Spring?

Spring seems to have forgotten to visit London this year. It's officially been the coldest "spring" they've had in 50 years. We're still seeing mostly grey, cloudy skies and lots of slow, drizzly rain. With temps down to near freezing more often than not and random snow flurries every so often, it's been a chilly month of March! I'm holding out for a warmer April, but I'm not holding my breath!

My usual view from under my umbrella.

I've gotten in the habit of taking photos of lots of random things I find interesting
around London. Dead umbrellas are my latest obsession. I find them everywhere, tossed
aside and forgotten in a moment of frustration. The wind is ridiculously gusty here, so umbrellas
never last very long. Because of that, I've actually taken to buying two at a time from Poundland. 

However, even in the yucky weather, I've still been managing to have fun with my London friends! The last few weeks have brought lots of laughs and good times. Here's some random moments I've enjoyed:

A couple weeks ago, my colleagues Simon, Frances and I braved the snowy drizzle and walked to the cinema after work. The weather was freezing, but Clapham Common looked lovely in the sunset. 

Simon, Frances and I at the cinema. My first 3D film ever! We saw "The Great and Powerful Oz," which I thought
was pretty enough to look at but rather blah overall. The 3D glasses, though, were fantastic! 

Fellow English teacher Cristina and I accidently dressed up as twins for work one day last week!

Bindy helped me tackle my fear of boxed hair dye
when she colored my hair last week! It looks fabulous
thanks to her!

Remember what I said about taking photos
of random weird things in London? Here's an example.
Sadie and I were walking home one night when we
passed this man with 10,000 liters of cola in his
shopping cart. What on earth?!? So Sadie popped
in for a quick pic. :) 

When I woke up Thursday morning for the last day of school before our two-week holiday, I found this glorious sight:

Sunshine beaming in through the kitchen window. It was so bright when I came out of the bedroom that I actually thought I had left light on the night before! But nope, it was just the sun. Finally here. Hope springs.

Good Company

Last Saturday, I was lucky to have another visit from an American colleague and friend. I  met Alan about five years ago through the small, well-connect world of newspaper advisers when I took a week-long seminar from him in Washington D.C. We've kept in touch over the years through journalism, and Alan even came out to Washington state a couple summers ago to be our expert-in-residence for the journalism camp I was working for.

You know what they say about it being a small world? Well, I'm starting to think they're right. Last spring, I got a message from Alan congratulating me on being a Fulbrighter. At first I couldn't figure out how he knew, but it turns out that my Fulbright colleague Niki is his colleague as well. They work at the same school, and Alan was at a Fulbright meeting with Niki when he saw my name on the paperwork! See what I mean about it being a small world?

Alan was able to stop in London on his way to Scotland to visit Niki. I always have fun with Alan, and Saturday was no different. We had a great day together in London, catching up, visiting a few sights and even sampling some local flavors. The weather may have been crap, but the company sure was good!

It was bitingly cold and snowing! 

Since Alan lives in DC, I thought he'd like to see trendy Chelsea. We stopped to check out the little market.

Partridges is a very nice, very classic British supermarket. I love it!
We popped in real quick to show Alan the American section. 

Later we made our way to Trafalgar Square.

Alan and I in Trafalgar. Do we look cold?

A visit to London isn't complete without a walk across the Thames. 

The London Eye

Houses of Parliament and Big Ben

Such a fun day!

Country to Country

Fulbrighter Jessica came down to London from Hull this weekend for a fabulous American weekend! Well, we didn't actually set out to make it an American weekend, mind you, but that's just sort of what happened. Jessica actually came down so we could go to the Country to Country concert at the O2, which featured Little Big Town, Vince Gill and Tim McGraw!!! American country music isn't really the thing here in England (go figure!) so we just couldn't resist the chance to see some of our faves from the good ol' US of A right here in the heart of the UK! Honestly, I'm still so excited about the whole thing that I really can't stop using exclamation points!!

Jess had one major request for the weekend--that we go find a Chipotle and get a burrito. Apparently she actually is Chipotle's No. 1 fan! So we set off Saturday first thing to go find ourselves some burritos and thus began our American weekend. (Sure, burritos are Mexican, but Chipotle is an American company--roll with me here, people.)

