Ladurée, Fortnum & Mason, and a Tour of the National Theater

Wednesday marked one of the only rainy days we've had so far in the weeks I've been here. Instead of letting the bad weather get to me, I decided to go out anyway. Mel and I both didn't have our class until 5pm so we had a few hours to play with. This Wednesday happened to also be the final day of the Friends exhibit in London. The people at Warner Brothers set up a recreation of Central Perk on Carnaby Street where fans could go get a cup of coffee and walk around the set looking at memorabilia from the show. Unfortunately when we got there, the line was nearly 3 hours long AND it was raining. So we didn't want to wait and instead took pictures in front of it and our best to get photos of the inside when the doors swung open. Every once in a while, people who worked there would come around the line and throw "Friends" t shirts to the waiting crowd. Whoever caught it got to keep it, like a baseball game. We weren't in line or anything, but when we were walking away a shirt passed in front of my face so i grabbed it and I'm sure people were upset, but I now have a new gym shirt =)

Since Central Perk didn't work out, we still had a bunch of time to kill. Mel remember our bus tour guide from week one telling us about this French bakery called Ladurée between Piccadilly and Bond Street that apparently sold the best macaroons in western Europe. I googled the location on my Blackberry and we were a lot closer than we thought so we walked over to it and it was so cool looking!! The entire place was no bigger than a big walk-in closet, but the whole thing was just dripping in gold. It looked like a gold cave, with big curved walls of shiny gold putty or something. It was very cool. The mirrors even had a gold tint. I guess they were going for a very lux feel. Anyway, we got a table under the awning outside and ordered tea and a few of these macaroons that did not fail to deliver. The raspberry was my favorite! So so good. I can't wait to take Kel back there next week!! After we savored, finished, and paid, we walked across the street to Fortnum & Mason, a huge store that specializes in exotic teas, English tea culture, and great organic foods, as well as high end gifts and kitchen cookery. Basically, Mel's form of heaven. F&M is where the Queen actually gets all her tea from so you know its a well-respected establishment. The outside reminded me of one of the department stores on 5th in the city during the Christmas season with beautifully decorated and well-thought-out windows. Walking inside, I can honestly say this place put Harrods to shame. You wouldn't know it from the street, but it was 5 huge floors centered around a grand spiraling staircase that when standing at the ground level, you could look all the way up to the top where a painted mural of a scene out of Peter Pan was illuminated in the dome at the top of the building... It was just amazing! We walked around there for a while, me just stopping every five seconds to take a photo. At one point, an older gentleman walked up to me in a full blown tux with tails and everything and asked me if I liked oysters. I told him I did and he informed me of the oyster instruction/sampling happening on the top floor. Thanking him, I ascended the stairs and got myself one of the freshest oysters I've ever had. I knew Mel would be upset if she missed out on this since she was still wandering around the bottom floor in a state of shock. Before I got off the phone with her, I turn to see her huffing and puffing the stairs running toward the oyster bar. Needless to say, we were both pretty content with how the day turned out!!



Yesterday, the rain cleared and the sun was back! Our 1pm class was cancelled to be replaced with a backstage tour of the National Theater at 5pm. I got some work done during the day and then walked over to High Street to get a smoothie at Crussh (London's Robeks or Jamba). I was back in time to grab my camera and tour ticket and we were off to the National Theater! The theater itself is a really modern looking building that actually houses 3 separate theaters with 3 separate layouts so that a variety of shows can be put on there at once. It is right on the River Thames so from the inside, I was able to look out onto the water and see the London Eye looming over the building. We took a really fascinating 2 hour tour of the entire building and were backstage to see how everything worked and all that good stuff. I'm giving a presentation on the National Theater next week in class so I made sure to pay attention to our tour guide. (The last picture included in this post is of the outside of the theater that I took when we exited the building around dusk. How beautiful is that?!) Last night, we all went to a karaoke bar and then I came home and crashed.

After a really great night's sleep, I just woke up a few minutes ago to an email from my mom saying "I miss your blog". So now I'm updating. Happy? I was getting to it, I swear! I have my interview at Elemental Design next Wednesday so I'm doing a dry run today just in case I get lost and have a nervous breakdown trying to get there next week. Hopefully it goes well! It's another beauty out there today so I'm signing off on this Friday morning. oh and KELLY COMES ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!!!!!! Cheers.