week 5: celebration time

this week was much better than last :) we decided that we were going to have sooooo much fun this week to reward all of our hard work last week!

on monday, we headed to covent garden for some SHOPPING. we hit up all of the best places including barbour, jack wills, joules, cath kidston, and the cambridge satchel company! or i guess i should say-- we made it to all of the best shopping places once we found our way out of china town. haha that place is very confusing. ANYWAY. a couple of my friends got a satchel from the cambridge satchel company, and i fell in love with them and decided that i needed one. but not that day. haha and it was just chinese new year, so they had FREE EMBOSSING. that was a goooooooood deal. so that was fun and afterwards, we hit up a swedish bakery to fulfill another requirement for our food assignment. haha i had an orange/almond tart thing… it was HEAVENLY. well done, sweden.

that night, we went to the frost fair! here's some info from the internet about what the frost fair is since i am really bad at explaining things...

"Relive the fun of the famous London Frost Fairs on Monday 3 February as we celebrate 200 years since the last-ever Fair took place.

Reflecting the events of old when skaters, traders and entertainers took to a frozen River Thames, Broadgate, the City of London Corporation and the Cheapside Initiative have come together to bring you free skating at Broadgate Ice Rink, entertainers and minstrels, as well as a host of stalls selling warming food, souvenirs and some of life’s luxuries.

Join us from 5-10pm for this after-work, family-friendly event in Exchange Square and melt away those winter blues the way they did it in Olde London town."

it was SOOOOOOO FUNNNNNNNNNNN. as soon as we walked up, there were these two ladies on stilts in olden-times clothing who ran up to us, but they didn't really like us because we were americans. haha of course, they were joking, but it was awesome. they have us each a beauty mark stickers (i still don't know why) but they were so fun! at the frost fair around the different booths selling food and knick knacks, there were people hired to dress up and sing random opera songs to visitors. haha it was kind of uncomfortable. especially when they would start dancing with us, but i secretly loved it! after we walked around a bit, we did some free ice skating!!!!!

cutie christine

on tuesday, a tube strike started and continued until thursday. therefore, we could not use the tube for two days. therefore, we had to use the bus for our public transportation. and everyone else had to as well. soooooooooo there was a lot of traffic which meant that we had to leave super early in order to get places on time.
and due to the heavy traffic, we saw a man get hit by a bus! it was really frightening.
on a happier note, we saw "jeeves and wooster" that night! it was a play that only involved three actors- and it as basically them reenacting a story about wooster's life with his butler, jeeves. it was hilarious. there was a lot of running around and playing different characters…. it was just really good. i feel like carter would be awesome in that play. random. haha and the best part about that play was that MR. DARCY WAS JEEVES. aka matthew macfadyen. i've never seen the keira knightley version of pride and prejudice, but i was still super excited and HAD to meet him. we stayed after the play and waited in the pouring rain to meet him! it was soooooo exciting! we were all kind of star struck, but he was sooooo sweet and willing to talk to us, pose for pictures, and sign autographs! that was one of the happiest nights of our lives. we all just walked home quietly and happy, although we were drenched and we got lost on the way home. busses are a lot harder to work than the tubes. dang tube strike.

wooster

JEEVES/MR. DARCY/MATTHEW MACFADYEN

on wednesday, we went to warwick castle! it was very cold and rainy allllllllllll day. classic england.

i want nice china like this when i grow up

there were creepy wax figures like these all over the castle.

i don't remember why, but we saw some cool birds

then we went to the civil war museum…. but we didn't fancy it too much, so we moved on to the next stop…. we got to write with some quill pens though. so that was cool

then we went to the worcester cathedral! yes, another cathedral. we're so spoiled. we see so many cathedrals that we're kind of over them.. but they're still beautiful! and you know i love a good ceiling and stained glass!

PS "worcester" is really hard to pronounce.

on friday, we toured through kensington palace! it's funny that we haven't done this yet because it's literally a five minute walk from our flat, just across the street, but we had not! so we finally did it! i LOVE kensington palace! it is beautiful and we got to learn so much about some of the royals of england! we were hoping to bum into william, kate, and george while we were there, but we did not… :( maybe next time!!! my friends saw kate in hyde park, sooooooo it's totally possible. i did not take any pictures of the outside of the palace… probably because i see it every time i run through hyde park and didn't find it important to do so…. but i take a lot of things for granted here. haha so here is a nice google image of the palace :)

the gorgeous princess margaret

mom, these creepy dolls reminded me of you

the best part of the palace was definitely the fashion exhibit. it had tons of dresses on display worn but the past queens and princesses. SO COOL. i loveeeeeee fashionnnnnnnnnnn

i want this wallpaper in my house someday 

after kensington palace, christine and i went back to the cambridge satchel company and BOUGHT OUR SATCHELS. happy early birthday to me! haha mine is ADORABLE. but i don't want to put a picture up so you can get the full effect of it when you see it in person :) then we went to hummingbird bakery and got black bottom cupcakes to celebrate our satchel purchases! haha these are the best cupcakes EVER. they're basically a chocolate cupcakes with cheesecake inside. #DIVINE

that night, we had a "family dinner". haha we miss eating as a family here, so a few friends and i made a big pasta meal with breadsticks and everything and sat down at the table and ate together :) it was really nice! for the rest of the night, we watched the opening ceremonies of the olympics. USA. USA. USA. and that just made me more america-homesick :/ but it was a really fun night :)


on saturday, we woke up bright and early to go to buckingham palace to see the changing of the guard! next time, we need to get there earlier, so we can actually see, but it was still pretty cool! unfortunately, they were wearing their gray coats-- which aren't as cool as the red ones-- haha but apparently, that's what they do in the wintertime! :) also, during their concert thing when they start off by playing music, the first song they played was "eleanor rigby" by the beatles! cool, huh? that made me think of you, carter :)

after the changing of the guard, we went to "dale chihuly: beyond the object". dale chihuly is a glassblower and it was an exhibit of just his work! sooooo cool. taylor, now i see why you think glassblowers are hot. if i ever met someone who could create these masterpieces, i'd marry them in a heartbeat! here are just a few of them…
also… fun fact! each one of these pieces are disassembled and reassembled every time they're moved form exhibit to exhibit! maybe that's obvious, but my friends and i were trying to figure out how they transport these without destroying them! so we asked, and our question was answered :)

on our way home, we stopped by harrods to get a cronut! what is a cronut you may ask? it's a croissant-donut AKA the most delicious thing you will ever eat. like really. life changing.

also, saturday was a weirdddddd day around london. there was some kind of event going on. we couldn't figure out what it was, but there were probably thousands of people on high street and in hyde park dressed up in weird costumes like different animals and super random things, and they were all drunk. to this day, we don't know what was going on, but it was very crowded, there were drunk people everywhere running into you and talking to you, and for the next day or two, our beautiful street smelled like alcohol. gross.


on sunday, ali and i taught the sunbeams class! our favorite little kiddos! not much to report on this class! there were only three kids, but i snuck a few pictures of them because they're adorable! :)

look at that little praying face!!!!!! <3

they LOVE red light green light

k that's all for now! cheers.



from london with love,
pep xoxox