London Days 44-49: MOM VISITS!! ♥

Wednesday, March 3rd, MOM CAME TO VISIT! (This an extremely overdue and out-of-order post. My bad.)

After I got out of class I ran to her hotel to give her a big hug! :) Then we explored the Russell Square area by my flat/her hotel for a little bit, and settled down for a late pub lunch. Afterwards, I brought her back to my flat, and then we grabbed a quick dinner at a cafe. We parted ways, got dressed, and then met up around 7:00 to go see Wicked (!!) with Claire, Christine, Alex, Alex's mom, Alex's sister, and Alex's sister's boyfriend for Claire's birthday. It was quite a collaboration of people to say the least. It was all of our first times seeing the musical, and it was absolutely fantatsic! I only knew a small sliver of the story line, and the bigger storyline was really mind-blowing. I highly recommend seeing it wherever you can!

Thursday morning I had class until noon, and then afterwards I took Mom out on a crazy sightseeing adventure. We got off of the tube at Charing Cross next to the National Gallery and Trafalgar Square. We walked from Trafalgar Square to Big Ben (past the London Eye), and then to Westminster Abbey. Then, we braved the walk to Buckingham Palace, stopping by the Royal Cavalry Museum on the way. While walking, I thought every building we were passing was Buckingham Palace, but it turns out it was (of course) the building farthest away from where we started. Go figure. After seeing Buckingham Palace, we walked towards Victoria Station and had some fish n' chips on the way in a pub called the 'Bag o' Nails'. As I am on a journey to find the best fish n' chips in London, this is definitely a finalist (along with a restaurant in Greenwich). It's slogan is that it has 'probably the best fish n' chips in London'; I would probably agree. That night I also brought her to Shakespeare's Head so that she could see one of the pubs that my friends and I congregate to on a regular basis. It was lovely.

On Friday, we took the tube to Kew to meet up with a school-sponsored field trip (free = yay!) to Kew Gardens. We started the afternoon off with a 30-minute tour of the gardens by one of SU's professors in London, and then were sent off to explore on our own. Unfortunately, I found the gardens to be relatively boring, and I was also very sick, so we only stayed for about an hour. We did manage to see two different green houses, though, including one from the 1800s that had a ton of tropical palm trees, and the Princess of Wales Conservatory that had nine different climate rooms, all with different plant species. After leaving, we went to a little Italian cafe for tea, and then headed back home so that I could rest for the evening. That night, we went out with some of my friends to another one of the local bars, this one called the White Hart, but not for very long because all of us were tired.

Saturday morning we went out to Pancake Cafe by the British Museum for Breakfast. Then, we met up with Alex, Ramon, and Ramon's friend Tania who was visiting at the British Museum. We stayed for a few hours, but were able to see Ancient Egypt, Ancient Mesopotamia, Ancient Rome, and Ancient Greece along with a little bit of Medieval British history. Ancient Egypt was by far my favorite exhibit. On the ground floor they had huge sculptures and pieces of tombs, and upstairs they had smaller artifacts and mummies. In the upstairs exhibit, they had mummified cats, canopic jars, tons of mummies, an unwrapped mummy (which was cool, but a little creepy), and Cleopatra's mummy! I have always been interested in Ancient Egyptian history, so this part of the museum was SO interesting to me. After the museum I went home and napped (I was sick all weekend while Mom was here, so I unfortunately spent a great deal of time napping). She had moved out of her hotel and into my flat by this time, so while I napped she went to the grocery store and made us all dinner, which was fantastic!

Sunday morning we did another big sightseeing day, but this time we visited my favorite part of London. We got off at St. Paul's and tried to visit the Cathedral, but it was closed to tourists since it was a day of worship. We walked across the Millenium Bridge to the Tate Modern, where we went up to the 7th floor cafe, which has a phenomenal view of St. Paul's and the Thames. Then we headed to the basement of the Tate, where we did the "box" exhibit, which I think I have mentioned before, but is just a giant box-shaped scupture that is pitch-black and you walk into until you are enveloped in darkness. Mom didn't like it very much, but it was really cool nonetheless. We then walked along the Thames past the Globe Theatre until we reached Borough Market, which was unfortunately closed. We then crossed the river on a different bridge, and walked along the opposite coast until we reached St. Paul's again to catch the Tube to Notting Hill. (We amazingly ran into Ramon and Tania while we were walking back to St. Paul's, which I couldn't believe happened in such a large city!) We caught the tube to Notting Hill, where I was planning on showing Mom the house with the blue door from the movie, along with the Portobello Market. Unfortunately, we sat down to grab some lunch, and all of the exhaustion that had been building up in my body hit me, and I absolutely had to go home to sleep. However, Mom was happy just to have gone to the Notting Hill Tube station, so she wasn't horribly disappointed.

That evening, Mom made meatloaf for my friends and I, and we had our last night together. I got some homework done after dinner, while Mom packed and got herself ready for departure. In the morning, I woke up early to get her to the Tube to Heathrow, where we said our goodbyes. Horribly, horribly bittersweet. I love being in London and beign on my own, but I really do miss her dearly. It was an awesome week, and I'm so glad that she got to see where I am living and what my life is like here! I will be home soon enough though, and then I will have an entire summer to spend with her and the rest of the family. :)