Week 4: September 24-30
- Katie & Webster
- Sep 30, 2018
- 4 min read
Well it has officially been 1 month in London! We are loving every minute of this experience.
On Monday, Webster worked from home and joined me for lunch in our favourite spot. We had sausage rolls for lunch (how English!). When I got home, we had a quiet night going through our photos from August. We plan to post on the blog every Friday with a city we visited before arriving in London. This past Friday, we posted about Barcelona! You can read it here.
On Tuesday Webster worked from home again and we had lunch at our favourite spot (2x in one week!) We spent the night working on picking our courses for Australia! Even though we start school in March, we have to pick our courses soon. We are trying to get them to transfer directly as Laurier course equivalents so we have been emailing professors in Waterloo and Sydney to get that all sorted out.
On Wednesday we were excited to go out and do something fun after staying in for two nights. I came home quickly after work and we made dinner at home. Then we headed on the tube to Piccadilly Circus. There was a tube strike on the Piccadilly Line so we had to take a weird route to get there. We went to the LEGO store, M&M World, and other touristy spots in the area. After exploring Piccadilly we walked to Oxford Circus, one of our favourite places...we always end up there! We shopped around a bit and took the tube home from there.
On Thursday I left work early to head to Leicester Square! Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper were in London for the UK Premiere of A Star Is Born. We stood on the side of the red carpet and watched all the action happen! It was such a cool experience. We even got to take home some big posters they used at the premiere. Thankfully, Webster carried it all home on the tube! We got some funny looks but at least we have some fun decorations now!
On Friday Webster had to stay home again as the stove was being replaced. After the gas leak during our first week here, we had been using hot plates until our landlord could coordinate a contractor. It took 8 hours to replace the unusable gas stove with a new electric stove top.
I had a good day at work finishing up some things I had been working on all week. At 4:30 we had “wine-down” time! It was nice to spend some time in the office socializing on a Friday afternoon. All of my co-workers are so lovely, I am really lucky.
When I got home, we made some delicious cashew chicken! Then we headed out on a walk to Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament and London Eye. It was fun to play tourist for a few hours and walk around to take photos.
On Saturday morning we woke up earlier than a work day to get on a train to Oxford. This is something that has been on the list for both Webster and I since we arrived. Everyone talked about how beautiful it was supposed to be and it definitely lived up to what we expected. We arrived in the city at about 10:30am and headed for a coffee before our first activity of the day. At 11:00am, we joined a free walking tour around the university and city. We got to explore some of the most famous colleges, see libraries, theatres, and old pubs. The tour guide was a little bit over the top... but we can’t complain, the tour was free! After we left the tour we walked back through the main campus buildings towards the city centre. Webster wanted to check out a covered market for lunch, but it ended up being more of a grocery and handmade market. We settled for a quick burger and made our way to the Oxford Castle and Prison. We took a 1 hour tour climbing to the top of the tower (with great views of the city!), then touring the prison and crypt below. After our tour we climbed up a man made “mound” built for defence, and now for tourists to see a good view of the city. At about 5pm we enjoyed a cappuccino before heading back to London. We had planned to go out for dinner when we arrived home but decided to use up some groceries instead. Everything goes bad so quickly around here, and food is so expensive, so it feels good to use things up before they expire.
On Sunday we woke up early to head over to Buckingham Palace. We walked over at 9:30am to see the changing of the guard. We thought all the tourists had left the city but we were wrong... it was absolute madness! We managed to get a good spot to see the guards come in and out of the square but we weren’t able to see them perform in front of the palace. We will try again next weekend, but a little earlier! Afterwards we headed to Tottenham Court for a little shopping. We spent Sunday afternoon getting groceries and meal prepping for the week. I did my nails and Webster got some laundry done. It was nice to relax before a busy week, and weekend ahead.
Next week’s post may be delayed until mid-week as Mom, Wayne, Jeffy, Rick and Grandmom are coming to London for the weekend! We have a jam packed schedule with lots of fun things planned :)
Comments