3 Girls in a Big City

Yesterday was one of those days that I will always remember as a good day. I might eventually forget what we did and what we saw but no matter what I will always be able to look back and know that yesterday was truly a good day. It started off with a simple mission: find the Borough Markets. You wouldn't think that this would be too hard.... So Kayla, Paige, and I left our flat at 11:30 and figured that we would just walk in the general direction until we found the Borough Markets, an outdoor food market. Someone (...Andy) had told us that it was near Buckingham Palace so we made our way through Trafalgar Square. We got excited when we entered the square because there were people everywhere and street performers on every corner. We stationed ourselves to watch one man who advertised fire bending, but quickly left when we saw that his idea of "turning liquid to solid" was flailing his arms around in an attempt to break dance.

The three of us walked along the path to Buckingham Palace and talked about our time here and how good it was to have a day away from the craziness of big groups for a girl's day. Sometimes you just need a day with the girls. We had seen Buckingham Palace at night, but seeing in the daylight was an entirely different experience. We took the classic pictures in front of the gates and some not-so-classic pictures with random boys on bicycles that reminded us of characters from Mary Kate and Ashley's "Passport to Paris." This was possibly our lowest moment as tourists, but worth it nonetheless. If you look closely in the picture you can see one of the boys looking straight at the camera...stealth is not our forté... One highlight of the day was asking directions from one of the Palace guards (not the ones with the funny hats - the police officers that stand inside the gates with the giant guns). Paige turned on her southern charm and asked, "Excuse me officer, are we allowed to ask you where the Borough Markets are??" He was very helpful and looked suspiciously like Hugh Grant. We felt guilty, however, after we got a picture with him only to find that a "queue" was beginning to form to take their pictures as well... We started something bad.

The rest of our day was extremely interesting to us, but the details would be far from thrilling to read so I will spare you. But rest assured we finally found the Borough Markets after about four hours of meandering around London. In case you were wondering, they are NOT anywhere near Buckingham Palace. Just when we thought all hope of finding them was lost, Paige exclaims, "Where are the Borough Markets??" and about four people on the street turned around and pointed us in the right direction. The markets were incredible. So much food so little time. One of my dearest goals in life is to be able to buy fancy cheese whenever I want, so the cheese stands around every single turn were taunting me. Each little booth gave out samples of whatever they were selling- everything from curry to jams to smoked wild boar. You could have easily had your fill just walking around sampling everything, but we decided that buying dessert was also necessary... Let's just say that the chocolate and Baileys cheesecake was a very good decision.

It was a great day of exploration and sightseeing with two wonderful girls in one wonderful city. We finished our day by dominating the tube for the first time and then eating cookies and milk. I can't tell you how nice it was just walking around the city for an entire day. It may not seem monumental enough to warrant an entire page of writing, but when your days can easily be overwhelmed by school work or the stress of planning for large groups, a day like yesterday is enough to make you stop and be thankful. And I truly am very thankful to be here.