I Wish...

Monday

Today was a hard day for me, I said goodbye to my dad at the airport:( I skipped out on my orientation at Westminster so that I could go with him to the airport, check his bags and wait around until it was time for him to pass through security. I was so grateful that he was able to accompany me to England for my first couple of days abroad. I think he rather enjoyed it and I think he plans on coming back now that I've given him the traveling bug. Don't ask me why, but we didn't take a picture at the airport. I plan on being better about that!

TODAY

WOW!!! Today was a crazy day, I convinced my roommates to accompany me to the National Gallery found in Trafalgar Square. I really wanted to go to the National Gallery because they had several Van Gogh and Monet paintings on display! I was able to find them, but not after getting lost once or twice. The entire building is HUGE! I have no idea how many paintings are in the NG, but I would guess over 200.

The Water Lilly Pond by Claude Monet

 The front of the national gallery from Trafalgar Square

 Water Lilies by Claude Monet

 Sunflowers by Vincent Van Gogh

 Wheat field by Vincent Van Gogh

While I'm not a crazy art lover, I do appreciate a good painting, especially one by the more famous artists. You know the ones, the ones that we are always taught about in art masterpiece in elementary school. Yeah I pay attention! (Plus Van Gogh was in an episode of Doctor Who, it's one of my favorites)

After the NG we went to the Borough Market! We went later in the day so there weren't as many people and some of the vendors had shut down, but it was still an amazing experience. There was fresh food EVERYWHERE! One of the first vendors we passed was a fruit and veggie stand, there were quite a few of those. Another couple of stands sold fresh meat, like an entire fish just laying on ice in the open air. My favorites were the chocolate or sweet vendors, especially when they had samples. I was particularly surprised by the number of cheese vendors there were (this stands also gave out samples, but I was too scared to try any cheese I didn't know.) (Speaking of cheese, I bought cheddar cheese at the supermarket yesterday and it was WHITE!!! What the heck?) There were a couple of oil stands and an entire stand just dedicated to olives.  I definitely plan on going back multiple times to try the delicacies there!

 This entire cheese wheel was probably as big as a tire

 Dessert, my favorite meal!

This was a bakery that offered lessons on how to bake bread next to the market

The final exciting thing that we did today was wait in line for 3 hours for this...

YES!!! While we weren't first in line for the red carpet, we got to see as Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and James Cordon got out of their cars and walk the red carpet. They had the soundtrack blaring the entire time and it sure got me pumped to watch the movie (No, I haven't seen it, I've been rather busy and it only came out in the UK today) It was so much fun to see the stars, although it was VERY cold, I could barely feel my toes after we left. We met a guy who said he's been doing stuff like this for 40 years and has over 200 autographs and pictures with stars (including ALL 12 doctors!!!) He informed us that the Avengers premier would be sometime in April (which I plan on going to!) and that we should wait in line to get wristbands to get front row standing room at the BAFTAs. He said that you have to get in line between 12-3 in the morning to wait for tickets until 3 in the afternoon, but its worth it. We'll see if that actually happens, that's a long time waiting in line and I'm sure it'll be very cold. 

Sorry today has been mostly pictures, but more to come, maybe not tomorrow, but hopefully by the weekend!