Get it? Like the movie True Grit? Aren't jokes so funny when I have to explain them?
Remember Emma, my friend who is in grad school in London? Remember when I said I would crash her flat?
Being a woman of my word, I hopped the pond with my friend Alison two weeks ago to fulfill my promise (or threat) to visit Emma. As it turns out, Emma is actually living a in a fairy tale. No, she isn't psychologically disillusioned. Her life has literally been ripped from the pages of a storybook.
She is getting her Master's from Regent's College. This is what her school looks like:
Can this really be considered "school"? It looked like one of Bert's chalk drawings in Mary Poppins.
Only without the merry-go-round. There were talking penguins, though.
She lives here:
Sigh with me.
And she gets to do this every day:
tea and dessert twenty times a day
Emma really has become a True Brit. She knows London like the back of her hand, which is a good thing considering Alison and I would have surely perished without her. She was a gracious hostess, and even let us sleep in her bed while she slept on a half-inflated air mattress. That is love.
We had a blast and took the city by storm. My favorite thing we did? That's like asking me to choose my favorite child (if I had about 50 kids with names such as "Going To The Cotswolds" or "Seeing The Funniest Bar Fight At A Pub In Oxford"). Nevertheless, I'm gonna go with "Being With My Friends In London." For sure.
My least favorite part of the trip? Easy. Getting pooped on.
How does that even happen?
We hit the "big" sites like Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and everything else you would expect to visit in London. But my favorite memories were in the unexpected moments.
Examples include:
lurking in some graveyards
dropping by my old neighborhood
Contrary to popular belief, I'm not really Asian.
napping in the museums
celebrating Valentine's Day
klassy
getting lost but not really in a hedge maze at Henry VIII's palace
dead end
seeing the big guy himself
pretty nice guy, if you forget about his wife-killing tendencies
meeting new people (even if they didn't speak back)
this guy was such a bore
hanging out with our friend Ann Elizabeth
portable friend courtesy of Alison
and planning our next trip!
Just kidding, Emma. We'll give you some time to recuperate. So is next week good for you?
