"Saying goodbye doesn't mean anything. It's the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it." Trey Parker

After arriving home from Denmark, it was crunch time for my roomie MC. We had decided that Wednesday would be our birthday day for her since her birthday was on the 9th of May, but some of us were out of town and we couldn't celebrate properly.

We started with a birthday breakfast of eggs, bacon, pancakes and sausage! From there, I left to go shopping for the items I would need for our appetizer dinner and to pick up the cake for her birthday. But overall, most of the day we spent with each other and the girls upstairs enjoying our last moments together as a group. For dinner we had our typical appetizers: spinach artichoke dip, buffalo chicken dip and fruit salsa. I even decided to try and make some patatas bravas that didn't turn out the way I wanted it to, but it was worth a try!

During dinner the seven of us went around talking about our favorite place we visited and our favorite thing that we experienced while studying abroad. After about an hour had passed, we pulled out the cake from Hummingbird Bakery and MC made a wish and blew out her candles!

Unfortunately when she blew out her candles, the sprinkles that were on the top of the cake also got blown off. 

Props to AR for taking these pictures.

After dessert, it was a sad farewell from the girls upstairs. MC was leaving around 8:00 the next morning when a car would come and pick her up with all her luggage and take her to the airport. 

The next morning (May 14), it was hard to say goodbye. I helped MC carry her bags down to the curb where the car was waiting and gave her a big hug goodbye and watched her drive away. (In case you were wondering, MC decided to switch her flight back home early to surprise her mom and sister.) It was weird to have the room suddenly to myself and all of MC's stuff gone. The weather was in accordance with my mood about MC leaving, it was quite rainy, so I decided to put on my pink Wellies and head out. 

I ended up taking the tube to the Arsenal tube stop and headed into Emirates Stadium for a self-guided walking tour. 

I ended picking a good day, because there weren't many people out and about. So I had some of the stops on the tour all to myself. This stadium is HUGE! It holds over 60,000 people at one time! It's pretty new and has some cool features. The roof is made in such a way that it collects water when it rains, which can then be reused to water the pitch later. 

The grass just looked so perfect, I really wanted to go roll around in it. But I was pretty sure that would get me arrested, so I was able to resist. 

When you take the tour, you have the option to take a look around in the locker rooms. 

Which have their own hot tube for players after matches. 

I'm not going to go into too much detail about the stadium right now because I go back later so I'll toss in more details then!

Afterwards, I headed back to the flat so that I could start studying for my final that I had on the 18th. But I did call the parentals to brag to my dad that I got to the stadium and to ask their opinion about what to do with all my luggage (I'll come back to that later as well). They were together shopping at Home Depot and I just had to take a picture because I'm sure it looked funny from an outsiders perspective on their end. 

The next day (May 15th), TP and I went down to Kensington and back to the Parent Trap House because she had missed out when MC and I went. So we went and took some lovely pictures. Afterwards, we walked right down the road to Harrod's because why not? I had never been in before, and let me tell you, I felt very inadequate. 

This place is HUGE, it has 5 or 6 floors and the bottom floor has its food area. Each of the rooms of the food area were categorized differently. There was an entire room for fish, different healthy foods and an entire room for Chocolate! I was thinking of buying some, but when I saw the prices, I slunk away with my tail between my legs. 

We made our way upstairs to Harrod's own Laudree (a fancy french cafe where they serve tasty Macaroons) (of course, too expensive for us once again). We walked around upstairs where the clothes were and finally decided that we were quite unworthy and hustled out of there! It was back to the flat for studying for me!

Saturday, May 16th, was my day to go exploring. When we had gone on our Jack the Ripper walking tour back in February, we ended up at an outdoor market called Spittalfields, which by that time at night was closed, but I was determined to make my way back to! 

I made my way to the market just in time for some tasty lunch! While I was debating on what to eat by walking between the different stalls, someone walked past me with a large tray of fish and chips. I had made up my mind! 

While this market wasn't like Borough (food market), they still had some interesting things for sale on some of the stalls. Unfortunately, I didn't find anything I couldn't live without, so I moved on without buying anything. 

I made my way south and ended up walking over Tower Bridge. It was such a lovely day, but that wasn't my destination. I found my way to a small little market called Maltby Street Market. It was probably one of the smallest markets I had seen. It was just a bunch of different food vendors selling food in an alleyway between a coupe of buildings. (Yes that does sound sketchy, but there were a lot of people there!) After walking around for about 10 minutes, I finally found the stall I wanted! 

I had been told about these brownies by two different people on my travels, and let me tell you, if you are ever in London and are looking to eat the best brownies of your entire life...you need to find these. (Although, I would recommend stopping at Tesco and buying a small thing of milk to drink it with, because these are very very rich! and you are going to want something to drink afterwards!) (My mouth is watering just thinking about it!)

I ended up buying two because I couldn't decide which one would taste better. It was raspberry cheesecake swirl and salted caramel. They were so rich and creamy that I could only eat one in that sitting. 

After stopping at the market, I wanted to check another Doctor Who place off my bucket list and that was the estate that they filmed Rose Tyler's building at. It was a part of London that I had never been to before on the south side of the river. I'm going to be honest, I don't think I found it even though I tried pretty hard to look for it. While I've always felt safe in London, I was feeling kinda iffy about the area that I was in. So while I did look for the building, I didn't try and stay for very long because I was anxious to get home. But don't worry! I made it home alright and I went to bed pretty early because I had done a lot of walking and eating that day!