london wednesdays, week 1

when sabrina and i realized that we both don't have classes on wednesdays, we decided to anoint wednesdays as "london wednesdays" (the name is a work in progress), where we explore a part of the city or somewhere we haven't been to. yesterday was the first official london wednesday of the semester.

we started off at king's cross st. pancras train station, from where the hogwarts express would magically depart to bring harry potter and friends to school at the beginning of each harry potter book. we were a little lost so we went up to one of the employees and asked where we could find the famous platform 9 and 3/4, to which she replied, "yeah, i know where that is and it's crap." so we followed her directions and magically platform 9 and 3/4 appeared. of course, we nerded out.

[obligatory tourist photo]

[totes going to hogwarts]

after we got that out of our system, we decided to go to buckingham palace. in sabrina's london book it says that if there are four guards out front and a certain flag is flying above the palace, that means that the queen is inside. sure enough, her majesty was home! AND we think there was some sort of garden party or something, because all of these ladies in weird hats and men in suits were exiting the palace. on the to do list: get invited to a garden party at buckingham palace.

we walked through green park to get to hyde park, our next destination. you guys, hyde park is HUGE. and we walked through a ton of it.

[we got ice cream before we started the trek. best idea ever.]

[walking walking walking walking walking]

we walked along the serpentine, a river that runs through the park, and saw lots of wildlife! geese, swans, pigeons, and lots of other birds that were funny little things. and then we ate at a restaurant by the same name, which was delicious and had a beautiful view of the park.

it was getting kind of cold so we decided to head into the knightsbridge area. we dipped in and out of the shops and then went to harrod's (yeah, so what, i will go there every day). i actually found sections of harrod's i had not been to before...the pet store (which is insanity), another clothing section, and an entire secret floor i didn't know about! on this secret floor i bought notecards to send home to people and gawked at marc jacobs bags. did you know harrod's has a pharmacy? now i could really live there. we finished up our harrod's experience with coffee at a cappuccino bar while we planned out the rest of our london wednesdays in our planners. organized friends!

[i had a tiramisu cappuccino...WHAT SO GOOD]

our feet were throbbing and we both vowed to stop spending money, so we finished up the night at the eagle with some friends and called it a night.

london wednesday number one: success.