Sunday, March 22, 2009

A visitor from abroad!

Last Saturday, Julie showed up on my doorstep around 8:30 AM. Fortunately, I knew she was coming.

During her 4-day visit (nearly to the hour - she left 7:30AM Wednesday morning), we went out and were super-tourists! It was a lot of fun having Julie visit, and it was also fun having an excuse to get out and see my surroundings.

On Saturday, Jason, Julie & I walked for hours around town: we tried to go to Westminster Abbey (unsuccessfully - it closes at 2:30 with last admission 1:30, however we arrived at 1:15 and were turned away), we walked along the river and then across to Borough Market for lunch, then we visited St. Paul's cathedral and climbed as far as we could (the top tier is closed for another couple months). Afterwards, we visited a small, old pub called Seven Stars for a much-needed beer.


View westward from St. Paul's Cathedral


On Sunday, just we girls went to Brighton for the day. It's a popular seaside escape here - pretty chill environment with a boardwalk full of fish & chip shops and a pier chock full of rides and other amusements for kiddies. We combined the two and had fish & chips on the pier. The weather was perfect - about 60F and sunny! (As an aside, Julie somehow managed to pick the 4 nicest days of the year to date for her visit.) We wandered around some small winding alleys and did a bit of shopping before heading back.

Brighton Pier


On Monday I went to work and left Julie to venture into the city on her own, but on Tuesday I returned to the tourist role (note: much more fun than working) and we visited alt-hippie Camden, strolled through Regent's Park, and went to the National Gallery for proper afternoon tea (my first experience with that!) and a bit of Impressionist browsing. Then, being St. Patrick's Day and all, we hit the pubs for a mini-crawl.


Trafalgar Square, pre St. Patty's day pubbing

Of course there are more pictures - album link at left! I've also put up a link to the pictures from my & Jason's day trip to Windsor & Eton from the previous weekend. Enjoy!

1 comment:

Julia said...

After 3 days back at work, I'm ready to come back over for another visit!