We keep a journal to entrap that collection of selves that forms us, the individual human being."

-Any Human Heart, William Boyd