Carnivals and Queens

This past week was the last week for many of my classes. I only have Linear Circuits and a revision session for Operating Systems this week. Which is good because I have a ton of work to get done before April 1 (the official last day of classes), then next Saturday, I leave for Brussels.

On Friday, Ed and I went to the Natural History Museum. The museum is incredible! The building's architecture is very beautiful, and the collections are very extensive. We stayed until closing time and afterwards headed to a chocolate festival at the Southbank Centre. It was fun, but very small and a bit pricey. Ed and I only got a brownie at the festival.

Abbey's friend, Sarah, and her boyfriend came down from Edinburgh to visit this weekend, so that evening, I met up with them to hang out. Since they had been traveling all day, it was pretty low key, and we agreed to meet up early the next day to explore London.

Originally, Abbey and Sarah intended to meet up for waffles at My Old Dutch, but the place didn't open until 11 (and the changing of the guards started at 11:30) so we ate at Smiths of Smithfield instead. SOS is probably my favorite breakfast/lunch/brunch place in London. We grabbed the nearest bus after and arrived at the palace a few minutes late, but we didn't miss too much. There were lots of tourists, so it was a bit hard to see, but halfway through, it started raining and a lot of people left. Typical London. The weather forecast predicted a 20% chance of precipitation, and of course, it rains half the day.



After the changing of the guard, we walked to Harrods. We got cupcakes and Abbey tried on some hats. It was a lot of fun, but at this point, I was already a bit tired out and thirsty. We left Harrods to catch a bus to Battersea Park for the carnival. Honestly, I was a bit disappointed by the carnival. Even though it had been open for a couple days, half the advertised rides weren't set up and there was barely anyone there. Still, we each got tokens for the rides and arcade. Abbey blew most of hers on a shooting range game, which I tried (and failed terribly), but Sarah still had enough tokens to go on one of the rides with me.



I ended up going on the carousel by myself, which was a little awkward because it really was me and two kids. Still, the carousel was really cool because each of the kings and queens of England were painted above the horses (and every horse had a name painted on its neck -- I rode Joby). Afterwards, we grabbed the bus back, and for the life of me, I could not stay awake. When we got back, it was downpouring. HUGE SHEETS OF RAIN.

We parted ways for the evening (to make dinner and dry off), but Abbey and I met up later to watch Something Wicked This Way Comes, which is a really fun, obscure Disney movie with Jonathan Pryce.

My camera battery died, so I will grab some photos from Abbey later.