I’m way behind on my blogging, so I’ve decided to pump out a few entries this week. This one is about the last two weeks of March, which I spent in London. The following entries will be about my Easter break in Belgium and Paris! But first, I finally did a little bit of exploring around other parts of England!

Two weekends ago I decided to go on a day trip to Oxford, Stratford-Upon-Avon, and Warwick Castle. Oxford is, of course, the town where Oxford College is located and Stratford-Upon-Avon is the quaint little town where Shakespeare grew up. Warwick Castle was one of many castles that existed in a great ring of protection around London, but is one of the only ones still remaining. I found a tour company that travels to all three locations, although my main interest in going had little to do with culture and more to do with wanting to see where Harry Potter was filmed at Oxford.

Oxford town was the first stop; the whole place had a medieval feel to it and wherever you looked there was some ancient building or castle wall still standing. Oxford College is pretty much Hogwarts and I’m incredibly envious of everyone who goes there. One of the residences is called Christchurch, which consists of a Great Hall where students eat their meals – it’s also the Great Hall where filming took place for the first few Harry Potter movies. The biggest disappointment ever was that the Great Hall was closed for university ceremonies when I visited and I never got to go in; all part of the heartbreak of being a muggle!

I went to Shakespeare’s house in Stratford-Upon-Avon, which has now been turned into a museum. It was pretty nice, but it was a beautiful day and honestly I got more enjoyment sitting in the sun by the river afterwards. Warwick Castle ended up being my favourite. It’s currently owned by Madame Tussauds, the company that makes all the waxwork figures of famous people and then charges a fortune to go see them. I loved Warwick though. They had preserved everything about the castle, but had added in all these wax figurines, dressed as they would have been in medieval times. You could climb the towers of the castle and walk around the outer wall. I thought it was a lot more fun then all the other castles I’ve been to!

Last weekend I had a wonderful day with my English and Australian friends, Alex and Tavao. We met for pancakes in the morning, which I have been craving for ages! We went to this place called My Old Dutch Pancake House and it was just the best place ever! I went on a bit of a berry bender and had a raspberry smoothie and a pancake filled with every kind of berry you could possibly imagine! After gorging ourselves we spend the afternoon at Portobello Market, one of London’s most famous street markets. The market consists of stalls set up all along Portobello Road, selling pretty much everything: handmade jewelry and handbags, fresh fruit and vegetables, and even a stall that sold antique cameras and magnifying glasses. Alex took us to this tiny bakery called The Hummingbird where I had the most delicious black bottom muffin with cream cheese icing!

We finished the day by visiting the newly reopened (just in time for the Olympics) Kensington Palace. It was the home of Princess Diana and I’ve been informed that it technically belongs to Will and Kate, although it’s been a tourist attraction for ages. It had a couple nice exhibits, the highlights being one on Queen Victoria, the longest reigning British monarch, and another that had a collection of Princess Diana’s evening gowns on display.

Tune in again soon to hear about Belgium and Paris!

Love Maria

It’s been beautiful here in London since the beginning of March, so I’ve been trying to make the most it! I love spending my lunchtimes reading outside by the river Thames and I’ve been visiting London’s parks more often. Last weekend Rocky and Grant came to visit me here in London! We met up on Saturday morning to explore the city together. I took them to Borough Market which is one of my favourite markets to get food in London. We spent the morning sampling pretty much anything and everything and settled on smoothies and fresh bread with argentinian spreads for breakfast.

The guys brought their skateboards to ride along the Thames so I rented a bike so that I could join in. It was a pretty big fail though. There were so many people around that we ended up walking most of the way anyways. We spent some time in St. James Park before going to Chinatown for lunch and gorging ourselves on a cheap chinese buffet. Like true Newfoundlanders I feel like we spent the majority of the day eating. We met up with Grant’s friends he met in New York and explored Covent Garden and London’s West End before heading off to Brick Lane for Indian Food for supper (hence all the eating!). The best part of Brick Lane was walking down the street and bargaining with every restaurant owner to find the best deal. Every single restaurant boasts about some award they’ve won, “Curry chef of the year 2008/09” “Master chef 2010” “Best curry restaurant 09/10” which leads me to believe they just make them all up. We had a wonderful night though and got quite a good deal on our meal!

I’ve been cramming more shows in over the past few weeks. I saw this new play called “All New People” which featured Zach Braff and was supposed to be really funny. It was pretty funny, but the humour was quite dark and I haven’t been able to decide if I really liked it or not. I also saw the musical Billy Elliot, which was fantastic! The dancing was really good and the kids in it were amazing! I don’t usually like kids in musicals that much because I want to hear someone who can REALLY sing. But the kids in Billy Elliot were amazing dancers and singers and had the most hilarious facial expressions! Definitely one of my favourite musicals.

As for this past weekend, I spent it checking out Camden Market, Hyde Park, and the St. Paddy’s Day celebrations. I’ve decided that my favourite part of London is the markets. I’ve already mentioned Borough Market, which is a food-only market, but I’ve also gone to a few clothing/jewelry markets and I’ve loved them all. Camden is one of the brightest places I’ve been in London; all the buildings are painted bold colours and all the shops have really cool designs on them. The market has everything you could ever need for clothing and it has food from pretty much any country you can think of!

I went to the St. Paddy’s Day parade on Sunday, but I wasn’t really impressed. I didn’t seem to me like it was up to full London potential; in my opinion the St. John’s Santa Claus parade is better. They did have a festival in Trafalgar Square though that featured lots of Irish music! I spent the rest of my day at Hyde Park, which was quite warm and enjoyable. I finished off by going to Knightsbridge which is where the famous department store, Harrods is. It was really posh – that’s pretty much the only word I can think of to describe it. Every part of the store was decorated differently and it felt like different parts of the store had different themes (one of the escalators was called the “Egyptian escalator”). It was outrageously expensive, so I contented myself with buying my favourite french pastry, mille feuille, from the food hall.

Only another 5 weeks until I come home, the time has flown by!

Love Maria