Be Careful What You Wish For...

This morning I woke up bright and early around 5:00. I felt ambitious so I went for a little run in Regent's Park. I hadn't gone running in a while and was definitely feeling it after the first two songs on my ipod, but I pressed forward! The park was absolutely beautiful and it was just a little misty. Turns out, Queen Mary's Gardens was embedded in the park where I was jogging. I got so distracted by the gorgeous fountains and flowers, willow trees and cute ponds, that I just kept going and going! The best part was that there was virtually no one in sight, so I felt like it was my secret discovery. My whole "theme" I guess you could say is to GET LOST IN LONDON. It seems like that would be the best adventure for someone who has six weeks of just living here! Yet as I kept running and kept discovering, I was happy, but when I started to get tired and wanting to go back, I didn't know where I was! Luckily there were many maps around, but it ended up being quite the jogging expedition that took about an hour. Yeahh man just getting a hot bod.. no big deal!

Then I went to delicious Caffe Nero for breakfast, pretty much like the London version of Starbucks, and read the local London Times newspaper. Quite a lovely morning!

Now. My adventure to the actual London Centre. The Tube traveling went fine, only messed up on one little stop- not that big of a deal. By that time, though, it had started raining pretty steadily, and I was carrying all my stuff (50 lb. suitcase, violin, large touristy backpack). I realized once I got off the Tube that I had no idea how to get to the Centre from the station. So, I bought a map of London.
This was what I looked at for a good...hour? Two hours? Oh but don't worry, I was hauling my suitcase and attempting to walk the entire time. Mama, my raincoat is a blessing sent from heaven above. This is the corner of the map I thought Palace Ct. was. I failed to see that the W8 postal code shown is not the same as the W2 postal code of the Centre. I walked and walked and walked, pushing my suitcase the whole way. I said many prayers of thanks that my suitcase wasn't broken, that my violin case wasn't leaking, and that my legs weren't broken. When I arrived at the London Centre, after asking many strangers for directions and receiving all different answers, I was VERY grateful to be there.

We went on our first walk, then a small group of us went to the Camden Town Market to explore for a bit. Another theme: YOLO. you only live once!
Since I am in the group that does dishes this first week (kinda like Girls Camp), we took a little longer and missed out on a huge group that went to get gelato after dinner. We decided to show them up, and with our "clique", we ventured out to get our own gelato...at the same place of course. But we weren't quite exactly sure where it was. We wandered, became a little delirious, and found it after..an hour and a half?..when it's less than 15 minutes away. SO SO worth it though. Gelato Mio will be a place I will go quite frequently.

Lessons learned: 1. Admit you don't know where something is. 2. It's okay to take a long time to read the map. 3. Don't go somewhere you think might be the right direction. 4. Laughing about getting lost is hands down the only way to have fun and stay sane. 5. Don't ask Brits for directions.


Confession: I got lost in London today. Not only once- three times. But did I lose? nah... epic. win.