Out and About

I've had another busy week here in London so let me tell you about it. I've got more pictures, too!

Monday I just chilled at home and got some work done, no big deal. Tuesday though, I made a venture all about the city. See, on Tuesdays we have school groups in at the BFH and so our tours are done at two. At two, Ana, the education manager, needed all the interns to take two cardboard displays each to schools that were participating in the BFH science fair tomorrow. My school was all the way in Plaistow, which is in East London. I've never been over in East London before! I took the District Line from Embankment straight to Plaistow but it took forever. It shouldn't have taken so long but the District Line is famous for delays. Boo. So forty five minutes later I arrived in Plaistow and it looked so different from central London it was hard to believe I was still in what is considered Greater London. Plaistow is basically like it's own little town. It had a high street, some homes and lots of lush greenery and football fields and what not compared to the cement jungle and tall buildings of central London. The primary school was easy to find from the tube stop and so I got buzzed in there and dropped off my posters. English primary schools don't look too different from American elementary schools but I think it had a different vibe, maybe because it was an urban primary school.

After dropping off the posters it was only three in the afternoon and I had the rest of the day off from the BFH so I figured I'd go check out the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green, which is also in East London.
This is what it looks like >
It was a free museum. It was much smaller than I thought it'd be but I really did like looking at the doll houses they had and the exhibit on the children's clothing throughout the ages. Way different from the stuff I wore, for sure. I was also mildly alarmed that they had a lot of toys from when I was little in the cases on display. I didn't think 22 was old haha!

I breezed through the museum in an hour so I decided to go back to Oxford Street in central London so I could go check on Carnaby Street, which is this little road full of quirky cool shops, one of them being the Lazy Oaf which I like. I went to the Lazy Oaf looking for these cute London postcards I saw online but they were out. Boo. So then I visited all the crappy little souvenir shops looking for a good deal on some decent postcards. In one of the little shops I found these two stands of personalized socks because, ya know, everyone needs Union Jack socks with their names on them. Good thing I didn't really want personalized souvenir socks because my name is a boys name in England! Proof right there > Imagine that!




Friday was a pretty normal day except that I got asked to switch my days that I work at the BFH to Mon, Tues, Thurs Fri for July because we have some new interns coming in and I'm needed more on Mondays. I guess I'll have to do proper house tours on Monday but that's ok, I think I'll do alright with them. Tez didn't get home til five am Saturday morning but I made him get upand take me to Camden Market in London for some shopping because I really felt like getting out of the house. < Here's me and my tired boyfriend on the train ride down. We really love going to Camden, it's such a great area full of unique stores and tons of independent stalls. I didn't find anything I really wanted to buy that day but we did get some delicious Mexican food from a stall. I got a vegetarian quesadilla and it had all sorts of veggies on it like chick peas whatnot. So filling and good for me! But seating is at a premium in Camden Lock so we had to eat it standing up and it was very messy haha. Then we scooted home and watched a movie and had ice cream! Good Saturday.

Sunday I met up with my friends Ada and Iain to go to the We Make London craft show down near Holborn High Street in London. It was a pretty small show, much smaller than I had thought it was going to be. The one in Detroit has about fifty vendors and this one only had about ten but I did buy a tote grab bag for one pound (result!) that I can use as a shopping bag and it came with some soap and undies (yeah, weird but they are my size) in it too. And I also bought a new purse because the one I got on Etsy before I left was killing my shoulder. I should've taken a picture of it! It's pretty cute. I think it's big enough I might be able to get away with using it now instead of taking my dorky bookbag everywhere with me. We'll see! Then we were off and wandering after being at the show for a half hour and we went to Fopp, a store that sells books, dvds and cds at pretty good prices. I got the first two seasons of the Mighty Boosh on dvd for 12 pounds, yay! Then we went to the Maison Bertaux, a cake shop in Soho, for some cake and tea. I skipped the tea though. Tez, Ada, Iain, Jan and I had stumbled upon this cake shop like three years ago and ate there only to find out that Lily Allen had shot her LDN video right where we sat and I had thought that was cool. This time though we walked in and Noel Fielding from the Mighty Boosh's face was plastered all over. He's my celebri-crush and I love him, just to let you know. He had an art show at that cake shop that we had missed by only a day, argh! But it was still cool to know that we eat at such a posh and celebrity populated cake shop haha. Cake was expensive though, four pounds for my one slice! OY! I really splurged on myself this weekend but it's ok. It has to happen sometime!

Then I left the lovely Ada and Iain and went and sat in Soho Square to kill sometime because Tez was working and we thought maybe he'd get his clients off in enough time that we could go home together in his car since he'd driven down. While I was in the square I saw this African street performer act playing the drum and balancing steel bowls. It was really impressive. Check him out! He was doing back flips and everything and balancing the bowls while doing summer saults. They attracted quite the crowd.

After they were gone, I was off as well to visit Tez at work since Sundays are really quiet at Envy and his shift was supposed to end in less than an hour. He works in a really posh place! I took a sneaky picture of him working. He says he was conforming some tapes. Don't worry if you don't know what that is, I don't really know either. All you need to do is nod and smile!

But alas, it wasn't meant to be. He was supposed to be able to leave at six but seven rolled around and a client refused to budge so I had to run and take the train home myself while he came home around midnight. Poor kid!

Having only really eaten cereal and cake that Sunday I came home completely starved and ate everything that Mrs. Tsang had to give me, much to her delight bwaha. She's always trying to feed me and I just don't have any room for it all.

Today was a completely a lazy day. I just worked on transcribing for the archive and did my laundry, watched the first episode of season 2 of Dexter and checked out the extras on my Mighty Boosh dvds. Tomorrow is an early day for me, I have to be at the BFH at nine on the dot because I'm off to help with the science fair. I've a few more pictures to show, mainly showcasing the different bits of transportation I have to take but that'll have to wait for another time!