London: Monday

Anna had class Monday morning, so I decided to take a "London Walk," which is a company that offers really affordable (5pounds for a student) walks of different parts of London. I picked the "Old Palace Quarter" tour, which started at the Green Park and covers all of the area as it was developed by King Henry after he married Anne Boleyn and built a palace in what was the countryside outside the city of London. Our tour guide was really great and showed us lots of fun little tidbits, like where the Bowler hat was invented, where supposedly the last duel in London took place, told us about the different men's clubs, showed us where Prince Charles lives, etc. The tour really got interesting though when an older woman fainted midtour. We were outside a hotel though, so they got the doctor on staff and I sure she's okay.

After the tour I stopped at Fortun and Mason, which is now the official store of the Crown (it used to be Harrod's but apparently they made certain allegations about Prince Charles killing Princess Diana, so that tie was obviously severed). Anyways, I spent like an hour just browsing all of their foods - teas, jams, cookies, chocolates, coffee, Easter candy... and then spent probably way too much money on some tea for myself. Then I happened upon Hatchards, which is a bookstore that Dad actually suggested that I visit (though I had no idea it was the same place when I went in). It's a cute little bookstore, but I couldn't bring myself to buy any books because I figured I could find it back in the States for cheaper.

I can't really remember what I did for the rest of the afternoon after Anna got out of classes, I think we might have just hung out for awhile in her room. Anyways, that night, one of her really good friends at LSE, Nabil, had his family in town and he invited all of his friends out to dinner with them. I was included, which was great and I got to meet all of Anna's friends and Nabil's family (they're were all really awesome). It was a lot of fun, tons of Indian food was eaten, and Nabil's mom sufficiently embarassed him to make up for all of the time that she hadn't seen him while he was in the UK.

And we ended our night with a little more Sound of Music :)