And here is the promised official update of the past 5 days of my life. I know you were all on the edge of your seats so prepare yourself because it's going to be the best thing you've read since the Bible.
On Saturday, my parents and brother arrived bright and early in the beautiful(ly freezing) city of London. They were cold, tired and cranky, so we got some lunch, toured my flat, met some of my housemates and then headed back to their apartment. I swear the three of them dropped like flies once we stepped in the door. I managed to keep my mom up for a half hour to watch an episode of Modern Family, but even for that she was in and out of conciousness. Eventually, she admitted defeat and went to bed around 7ish, at which point my dad woke up and offered to take me to a casino. We took the tube to Knightsbridge and gambled the night away: we both lost a lot playing poker but then I won 50 quid on the slots! After we got tired of wasting money, he went back to his flat and I went back to mine to sleep.
Sunday, I woke up relatively early to get over to my parent's flat so we could all eat breakfast together. After breakfast, I took them back to Knightsbridge where we spent a couple of minutes admiring the windows of Harvey Nichols and Harrods (pictures on my mom's facebook!), which we really cool and got me in the winter-Christmas mood. Then we went into Harrods to eat lunch (HAHA) at the Chocolate Bar. "Hey Genna! This sounds like a magical place that I want to go to when I die!" It is, unknowing citizen, it is. It is the land where chocolate dreams come true. Just to give you a general idea, for lunch I had triple chocolate fondue and a Reese's milk shake. "Hey Genna! That sounds really fattening! Was it worth it?" Oh, how naive you are, unknowing citizen. Chocolate is always worth it.
After we left the Chocolate Bar, my mom and I went to Camden Market while my dad and my brother went to some WWII museum. We spent about 4 hours at Camden and bought so much stuff we literally needed to buy a small roll-ey suitcase to bring it all home. Once my whole family met back at the flat, we showed off our goodies to my brother and dad (who pretended they did not care about our pretty scarves and bags of real green tea and new purses) and then walked to an Italian restaurant up the block for dinner. "Hey Genna! You're a lightweight when it comes to drinking. Is it genetic?" As a matter of fact, it only took two bottles of wine to get my entire family completely pissed (there's some London slang for you) at dinner in a very quiet (but not for long!) place. We were laughing so hard we were crying and then, one of my childhood dreams came true. My mother, who normally does not condone my eatery-cleptomaniac tendencies, not only encouraged me but ASKED me to steal the salt and pepper shakers from the table where we were sitting. Now, I'll admit, she said nothing about the full set of silverwear and shot glass I also slipped into my purse. After we left, as I was bragging loudly to my dad about everything I took and waving it around in the air, the waiter chased me out onto the street screaming...I didn't realize until I saw him waving my gloves that he was simply returning something that I had left. I thought for sure I was going to prison- but at least my food there would have flavor.
After dinner, we all went to see the Social Network, which was amazing and I recommend it to everyone. We got out pretty late, so I went straight home to bed because I had class early the next day. Monday was super boring for that very reason- class 9am-2:30ish with a short break in between as usual, and then I met my parents at their hotel so we could all go to Jay's flat for dinner. Jay is a friend of my Dad's for about 30 years now or so, and he has houses all over the world. He was in London this week and wanted to have all of us over for a traditional Indian meal (Jay's Indian, you guessed it!). Although I wasn't eager to try everything that was cooked for us, I enjoyed what I did eat and overall it was pretty entertaining. Jay is such a nice man, and it was nice to finally meet him after hearing such amazing things about him from my dad. It also helped that his house was freakin sweet and he has his own personal staff.
Tuesday, thanks to the help of one of my awesome teachers here that I love, (whose preggers and super adorable) I was able to take off of class so I could spend more time with the family. We had breakfast together and then went to the Natural History museum, which is right by my flat. The museum is HUGE so we didn't get to see all of it, but we did get to see pickled animals in pickle water (still don't really get it but, ok...) and some cool life size moving t-rex robot in the dinosaur section that made me nostalgic from that time that I was a dinosaur. Those were the days....
That night, we went food shopping for Thanksgiving dinner that my mom is cooking tomorrow, ate some chinese food and then watched Love Actually as I've been waiting for forever to see it since I got to London. I will not bore you with the adventure Matt and I went on to FIND the movie and a way to play it on our hotel TV, but I will leave you with the following figure: 80 quid. That's about how much we spent during the course of 2 hours during which we searched literally all of London for this fucking movie and got to experience about 6 stores, 3 cab rides, and about 30 minutes of walking on a HIGHWAY. Details upon request.
And now, I'd love to tell you about today since it was super fun but I am super tired from all the super fun so once again, I must leave you hanging with the promise that I will most likely finish tomorrow. Happy Thanksgiving to my American readers, enjoy the day. Tune in tomorrow to see what I'm thankful for.
Cheers!
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