It was off the hook. boop boop boop boop

David, Keith, Nini and Clare are studying abroad in Nice, France this semester and we've been trying to coordinate good times to visit each other forever. They were here Friday through Monday, except the girls left Sunday afternoon.

Day 1:

Meg and I picked them up from the tube stop in the afternoon because Sammi had class. So, we decided to play a joke on Sammi and tell her their flight had been canceled. Of course she was really mad at me when she realized I had lied to her =]. I didn't mind though because we got a kick out of it and I think it made it even better when they walked through the door after she'd thought they weren't coming.

Anyway, it hasn't rained in London since the 2nd day we were here when it sprinkled for 15 minutes. Of course, the first day the Nice crew gets here it starts pouring while we walk to Regent's park next to our flat. We showed them the park and Queen Mary's Rose Garden. And within the first couple of hours of them being here, the girls had already decided they loved London. I'm pretty sure Clare wants to live here now haha.

We wanted to make sure we got to do everything with them in London but during nice weather do we decided to wait out the rain by staying in doors as much as possible. Since they were also exhausted from traveling we came back to our flat, got ready and took them out to dinner at The Rocket. We got there at 5 or 6 and we stayed until 2AM. It was fun showing them a taste of what our college town is like and we were so glad they enjoyed the cheap food and drinks! Emily and Brain came down to hang out from the enclave and so did Jon Louey and Suzanne from LSE. Basically, AU took over the Rocket that night but it's starting to seem like AU has pretty much taken over the entire city.

Day 2:

I love sleeping, we all do, which explains why none of us woke up for our alarms and nearly missed changing of the guards because we were so tired. We DID get there in time so they got to experience the craziness of Buckingham Palace coupled with changing of the guard all before Noon. When the ceremony ended we walked to Westminster Abbey and Big Ben/House of Parliament but we figured they didn't have enough time in London to try to do a tour of either building but we know enough about that stuff to give them a quick summary anyway.

After lunch in front of the Jewel Tower site we went down to the Thames and showed them the London Eye. Nini, David, and Clare went with Sammi on the Eye while Keith, Meg, Fei and I took a tour of the Movium-- the Movie Museum.

They had a great time on the London Eye and you can get pictures from Sammi or Nini's facebooks, but Keith had already gone to the Eye before and the rest of us are waiting to do that with Taryn when she comes next weekend. So we gave the Movium a shot and it was amazing. Inside are tons of costumes and props from really cool movies like all of the Harry Potters, Star Wars, The Bourne Trilogy, The Borrowers, Sherlock Holmes, Gladiator, etc etc. My favorite thing in the entire Movium was Hermione Granger's Time-turner from Harry Potter. I am really surprised at myself for not trying to take that home with me.

We also took a tour of the Cartoon Exhibit where they displayed some of the original sketches of animated characters from my childhood--Tom and Jerry, Ren and Stimpy and a lot of Disney.

The final part of the Movium was a Beatles exhibit that had Ringo's drum set on a stage. There was also no one in the rooms, so my biggest regret is not getting up there and pounding away. Ugh. The images in the room were all for sale and they were incredible. If you love The Beatles, actually, if you have ever even heard of The Beatles, you HAVE to go to the Movium.

Timing worked out perfectly because the four of us finished the same time that the four on the Eye did so we met up and moved onto the next leg of the touristy. Again, because Thrash had done the touristy-London thing I stayed back with him while the other 6 did a tour of the Tower of London. While they told us later that it was awesome, Thrash and I had our own adventure. First we got lost, and that's mainly because I was in charge of directions. THEN we found a secret market that I don't know if I'll ever be able to find again. And finally, we made it to our destination...the Clink Prison Museum.

Yes, you guessed it...it's an old prison, called the Clink (which also coined the term "the clink"), that's been turned into an interactive museum. There was a lot of writing in the descriptions, and it was tiny. But the mannequins and the torture tools were so ridiculous that I really couldn't complain since it was only like 3 pounds to get in. Well, the pictures speak for themselves I think and it was perfect because I was with Keith haha.

After we were all done with our tours, we met up on the other side of the Tower Bridge to eat fish and chips at the world's best fish & chips place ever. It's kinda our spot now. And Thrash got to see the Tower Bridge go up and down! It's how boats get through.

We ended the night at O'Neills with people from LSE and the Enclave.

Day 3:

For the second day in a row we all slept past our alarms and woke up a little too late for what we had originally planned to do. So we took them to the British Museum so they could see the Rosetta Stone. What we didn't know was that there was an exhibit of ancient Egypt so there were Sphinx heads everywhere....hello Phi Sigma Sigma central.

But afterward I had to take the girls to the airport because they were leaving a day earlier than the boys. Sammi took the guys to the British Library in the meantime. As a side note, there was a huge blowout sale at the bookstore on the tube stop and I bought too many movies.

Moving on, Day 3= Emily Beyer's birthday-eve so we got dressed up pretty and met up with everyone at Ping Pong, a place that serves dim sum. It was real classy. And Meg actually ate stuff there! She's really starting to take risks when it comes to all this food nonsense.

And to finish of Emily's bday we did some club hopping and lots of dancing and I made the live band wish her a happy birthday =].

The boys left us on Day 4, and it didn't take to long to realize that we missed them a lot. It was a nice reminder that no matter how much we love being here, it's going to be so nice to get back to AU and be with our friends again.


Oh and I can't forget. At the Movium, Meg and I found a DVD cover of Stardust, our favorite movie.