Being a Tourist Again

Wednesday was our last Kingston function... it was a pub night like we had at the beginning of the semester. This one was different, though, because they had us play games. It felt like we were in a classroom doing first day of school activities. But our group did win one of the categories! Our prize was a giant bucket of candy!

Since we haven't been to the city in a while we felt the need to go on Saturday. Kaley and Maddy still haven't seen the Tower Bridge so that was our first stop. From there we got lunch at a fancy Nando's. It was so much bigger than the ones we have been to! We wanted to go see St. Paul's Cathedral, but it got rainy and cold so we went to find the mall instead.

It was actually nice to go to the mall. There is a mall in Kingston, but it doesn't feel like how the malls do back home. The mall we went to was a lot like the ones back in America, and Australia according to Maddy! We were in a make-up mood so we went into a few drugstores to look at all the make-up. I did find the equivalent to American Girl Dolls here, called My London Girl. I didn't think they would have it here! We eventually made our way to Starbucks and decided to sit in there for a while. Even though we didn't do a whole lot that day, we were exhausted! We made our way back to Kingston and called it a night.

Sunday was Mother's Day! Well, at least for America it was. Mother's Day in England is in March. I got to skype my family that morning before they went to my aunts house. The connection was kind of bad, but it always seems to be whenever I try to skype! But she did open her gift while I was on skype. 

They got my name wrong for the first time.

Kaley invited me to go to Chicago with her this summer! The main reason we're going is for the One Direction concert (we're dedicated fans), but I haven't been since I was in middle school and I don't think Kaley has ever been! We went to Starbucks to start to plan it all out, but didn't get too far. We ended up changing our plans a few times, but I think we know what we want to do now! It's really nice to have something to look forward to this summer... it makes leaving London a little easier.

Kara's last night was on Sunday so we met her at her favorite pub for one last night. It was me, Kaley, Maddy, Ellyn, Kara and Dan. Our group keeps getting smaller! But we had a great time hanging out. Before we knew it a few hours had passed and some people still had to go home to skype their moms for Mother's Day. It really starts to hit you that you will have to pack your bags every time you say bye to one of your friends. 

Since this is Kaley's last week we are letting her choose what we so she can see everything she wants to. Today we (Kaley, Maddy, Ellyn and I) went to Hampton Court. We didn't want to pay to go in, so we walked the gardens around it. There were a few gardens that reminded us of of The Princess Diaries. It was all so pretty, but small! We thought it would take us longer to walk through everything, but when we saw what time it was when we were done we had to think of something else to do. We walked to a park across the road and found a fountain in memory of Princess Diana. 

We walked back to Kingston from there and went to a cafe to get a sandwich. We also stopped at a new gelato place in town and it was amazing! We will definitely be making more stops there. We have a busy day planned for tomorrow, so we had an early night.

Something really exciting happened on my walk home. Coke is doing a promotion where they are putting people's names on bottles and I have been looking for a "Laura" bottle since I found out about it. As I was walking past a bus stop I saw a double decker bus with my name on it! It made my walk home much more exciting!