Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Day Tripper.

What a beautifully productive day.

I rose bright and early this London morning to begin my day with seeing Ali Blumenfeld. We were meeting at the St. John's Wood tube station to eat a light breakfast at the Beatles Coffee Shop and then go to Abbey Road. I got there before Ali, so I walked around the surrounding area a bit and took some pictures. It's really a lovely neighborhood. The coffee shop was mildly disappointing, because I anticipated it being a large coffee bar with Beatles paraphernalia, merchandise, and mementos all over the place, like a Hard Rock Cafe tailored to the Beatles. It was a tiny space (and when I say tiny, I mean about half the size of my room here tiny) with a few different coffee drinks, a couple breakfast bars and sandwiches, and some Beatles souvenirs.  The Yellow Submarine coloring book was pretty cute though.

Then we walked to Abbey Road. We recognized it instantly not from the crossing itself, but because what other street crossing would be lined with people with cameras? We took pictures of it, but determined that since we have addresses here, we are not tourists, and would not take the stereotypical tourist crossing-of-Abbey-Road-like-the-Beatles picture (though, I am going back with some other friends and we WILL take this "look at me, I don't belong here" picture). We saw the Abbey Road Studio, and the ledge in front of the studio is covered in graffiti about the Beatles and people visiting. Of course, we signed it too. The earliest date we could find on there though is 2010, which means they paint over it fairly often. That's amazing to me, because it is literally COVERED in signatures. SO many people come out all the time and sign it! Just shows how much people love the Beatles, even in 2011.

Then I journeyed home, and then to my Marketing Communications class, which I walked in literally just on time for (because after Abbey Road, I was hungry and chose to eat something and leave myself minimum travel time rather than not eat). I stopped at the grocery store on my way back from class to mainly buy laundry detergent because I wanted to do my laundry tonight, since I am out of underwear, but apparently they close at 5:30.

Let's talk about the grocery store for a brief moment. I absolutely hate this about London. I feel like I'm ALWAYS in the grocery store! Normally I can just do one bulk buy, and not have to go back for a couple weeks. Not here. Since we have to walk everywhere, you can only buy as much as you can carry back walking. Since I'm a wimpy little girl, I can't buy more than two bags worth at a time. It's very telling that there isn't a grocery store with carts, only baskets... nobody can ever buy a carts worth of food at once! I'm going back there again tonight to finish my grocery shopping.

The past few days have been absolutely wonderful though, because I'm going out and doing things I want to do. I saw Jessica on Friday, saw Ali on Sunday, went to Portobello Road yesterday, and went to Abbey Road today. Tomorrow, Izabella, Kentucky (we have two Mikes in our group, so one is just called Kentucky), and maybe a couple other people are having a London day adventure. I am so excited. London is much more enjoyable when I'm doing things I want to do, rather than just going out because other people are.



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