Welcome to the start of my fifth to last week in London. Ahh! Time has absolutely flown by and September seems like years ago. More reflective posts coming later, to be sure, so I'll hold off for now.
This weekend was slow and un-eventful, for the most part. We had our end-of-month work party on Friday night. It was Australia Day so we had a beach partyish. Someone, I believe it was Karey, asked what the occasion was for a party. It's the end of the month, and over here, that's occasion enough. Thank goodness! But the party was a lot of fun and so was hanging out with people from the bar afterwards.
Saturday I recovered from Friday, slept a bit and then stayed and watched entirely too many episodes of the "Band of Brothers" miniseries. But sometimes, even in London, you need days like that so it wasn't too bad.
Sunday I slept late again, have been really tired lately, and it felt nice. I finally got up and got going, had lunch at McDonald's at Marble Arch because sometimes you just need McDonald's. Afterward I set out for the City, Aldgate East tube to be specific, in search of Spitalfields Market. I hate going to the City on the weekends because it is absolutely dead. I got all turned around while coming out of Aldgate, which has to the most confusing tube and subway system I've ever been on. I ende dup wondering around the City for a bit, where there was no one, which is not cool. I ended up really close to the Swiss Re building, or "The Gherkin" as it's known here. (Thought I prefer to call it the Faberge Egg, as that's what it looks like to me.) It's a skyscraper, and the closest I'd been to it. It was weird, because I don't really like skyscrapers, and I don't like seeing them in London. I like my London buildings to have a history, with white stucco, Georgian or Regency window frames, layers of paint, no more than five or six floors. But I can appreciate the building for its unique design, even though being so close to it is completely intimidating.
After this I decided to give up and followed the signs to the Liverpool Street Station. While doing so I found much better signage for the market, and made my way towards it. The Market is one of the oldest in London, and cleaner, with a better set-up than most. But it was only alright. For one thing I thought the crowd was kind of yuppie-ish, pretentious even. I did look through all the clothes stalls though, bought a great juice drink, and then bought a cool matted photograph.
After this I was of course cold, hungry, and tired, so I went back toward home and the Cafe Nero at Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road, where I always seem to find myself on Sunday afternoons. I chilled here for the remainder of the afternoon, had a tea and muffin and wrote for awhile.
Now the weekend is up and I'm back at work scrounging for things to do. See a play this week, maybe heading to Windsor Castle on Saturday, trying to make up my mind about Ireland and tours in all that. Will be updating again later this week as I am bored, so watch out!
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