First London Weekend

We arrived to our flat around 1pm London time on Friday, after driving around Regents Park to see where we will be working in Euston Square. We explored around the neighborhood for most of the afternoon, had orientation with our housing director, and after we were all settled we went to the pub next door to our townhouse for dinner. Turns out the bartender actually had just moved to London from Dallas after graduating from OU! After dinner we ran by Tesco’s to pick up some things we had forgotten at the grocery store earlier, and when we got back to our flat, our apartment mate was there. Her name is also Cassie, and she has been in London studying since January. She lives in the one bedroom on the first floor, the kitchen and living/dining space are on the second floor, and then Sally, Ayumi (the third TU intern) and I share a bedroom on the third floor. We have two bunkbeds and tons of dresser/closet space, and a nice sized bathroom too. On the fourth floor are two more double occupancy bedrooms that won’t be used until June.

Friday night, Harvey (Jessica is her first name- she is a friend from Tulsa who has been studying in Canterbury this semester for those of you that don't know!) came into town for the weekend. We hadn't seen her since we left for school in December, so I am sure we startled a few people walking around Kilburn as we ran towards each other on the sidewalk outside of the tube stop. If you have ever seen Harvey run, then you know what I am talking about. Harv, Sall, Ayumi, I pretty much spent all of Saturday and Sunday exploring. Saturday we went to Parliament Square, Big Ben, the Tate Britain museum, the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Evensong Service at Westminster Abbey (Sally and Ayumi both kept falling asleep, making it difficult for Harvey and I to contain ourselves), Leicester Square(the theatre district), and ate dinner in Chinatown with Jackie Teague who is also from Tulsa and just finished up her semester internship at the Diorama.

Today we slept in shamefully late, but not on purpose! It was just the jet lag kicking in. We did manage to get to the National Portrait Gallery, where the Vanity Fair exhibit we wanted see was sold out- apparently that has been the case every weekend since it opened, but we are going to try to get there sometime this week after work. We went up to Camden to the huge market they have there and then walked over to Regent's Park, which is absolutely beautiful. We walked to Euston Square too, and then took the tube to Picadilly Circus for dinner at a vegetarian Indian restaurant. None of us really knew what we were ordering, but it was definitely good! After that we befriended a Frenchman at a little pastry shop, where he gave us far more desserts than we needed, and then walked to Buckingham Palace to eat them and wait for the Queen to come out and join us. She did not. We then got lost looking for the hotel we stayed at the last time we visited London, but eventually found it, and then got on the wrong line to get home on the tube, but eventually made our way home.

So far, London is great. We have encountered plenty of friendly people willing to help show us around, including a Russian man that personally escorted the four of us to the Tate Britain; he just whistled and talked the entire way. It is really easy to get lost, but we are getting better. Tomorrow is our first day of work, so we will update more later this week!