We found it! 

Very exciting!

Yay burrito bowls! 

Our next stop was to head over to east London to check out Spitafields Market, one of the most famous markets in London. I haven't spent much time in east London (aside from our Jack the Ripper walk a few weeks ago) and I must say I enjoyed it much more in the day light when we we're following the steps of a psychotic killer! Actually, the area around the Old Spitafields Market is really cute, trendy and fun! I loved the market, which had a good mix of clothing, jewelry, food, antiques and crafts. Of course, Jess and I both found some must-have treasures. My best purchase is a really cool old map of south London from 1905 that features my neighborhood and the cross streets of the flat! Can't wait to get it framed at home!

This is a really neat memorial statue outside the Liverpool Street Station.
It's from several European countries helping England for it's help with
the Kindertransport during WWII.

At the market

I'm really struggling to understand this trend...

I NEED one of these that says Brixton Market!!!
Maybe next month after payday  :) 

Here, folks, is the winner for Most Awkward Photo of the Day!

I also NEED this tote bag...but didn't buy it either.

We saw this idea in a shop and loved it!

Usually, I'm all about the Live-Laugh-Love.
Here, I was diggin' the Love-Eat-Live.

I really do want to bring home a tea pot and tea cups. And this one
features pretty Victorian-esque flamingos! Totes amaze! 

The Gherkin! 

After a long trip back to the flat to drop off our treasures and a quick rest and wardrobe change, we were off to the O2 (one of London's most amazing arenas!) to see Timmy and friends!

I do!

This is Johnny, Jessica's little sidekick guy that she
hauls all over the world. He's a big fan of Tim McGraw
so we took him with us. Here he is enjoying the Tube.
Unfortunately, we both forgot about him in my purse,
so he missed the concert...whoops!

The O2!

Carrie was performing Sunday! Would have been awesome to see her, too!

The inside of the O2 is like its own little town! Restaurants and bars and
even dance clubs! 

They set up a little area called the Town Square with vendors.

Blurry but fabulous with the flags in the back! And that's Coors Light!!!
Funny how exciting it is to find Coors Light on tap when it's not very
easy to find. 

We both really wanted hoodies with the awesome flags logo, but they
didn't have them for sale, so we settled on trucker hats instead.

Little Big Town was amazing! Great performers!

We were really up there! This one is blurry but you can sort of see
what the arena looks like from this view.

Little Big Town performed all their big hits plus some new really fun songs. They also did a couple covers that I loved. Here's a clip from Little Big Town doing a cover of one of my favorite Fleetwood Mac songs "The Chain"!

And then they did Lady Gaga's "Born This Way," which I also loved!

Such a great set!

Taking a little break before Vince Gill 

Vince Gill was much more chill than Little Big Town, but he still sounds
great, plays his guitar beautifully and was so humble!

Waiting for Tim McGraw!

Here comes Tim!!!

LOVE that duster jacket! He's so sexy!

He looked a bit thin to me, but still looked good! Oh yes, and he sounded great, too! 

He meant to point at me, but he got confused and pointed in the wrong direction...

He played a lot of his classic hits and some new songs I didn't know.
Overall, it was a good mixed set. 

I'd seen Tim McGraw a few years ago in Seattle when he toured with Faith Hill. That concert was great, just like this one. He's such a good performer! And I still can't believe I got to see him in London of all places!

The next day, Jessica and I decided to round out our American weekend with a traditional American breakfast. So we headed off to find a local chain called The Diner and feasted on real pancakes, eggs and "streaky" bacon, as they call it. ("bacon" here is actually thick ham/thick Canadian bacon")

It's not Denny's (haha--that's probably a good thing!) but it was tasty!

After breakfast and a little walk around, Jess had to head to the train station to get home. Since it was St. Patrick's Day, I decided to pop over to Trafalgar Square to check out the celebrations.

They had a stage set up with people performing Irish music, booths to check out and lots of beer. I enjoyed having a little look around before heading back home to settle in for the afternoon and get ready for yet another busy week!

Lots of Guinness hats!

The parade!

They have the best view of the parade! 

Classic London