Portobello Market

There is no time to rest here in London town. There’s a list a mile long that needs to be accomplished. We woke up early to go to Portobello Market. A few of the girls have already been there, so Emily and I explored on our own. We did run into Kelsey and Anna on the tube, who were going to have a full English breakfast. (That includes baked beans for breakfast.) Emily and I found our way to the market. Basically this market runs down an entire street for several blocks and it’s just filled with shops and vendors, lining both sides. This market is famous because in the movie Notting Hill, Hugh Grant is seen walking through the market. It’s also something that has been on the London bucket list for a while now.  It rained off and on, and although that was super annoying, we pushed through. Now, markets stress me out. There are a ton of people in crowded spaces with a lot of things to look at. And the owners of the stalls keep calling out to you and try and pressure you to buy things. It’s stressful. Portobello wasn’t as bad as Spitalfields, but still. I was a bit overwhelmed.

Portobello Market

Our tactic was to walk down the center, avoiding umbrellas and such, and look into shops. If something looked interesting, we took a closer look. Things that generally caught our eyes were scarves, teapots, food, and jewelry. We found a really cute place that had a lot of precious teacups that dated back to the 1870s. They were beautiful. I kinda wanted one to put in my room, but resisted. But teacups are so cool. In a stall close to this one, I found a really cute ring. It was simple and small, but I really liked it. So I did purchase that. I’ve decided it will be a piece of jewelry that I wear always, much like my Pandora. Speaking of Pandora, they have a British line of charms here. I’m so tempted. I want one. Badly. After walking the entire market, we decided to head back the other way to get food and to skim the vendors again. A lot of the places have the same stuff, and even though we saw several cute pieces of clothing, it didn’t make sense to buy anything if we can’t try anything on. And British sizes are so complicated. We did find a tent that had scarves for £1. How can I pass up a deal like that?! I found a very cute floral one. So happy. We made our way back to the food portion of the market. Emily had a delicious pesto, cheese, and sundried tomato sandwich on an herb bread. I have been craving paella for a while now, and heard they have some great paella here. When I go to Spain later in life, paella is on the list of dishes to eat there.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t have it here. Paella consists of rice, beans, vegetables, chicken or seafood, and spices. They cook it in these massive skillets that make portions enough to feel 50 people. This booth had chicken and seafood. I got chicken because the in the seafood paella had shrimp in it, and the shrimp weren’t headed or peeled. I can’t handle that. The chicken had while pieces of chicken, which kinda grossed me out. Actually it grossed me out a lot, so I mainly stuck to the rice and such. Overall, it was delicious. Seriously. It was raining pretty hard, so Emily was a saint and held the umbrella over me while I ate. You also got a huge portion. I’m addicted, but I would like some chicken not on the bone please. We also passed a dessert tent and couldn’t pass that up. I had a massive sprinkle doughnut which I engulfed. By that time, it had begun to rain some more and the number of people there was getting a bit overwhelming, so we left. By the time we made it back to our area of town, we were wet and freezing. A few of us had had plans to go to Cambridge and go punting, but with this rain, it was out of the question. Punting is where you get on a big row boat and one person rows at a time. Kinda like a gondola.  We would have been miserable on the water in the rain.

Delicious Paella

Side note: I seriously do not understand why people feel like it’s okay to make-out on public transportation. This is not Paris, the supposed "City of Love." This is London. The underground system is not a turn on. It’s dirty and loud and you are surrounded by 50 of random people. But people just feel the need to kiss and touch and oh my goodness please stop! It’s gross.

We spent some time relaxing at the flat, trying to regain feeling back in our feet. If I never see another flight of steps, I will be so happy. It takes three to get to our apartment. Emily and I decided to go to Chinatown to go buy some cheap scarves that they had there. They were three for £5. That’s such an amazing deal! I went a little crazy, but every know I adore scarves and I wear them all the time. And they were good quality. Because it had been raining like all day, we broke out the rain gear. Did it rain while we went on these errands? Not one drop. We also wanted to look for fascinators at TK Maxx. TK Maxx is basically TJ Maxx. We thought we knew where we were going. Wrong. We ended up in Soho. Scream and run. Soho is a completely different world. Eventually we made it. Thank goodness. Seriously. We didn’t find any fascinators though. I picked up some dinner at Pret and took it back to the apartment. I am so exhausted. Not ready to leave London, but ready to be home and sleep. Sleep all the time. I really love just hanging out at the flat with the roomies. We have the funniest conversations. Today we talked about giving birth. You know the pregnancy pact movie on Lifetime? Well we’re going to make a pact to never have children. Also, like just now, we had some roomie fun. This is hot off the press news. We are all sitting here, blogging, etc, when we hear all this yelling outside. We look out the window and there is an old man talking to a man with pink hair. And they were talking very close to one another and the old man was tapping the other on the chest. So, we didn’t know if they were gonna fight or what. Then the old man tried to fist bump pink hair guy, but he didn’t understand. So then they depart, no fight, and the old man is just standing there yelling after him. Well then a woman is walking by and he goes up to her and is trying to talk to her. We were like “RUN!!” He kept going up to people and trying to talk to them and yelling. We kept trying to predict who his next victim would be and of course narrating the events taking place. So fun, and yet so randomly weird. And now we are talking about scary movies. Heck no. I don’t do this conversation.

A few notes: I have been singing Billy Elliot all day and am so obsessed. I want to see it again. Also, I feel like a true Londoner these days. We were on the tube today and there were a ton of student groups and I just wanted to get where I needed to be and can’t handle people who don’t know where they are going. I’m sure people were annoyed with me when I first got here, but I have evolved.

Week Five: Day Six: BLC 24