I had a bus ticket to Paris for this weekend....but after several weeks debating my options, I decided to stay in London for Thanksgiving. It was the best decision I've made so far. I had such a full weekend!
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| I love my home away from home :) |
Looking back on my photos from the past few weeks, I realized I've spent more than a few evenings with my Koinonia family. Nights with these kindred spirits are such a blessing!:
[Wed, Nov. 16th]: I had dinner out with Larissa (left) before attending an evening Journalism seminar about ethics for interviewing/publishing/photographing Syrian crisis victims.
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| [Fri, Nov. 18th] I spotted this familiar road sign (yay Ellington!) on my way to Amy's house in Acton for a Pride & Prejudice movie night. |
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| [Mon, Nov. 21] Dinner at Vapiano's with the clan :) |
Maggie (below right) and I had never been to Vapiano's...we were really confused with how ordering worked there. We had to use a key card and scan it when we ordered, and then re-scan it to pay later. Here's us waiting for our pizza to made (we stood there until the guy (below left) told us we were supposed to go back downstairs and sit until it was ready! Whoops.)
As you can see, these guys have filled up my social calendar. (When do I ever study??) So when I saw that some of the Koi brothers decided to host an "American Thanksgiving" in their home in Acton, I knew I couldn't miss it for the world:
I was not able to get a refund for my bus ticket to Paris (mainly because I had gotten it cheap in the first place!), but I was able to switch my ticket to No Man's Land from Thursday to Wednesday:
But before I get into that, I think I should backtrack this week to Wednesday morning. (Because Wednesday-Sunday is the traditional Thanksgiving weekend, right??)
For my London Crucible class, we went to visit St. Ethelburga's, a peace and reconciliation center that was created out of remains of a church which was bombed in 1993.
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| Yet another example of an old church whose surroundings have been built up around it. |
The woman showing us around then brought us to this circular building. We took of our shoes and took a seat inside:
The purpose of this room is to bring about conversation and resolve conflict. We talked about how a lot of international conflict is resolved in mediated conversation...the general public doesn't know this though because our media doesn't portray the good stuff!
We practiced some of the techniques used to break down prejudice, and in doing so, I learned so much about my flatmates. We've been thrown into a foreign city together with no experience living on our own...let's just say despite the occasional tension, we've done a really good job and I'm proud of us for making it through the semester!
This was one of the coolest things I've done this semester. Who knew there was a little building like this in the middle of the bustling city??
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| I skipped my afternoon class to catch up on homework at Senate House Library: my favorite place to study. Ever. |
And then I met up with these two goons for lunch... at none other than Nandos! :)
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Claire's friend Will came to visit for Thanksgiving
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After my fill of peri-peri, I rushed home to get ready for the theatre. Abriel and I were so excited because we had heard rave reviews...and we knew both the actors: Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan
We left the theatre with much less excitement. Our seats could not have been further from the stage, and my neck and back ached. This would've been okay, though, if I enjoyed the production. But in order to enjoy it, I think you must first be able to UNDERSTAND it. Marisa, Abriel and I both looked at each other and asked, "What even happened?" I truly couldn't tell you the plot line. (I think a lot of the humor was geared towards Brits, because I didn't get any of the jokes about counties, etc)
I was hoping to get an autograph from Patrick Stewart on a Star Trek calendar I bought for Noah...we stood by the stage door for a bit and then learned that Patrick Stewart had left. But we did get to see Ian McKellen:
Oh well.
To start Thanksgiving off, Mel, Ally, and I spent some time at the soup kitchen. I was super psyched when I saw a Stik painting hiding under the stairs!!
Mel and I right before we took off our aprons:
From there, I headed to sociology. And then I left for Acton! Peter asked me to bring wine to dinner. It was weird going to a grocery store of legal age to buy wine! I had to ask the wine expert for help in choosing a fancy dinner wine:
It was such a good evening!
Most people had never tried stuffing or pumpkin pie. It was a hit though!
Maggie (above) is from Germany. Fun fact: she told me that "Mangold" is a type of spinach her family uses for salads. Who knew?
After dessert, I skyped both sides of my family :) I'm looking forward to being with them for Christmas!!
Then some boys sang us some Thanksgiving/Christmas hymns:
I missed the group picture and nearly missed the group games because I was busy talking to my family. But my group took another picture to include me :)
Playing a name game:
Natalie and Me:
After dinner, most people headed to the pub to relax some more. Micah offered to walk me to the tube station. We stopped at her house to get her hoodie and ended up talking with her roommate for an hour. So rather than go home, I spent the night there and she took me out to brunch the next morning!
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| Talk about an extended Thanksgiving! |
Traditional English breakfast...baked beans and all!
After brunch, I spent the day [Friday 25th] with Natalie.
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| British "Smarties" aren't American "Smarties"! |
Then I left Acton and went home to take a much-needed nap...only to leave again for Michael's house to have dinner and spend more time with Koinonia friends:
As we were leaving, Amy and I talked about the end of the semester. I had been very excited to go home, but suddenly was feeling sad about leaving all my new friends. She said, "I think that it's good to have mixed feelings about going home. It means you've connected here and you have a home in both places." She also pointed out that I had lots of connections and people to stay with if I ever wanted to come back! (And I certainly plan to!)
Claire and I planned to take Will to visit Olympic Park (and go back to the tunnel slide like we said we would). We were too late in getting the tickets, though, so instead we decided to take him to the London Eye:
This thing really is massive. I didn't realize how big it was until I saw how many people fit in one pod!
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| I refuse to call this "The Coca-Cola London Eye". The logo sure is everywhere though. |
Some pictures from the top:
I can't express how much I love this city.
We continued to walk around the pier, waiting for the sun to set so we could go on it again at night. It was fun to be a tourist again. Especially now, with all of the Christmas decorations up!
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Will treated us to American burgers...(The reason I know they were American is because they came with "fries" not "chips"!)
I pretended not to notice all the Europeans eating their burgers with forks and knives, and ate mine like a true American-improperly and with my hands :)
When we left the restaurant, I saw MORE Stik street art under a bridge as we were walking. This one was one of my favorites...it's a time lapse of "baby Stik" to "old Stik" (except we didn't have time to walk all the way to that end):
When it was sufficiently dark, we waited in line, watched a 4-D movie of the London Eye, waited in line again, got our picture taken, waited in line some more, and then got back on the ferris wheel [Which if you think about it, is just another period of waiting...waiting to get to the top, waiting while they reload people on the pod, and waiting to get back down].
It was cool to take the night-time ride because we could see the city lit up:
Although I think I personally enjoyed the day-time ride better for picture-taking.
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| The pod in front of us happened to be empty...and I was excited because it meant I could get a good picture without people ruining it ;) |
It was a great day, and a great (start!) to my weekend. [I had to stay in for Sunday and Monday to get work done]. I am so glad I spent the weekend surrounded by friends. I have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!
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| Especially thankful for this girl. Clarabelle and Lulabelle are gonna kill it next semester as Arcadia roommates :) |
Speaking of Arcadia, my Scotland FYSAE friend Olivia (I mentioned her in this post) came to visit London this weekend too. On Saturday night, the two of us sat down and planned a trip for our last weekend in Europe! I found a flight to Scotland for 10 pounds (about 12 dollars). Of course, it was too good to refuse! She plans to show me around her place, and then we are both going to visit Paris for another few days. Looks like I get to see the City of Love after all :)
Thanks for reading & Happy Thanksgiving!!
-Leah
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