fiiiiinally got to legit sleep in this morning! i had the alarm set for 8:30am on the off chance that i wanted to go to the market with Amanda and Jess.... when the alarm went off, though, DEFINITELY decided against getting up (sleeping in meant more than anything else in that moment!) so, reset the alarm for 10:30am and rolled back over. Jess got up and left so i had a momentary single for the morning. I got up right after my alarm went off, showered, dressed and decided to take some pictures and head out for a walk. I took pictures of our room and bathroom (for reference!) and then headed out to explore Chelsea.
I'm amazed more and more at this area.... it's so beautiful and incredibly different than anywhere, yet not overly strange. I walked toward the western half a Chelsea... down King's Rd. - past cadogan's and babushka (yes, it IS actually called babushka). I stayed on the main road for a bit.... saw two dogs tied outside a starbucks (they were very cute, but i thought it'd be sketchy to take a picture of them). Then I wandered of the main road a bit and headed toward the river... the houses here all have some kinds of flowers in pretty wrought iron flower boxes outside. i walked by the river for about a block, then turned down another alley... there was a church on the corner and the people were just leaving from sunday services. it was felt so nice to hear the organ and see all these older british ladies and gents walking out of church... something out of a movie. i continued on past them and ended up walking back to king's rd. there's a side square off of king's rd that has one of the private gardens... i decided to walk around that and, for the first time, i actually saw people inside! these gardens fascinate me - they're so gorgeous yet they're behind bars. the rest of the world can see inside them (for the most part, except for over grown shrubs and such) but, can't get in. i love them. something about the mystery of being inside. i think the scene in Notting Hill will never be the same for me now that I've actually seen a garden that you'd have to break into to get inside....
around 12:30 i headed back to IES. Jess and Amanda were back from the market and the gang decided that we should leave around 1:15 for Regent's park. we kind of bummed out in the room for a while (i worked on FINALLY posting some pictures..... haven't touched the massive files yet... just the simple airplane ride and walk around chelsea pictures.) we met downstairs and headed out to the park. the circle and district lines were still closed today (they're doing construction on them all weekend apparently) so the picadilly line was our option.... and apparently everyone else's as well - massively busy! took the picadilly to waterloo and got off at the regent park stop. we had NO idea where to go or how big the park actually was so we just began to walk around, following the crowd. we ended up inside this huge grassy area where they had lots of inflatable blue tubes set up as barriers/sitting on things and bunches of rugby training things happening. as we found out later, there wasn't an actual rugby game happening.... instead, it was a send off for the England team's season. they travel around the world (obviously... hence the 'world cup') so, this was like their big shindig before leaving. they had different stations for the kids to do various training exercises and then two 'pitches' (as they're called) set up for tag/touch rugby. we watched the England touch rugby team play a match and then wandered over to the main pitch... there, they had the England rugby team players meeting fans/signing autographs.... the line was about a mile long! we decided against that (since we don't actually know any of the players....) and ended up hanging out on the grass for a bit. there was a crepes stand (along with other foods) so we decided to all get some.... we ended up sharing (they were large and not cheap - L4). jess and i shared a cinnamon and sugar crepes = delicious!!!! around 4:15ish we decided that we'd had enough and headed to find a tube stop.... we wound up wandering around the park for a bit. we found a carosel! (smack in the middle of the park there was this carosel surrounded by flowers and shrubs and other pretty flowery nature).... again.... can we say movie scene?! we eventually found the tube stop and made our way back to IES. it was a nice day out and we decided that it was very fun to do something that wasn't really 'touristy' for once. this was definitely something the English people would do.
i absolutely loved being in the park. it was a beautiful day AGAIN (who can complain, honestly?) and it was nice to see so much grass again. i haven't yet missed home. i've kind of been waiting for homesick to kick in, but it hasn't yet. i'm too in love with everything about this place to miss something else. the prices... i'm not in love with. expensive as all get out.... but i'm trying to be cheap so that i can save. don't want to spend too much all in one place. i think once i'm in lancaster things will start to slow down and i'll be able to relax just a little. not that i'm complaining though.... i was expecting this month to be full to the brim and exciting.... so far, it most definitely has been.
we're planning on going to cadogen's tonight.... really just to hang out someplace other than here. it's kind of our new spot to chill. class tomorrow morning! should probably do some homework-y kind of things....
