Heather's London Pages: May 2009

Hello again! See, I said I would be a little more consistent from now on...

So about the month of May, even though it was ages ago now. In England, there aren't very many proper holidays - there is Christmas, New Year's, Easter, and then "bank holidays". How boring and so very English is that? Anyway in May there are two bank holidays - one at the end and one at the beginning to make for two nice long three day weekends. The first I didn't do much other than study - yes, the month of May was very consumed with work and studying, again. Don't I lead a super exciting life that's worth blogging about?

Well anyway work did actually lead to a rather exciting trip at the end of May - I went to Bulgaria for a few days as one of my clients owns some property there. I always love to see new places, so I was quite excited to go! We went to the capital, Sofia, and stayed in the Hilton which was...the same as every other Hilton. Sofia was interesting though - you can still definitely see the communist influences in the architecture and infrastructure, but there is a load of construction going on as well that seems to have a western influence too. A lot of the buildings were old and pretty dilapidated - chunks of the wall missing, paint peeling, etc., but then right next to these buildings would be a sparkling new high rise. The most startling thing to my spoiled American eyes was the "buses" - more like trams really, that literally looked like they had come straight out of 1945. Well, not straight b/c then they wouldn't have been in the state they were in. Here is a picture:

To be fair, here is a picture of the city, hopefully you can see how beautiful it is:

And for good measure, this is how you spell "McDonald's" in Bulgarian:

So that was Bulgaria. To back track a bit, in the middle of May I had my first official guest in my flat - my friend Lina came to visit from Sweden! She was only here for a short weekend, but it was still so good to have her. She had lived in London herself for a few years several years ago, so it was nice not to be obligated to do all the touristy stuff. We did go to Portobello Rd market (I've fallen in love with this street market, even though it's pretty touristy and extremely crowded, things I generally loathe, I love it. I love the things you can see and smell and hear. And buy, of course). On Saturday I also made American pancakes for breakfast, and then we had Swedish pancakes for dinner! It's a wonder I didn't gain ten pounds from that weekend, really. On Sunday we were low-key - a bit of shopping for clothes for her one-year-old daughter (I love to buy baby clothes so I spoil all of my friends' kids), and the baby to be (Lina is expecting her second in August). All in all a fantastic time and I was so sad to see her go. She also met James for the first time and gave her seal of approval, but I mean really, who wouldn't? He's perfect.

Also in May four girls from the States came to visit! Three of the girls (Meisel, Jenn, and Jenni) were close friends from my Kansas City office, and one of them brought a friend of theirs along that I had only met once. It was such an amazing time - they got here on a Friday morning and unfortunately I had to work until about 3 that day, but when I got home we immediately went to a pub and started drinking while we waited for James to arrive for dinner. The girls were being true Americans - a bit loud after a few drinks (uh, you know who I mean) - but I loved every second of it! It was good to be in the company of Americans again. They all loved James too and were quick to make fun of how ridiculously cheesy we are with each other.

Saturday we did the touristy thing but I turned it into a bit of a pub crawl as well - pub-site-pub-site, you get the picture. It was quite fun indeed. Sunday we did the British museum, Tower Bridge, oh, and a pub. I took them to all kinds of fun restaurants too - food you can't easily find in KC - Lebanese, Indian, Korean, etc. They went on to travel round Europe for the next few weeks, then came back through London for a night on their way back to the States. I had so much fun while they were here and it meant so much to me that they came - I know it's expensive to get over here but it was so nice to be with good friends. Especially since it's been a bit slow making friends in London. Well, other than James. So thanks girls for coming!! Here are some pics of their visit, and there are plenty more on facebook:

At Big Ben: