Nine Lives

I wrote my mom an email at the beginning of the week, explaining to her all the things we've done so far, and how I love it all and it's all so pretty. Well, she wrote back saying, "Dad commented how you don't seem to remember any of these places you have been. We took you to all of them so far...Kew Gardens IS beautiful. You children used to run around there in the different parts of the garden..." This took me aback a little bit, because I know I did live here and probably already did so much of this but I don't remember. It's like I'm living a second life, where I'm re-seeing everything for the first time. It sounds lame, but it's strange to think how much we do in our lives that we don't remember, or the memory slips away. Also our childhood memories, those days that were so carefree and unlimited, I can barely remember. It's a surreal kind of feeling.

Anyways, back to this week. Sunday, we visited a place I know I have been before: Hyde Park. It was very relaxing and nice to sit in beautiful weather (finally!). Also saw the Princess Diana memorial fountain, which I was kind of disappointed by. It wasn't as majestic as I wanted it to be, but then, after seeing all the kids running through it and peeing in it, I thought this would have been just how Diana would have wanted it to have been. Putting smiles on people's faces.

After Hyde Park, which I want to go back to asap, we took a LAME canal boat trip. It was nice for about 2 seconds. Then we spent the next few hours wandering around Camden Town Market, which was crazy. Lots of people, shops, smells, amazing-looking food, weird-looking people. Ate a our FMIR's house that night, which was sooo cute! Really makes me want to live here someday. Playing with Gretchen in the backyard, a very intelligent and sneaky 7-year-old, was so fun and a good ending to the day.

Monday, we saw The White Guard, which was a surprisingly really good but intense play written by Mikhail Bulgakov.



Tuesday we got to go inside Parliament and watch a little bit of debate in the House of Commons. The Hall was beautiful (I'll put up a picture soon) and it has been around for 1000 years. Insane. I really wanted to break out into song and dance to hear the acoustics, but one of the professor's said they might arrest me so I refrained. We also got to see Big Ben up close!

Then last night, went out for drinks with Macki and on of my JMU professors, Wolf. It was a nice break from the group and a chill night to talk about theatre and random things at the Marquis and the Russell Hotel Bar. I originally wanted to see Leona Lewis performing here last night, but I didn't want to go by myself...and guess what. Matthew Morrison from Glee showed up and played a few songs with her. Cool.

Leaving for Edinburgh tomorrow morning bright and early eek!! Bring on the Haggis! Well, maybe not..

Song/Music Video of the day: All The Right Moves (OneRepublic)