London!

Aside from the lack of a train to Hogwarts, London was pretty awesome. I spent the weekend visiting one of my oldest friends who is studying at the London Dramatic Academy for the year. The weekend had it's ups and downs (the weather being the main down). On Thursday night when I arrived we immediately went to the famous Absolut IceBar. That was definitely something to experience. Absolutely everything is made of ice, and they give you huge parkas to wear when you walk in. Friday I got to walk around by myself a little while my friend was in class. I checked out a flea market on the street which had a ton of cool stuff for relatively cheap (aka cheap in pounds...). After successfully dodging traffic for a few hours I met back up with Maddie. Friday night we went a little outside of London to see the premiere of a play that she had been interning at this semester. Before we got there though we got to check out the sight of an important scene from Closer, which is one of my favorite movies!! Saturday we spent the day at Covent Garden Market to see all of the upcoming St. Patricks Day festivities. Of course we made time for a little discount shopping too. Also I was extremely excited for Saturday night because I got to meet up with Bobby, one of my good friends from Northeastern. It was so good to see him and to spend some time catching up. Unfortunately, we had saved most of the typical sightseeing (i.e. Big Ben, Tower Bridge, Changing of the Guards, Notting Hill...) until Sunday. Of course it was pouring rain that day. The Changing of the Guards didn't happen, but I did get to see Buckingham Palace. And I do have one picture of Big Ben from halfway across the city. Obviously it wasn't ideal, but what can you do. We did get a nice surprise though while taking refuge in a small cafe by Picadilly Circus. As we were trying to warm up, the official St. Paddys Day Parade went right by our cafe. We got to see the whole thing AND stay warm! So that was definitely a nice treat :)

Here are some pictures from London:

Maddie and I at the Absolut IceBar

Double-Decker Bus!

In Postmans Park - Scene from 'Closer'

Picadilly Circus

Buckingham Palace

Our view of the St. Paddys Parade!

While seeing all of the excitement for St. Patricks Day in London was incredibly cool, it also hit home a bit. St. Paddys is one of the most fun days at Northeastern, and in Boston in general. Missing out on it this year definitely made me "school-sick". When I got back to Lyon I realized that my friend Meg was suffering the same thing. So to cheer ourselves up we got dressed in our Red Sox gear and blasted Dropkick Murphy's. Hey, it may not be Boston...but who says we can't pretend!