Trip to Parliament!
We got to tour Westminster and see where all sessions of parliament take
place. Our tour guide was probably the
friendliest Briton I’ve met so far and he showed off his “American lingo
knowledge” by using words like “line” instead of “queue”. He made fun of all the pomp and circumstance
parliament and England demands but insisted “we got it right on the royal
wedding.” It was really cool to think
that we were touring America’s version of the White House. The building was beautifully decorated with
statues and paintings dating back to Queen Victoria’s reign.
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| The only photo I was allowed to take. So it's a pretty lame shot of the entrance... |
It was my friend Annie’s birthday and she wanted to check
out Camden Market. This is another one
of London’s Saturday street markets and contains lots of food, jewelry,
clothes, and kitschy stuff. It was a
pretty sketchy market, and we got followed around by a creepy Indian man,
mumbling to himself, for a good ten minutes before we lost him. This market was a emo/punk/goth kid’s
paradise. I can’t even tell you how many
Mohawks or neon-dyed hairstyles I saw.
Everyone was wearing some kind of torn leather, studs, spikes, platform
Doc Martens, or chains. It was a lot of
fun people watching there, but I’m sure we looked completely out of place. Camden Market also showcased something I’ve
noticed a lot about Britain – they have a total lack of censorship laws. Let’s just say that we made a point of not
looking at any of the t-shirts or prints for sale.
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| One tiny section of Camden market |
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| So that shman to the right who's watching me take a pic was just dancing wildly a second ago to some Bob Marley music coming out of a tent. I'm pretty sure it was really high on crack... |
For
dinner that night we went to Rainforest Café for Annie’s Birthday. I haven’t been to Rainforest Café since I was
about 8 and I was soooo excited to go.
It was all I remembered and more.
If you haven’t been to Rainforest in years, repent now and head over to
the nearest one. I just love the setup
and the great ambiance. LOVE the giant
moving lizards on the walls, LOVE the gorillas that grunt/move/growl at you
while you eat, and LOVE the elephants that entertain you the whole dinner. I could, however, do without the nasty real
fish that swim around, freaking you out while you eat. Of course we got sat right next to the dumb
old fish tank. I really hate fish. They smell when they’re dead and alive, and
they really just freak me out. Give me
snakes, spiders, any other freaky animal, but keep the fish away from me. Have you ever met a fish before? Then you understand completely. I made sure to have my back to the fish so I
would actually be able to eat my meal.
That didn’t keep me from glancing behind my back throughout dinner,
checking to make sure the fish were still in their tank. I’m pretty sure they knew I was scared to
death of them, because when I looked back at them they glared reproachfully at
me with their googly fish-eyes. I had my
dinner knife at the ready should one of them decide to leap out of their tank
and attack me. No way am I being taken
by surprise by some jerky fish.
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| I probably shouldn't be mocking them, because they might get vengeful and decide to kill me. |
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| Alligator (or maybe a crocodile...?) that you try to throw coins when he opens his mouth. I failed. |
For
dessert we went to Byrons (where I got that amazing thick milkshake earlier in
the semester) and I shared a great brownie sundae. Soooo good.
I’m glad we have so many girls here with birthdays because it gives us
an excuse to eat out at somewhere other than McDonald’s and spend money on
food.
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| Well hello there, lovely. |
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