Afternoon Tea

We woke up this morning to some dreary, cold, and rainy weather. But that did not stop us from accomplishing everything we had to do on our list today. Catie, Kelsey and I grabbed our rain coats (you missed my green jacket, didn't you?), and umbrellas and headed out for the day.

Our first stop was Kensington Palace. I was quite disappointed because it looked like this:

See all the scaffolding in the background? Apparently they are prepping the palace for Kate and Will so there's a lot of construction going on. We didn't end up going inside, (12.50 pounds? please) so we took our pictures and went to the next stop: Harrods.

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Holy moly. This mall is amazing! We walked around, looking at the beautiful gowns, the fancy purses, and to-die-for shoes. Sadly, everything was about 12,000 pounds out of our price range... but it was still fun to look. We rode the Egyptian Escalator, and saw the Princess Diana memorial.

After Harrods, we got back on the tube to find a little tea shop that Kelsey found online for some afternoon tea. It was called Bea's Bloomsbury, and was quite possibly the cutest place I've ever been in. We ordered our peppermint teas and scones and sat down to enjoy them. The scones were so delish, and they gave us some amazing jam to spread on them. Everything was so tasty!

Delicious looking cupcakes

The best scones EVERRR

Catie doesn't have a taste for herbal tea, so I pretty much had that big pot to myself. I didn't want to waste any tea, so I had three cups. Yup, three cups. We were enjoying ourselves so much that we didn't want to leave!

We made our way to St. Paul's Cathedral, hoping to get in to see the famous staircase where the Astronomy Tower scenes were filmed (HP thing), and get to the top to see the famous view. Little did we know, the cathedral closes at 4, so we didn't get to go inside, but we're planning to go back tomorrow. Here's a pic I got from the outside:

It was a tad windy. After that, we went to the National Gallery. We saw some famous paintings by Van Gogh, Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio. It was so fun to see the pieces of art that I've studied in Humanities and Art History right in front of me. We only stayed an hour, because we were getting tired and hungry.

We started heading home, and stopped at a place that the Gardner boys recommended that made ka-babs. Yes BABS not BOBS. It's basically meat, lettuce, onions, tomatoes and sometimes hummus in either naan bread or a pita. Look:

Well, I decided to be adventurous and try lamb. It was really tender and good, but had a strange aftertaste. I still enjoyed it though! When we first got there, we were looking around and trying to figure out what to do. Finally, Kelsey told one of the workers "We don't really know what we're doing". So he helped us out and figured out what we wanted, and it turned out fantastic. We enjoyed our ka-babs in the tiny restaurant; we were seriously at a table in a hallway. All part of the experience.

EDIT: I just had an awkward moment: so here's your monday moment: We were walking back from laundry and we were right in front of our apartment. My foot slipped on the wet pavement straight out in front of me and I ended up falling into full on splits position... laundry and all. I almost peed my pants laughing. Where's a camera when you need one??

Tomorrow, we have a group play that we're going to at the Globe Theater (hopefully we actually have tickets). Then... Paris on Wednesday! Woo!

why yes, it is.

A little bird told me that a special girl loves looking at the pictures on my blog. So here's to little Emily! I love you, cutie pie!