How times change...

You know, it's funny. When I got here, I posted faithfully every day...now it's pretty regularly every other day. Oops. :)

Today was a wonderful day. I smiled a lot, just because I was so happy! The weather was absolutely blissful - about 70 degrees, mostly sunny, with an occasional light breeze. It's supposed to be like this at least to Monday, which thrills me. I feel pretty lucky - this is SO unseasonal for London. Since it was so gorgeous, I opted to spend most of the day outside rather than in museums or such.

I left the flat at about 10:00 this morning, after many delays due to indecision. I swear, I changed my outfit at least 5 times. Why, I'm not really sure...it's not like I had anyone to impress or anywhere special to go. It's just that nothing looked or felt right. Oh ya, and the large majority of my clothes were still drying after being washed last night, which meant that it was even harder to cobble together a satisfactory outfit. I'm such a girl sometimes!

I took the tube up to Camden Town - about a 45 minute journey, all told. I intended to walk straight to Regent Park from the tube, but I got a little distracted. :) Turns out, there's a FANTASTIC market in Camden. I kept thinking "just a little further. Just one more shop. Just one more little side street" until I finally gave up and just explored the whole thing. It's huge! There was cheap food from every corner of the world: Asian, Mexican, Middle Eastern, even some American. A good deal of the market was clothes: vintage, screen tees, and specialty shops mostly. One portion was an old stable full of antiques - each horse stall was a new miniature shop. Old used books, china sets, comic books, vinyl records, you name it. I almost got lost in the stacks of used books... :) Old books are so pretty!

After I extracted myself from the wonderful market, I walked down to Regent Park. Can I just say I love London's parks? They're SO amazing. Acres and acres of beautiful trees, unmowed grass, landscaping to blow your mind, flower gardens, old monuments, pathways, and (on pretty days like today) people of all ages sprawled across the lawn (some of them less than fully clothed...welcome to Europe, where it's acceptable to strip down to your tank top or even, um, underwear, to sunbathe. lol. Anyway, Regent Park is 410 acres of absolute loveliness! I saw some pretty crazy waterfowl, including a Black Swan. Apparently, there's a waterfowl conservation program at this park, so there's birds from all over the world in the bodies of water here. Black Swans are native to Australia.

Side note: the park across the road from my flat (Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens) is 625 acres. I absolutely love the fact that London cares enough about greenery to not just bowl it over and build it. I mean, the borough of Kensington and Chelsea is one of the wealthiest in London, and the amount of money that could be made by building flats and mansions on that ground is astronomical. Fortunately, they've preserved the parks, which means wonderful walks and loafing about for me (ok, and millions of other people). I LOVE it!!!!

After I walked through Regent Park, I walked to the nearest tube stop so I could get to the next stop on my itinerary. On the way, I walked by the Sherlock Holmes Museum and had to stop in. It isn't free to go in, but I wandered around the gift shop for a little bit and had a laugh when I heard a tourist ask an amusing question: "Was Sherlock Holmes real??" The employee almost giggled, but was polite. ;) While I was in the gift shop, I saw a really cute magnet that had absolutely nothing to do with Holmes. So, I took a picture so I could remember what it said:
"THAT'S NOT MY JOB
This is a story about four people named: Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when did what Nobody did what Anybody could have done."
It made me laugh. I think anyone who's ever lived with other people, especially a big family, knows exactly how true that is. :)

After a few minutes in the museum gift shop I made my way to the tube, rode to the next stop, and began my walk down Edgeware Road. Apparently, it's notable for Middle Eastern stuff, so I wanted to walk down it and check it out. I've never seen so many restaurants from that area of the world shoved together! Persian, Iranian, Iraqi, Damascan, Pakistani, and so on and so forth. Of course, since it was around dinnertime, I had to get dinner at one of them. I settled on takeaway something-arabic-hommos. It was fried pita bread, chickpeas, yogurt, tahini, and I don't know what else. It was pretty good, but a little bitter for my preference. I'm glad I branched out at got something besides falafel though. It was good for me. Although, next time, I'll probably go back to falafel. It's just so good! I still want to learn how to make it...I'll probably figure it out when I get back to the states and I can't just buy it on the street whenever I feel like it.

Edgeware Road runs into Hyde park after a while, so I brought my dinner to the park and ate on the lovely grass in the glorious sun. I read most of The Tempest, which we're discussing in class on Monday. It's one of Shakespeare's shorter plays, which is nice. I've never read it before, so it was a little harder to follow, but the language isn't as complicated as in some of his other plays so I was pretty much ok. I can see why scholars have a hard time classifying it...it's not quite a romance, but not quite a comedy either. Of course, some scholars have just decided to call it a romantic comedy...which is funny. I can just hear them: "Comedy" "Romance!" "Comedy!!" "Romance!!" "Comedy!" "Hey, I have an idea! How about 'Romantic Comedy'!" "Hey, that sounds good!" "Ya, I agree!" Anyway...I think that's how it must have gone.

Once it started getting a little chilly, around 7:15 or so, I walked back through Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens back to the flat. Since I've been back, I've been catching up on emails, writing this rather long post, and talking to the other two girls who stayed behind from the travel weekend.

Cheers! More later!