Mind the Gap

Walked out of Tube and stumbled onto this view. No joke.

Doing a little blogging before I go out to explore on this beautiful London afternoon…

I can’t believe I haven’t posted anything since Monday! Time is so strange here…it’s going too fast. Since I’ve missed a lot of days I’ll just give you a recap of big events of the last week. It’s hard for me to do anything halfway, and this blog is more proof of that. I keep putting it off because I don’t have time to write the way I want to, but if I continue that trend I’ll find myself on the long plane ride home with 3 entries. Yikes.

We’ve had a great week to say the least. I think I’ll start from today and go backward. I just got back home (no longer just ‘the flat’) after church this morning at Westminster Abbey. It’s so humbling to think of the millions of people—famous and ordinary—who have worshiped there. It was also neat for me because the first time I saw the Abbey was in 1997 on TV. My mom, sister and I cried as we watched Princess Diana’s funeral along with a few billion other people.

Yesterday reminded all of us that we aren’t quite over the time change. Nobody woke up until 11! We all got ready and headed out to buy train tickets to PARIS. Yes, I’m spending next weekend in Paris. I’m so excited…the Chunnel will get us there in just 2 ½ hours! After the tickets, the big group split up and 6 of us went to Portobello Road in Notting Hill. Possibly my favorite thing so far! It didn’t seem like much at first, but with every turn around a corner it got better…street vendors with antiques, jewelry, scarves, then came the food. Fresh, colorful (and cheap!) fruit, veggies, hot chorizo sandwiches, seafood, crepes…you name it, it was there. We walked for a few hours wishing we hadn’t eaten for days before so we could try everything.

Toward the end of the road we decided to get on a random bus since our only bus experience was at 2am and not ideal. Since I kind of like being lost, I thought it was great when the double-decker drove away from the city. We got off eventually and took a tube back to familiar Earl’s Court, but it was a fun little tangent on our trip. Back at Flat 3 I finally watched the season finale of Grey’s Anatomy…the fastest 2 hours of my life! Still not sure how I feel about the ending but it was definitely a surprise to me. I won’t spoil it here in case any readers haven’t seen it yet—although I don’t think I have to worry about having many readers other than my faithful fam... :)  Which reminds me, that they are probably asking why I was sitting in my flat instead of out exploring. Don’t worry we went to the pub 50 yards down the street for a beer. I tried Bulmer’s Cider this time. Love it. Had a great time talking too…I think we are all starting to open up and it’s refreshing to just hang out and not be worried about a to-do list.

Okay, I can’t stay inside anymore…I’m going to Hyde Park to see Speaker’s Corner which is like a crazy version of Speaker’s Circle at Mizzou. As Katherine calls it, “Brother Jed 2.0.” I’ll finish the highlights of the week later.

London love!

Emily

P.S. I have great pics for this entry...just creating a little suspense by making you wait... :)

Portobello Market...Unbelievable