Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Mom's Visit to London!

Wow, it's been a busy few months!
Between 5 April and 8 May I wrote 13,000 words worth of papers (my dissertation will be 15,000). Whew! So glad that horrible month is over, and that I survived! I had three papers to write for my second semester classes, and one giant, scary critical survey about the resources I'll use for my dissertation. So much reading. So much research. So much writing.

But let's being a week before I started all this insanity.

Mom came to visit!! I'll just give a quick recap through pictures... first we spent some time in London!
Mom & I visited Portobello Road Market in Notting Hill

We also visited Borough Market near London Bridge... a huge, dangerously-full-of-delicious-foods Market. So we
went for lunch and shared a duck sandwich, baklava, and took some bread pudding for an evening dessert!
Oh, and it was snowing (in April).
We walked to the British Museum in the snow. By the end of the trip Mom really knew how to properly bundle up!
We went to Tate Britain mostly because I live across the street from it. The modern art section clearly was beyond our understanding...
Almost every afternoon we stopped for coffee and a treat. Best ritual ever. This is at my favorite bakery in Notting Hill.
We dined twice at the pub down the street from my flat; we just loved it! This is Mom's last night, I got a curry and she had steak and ale pie :)
 In between our time in London we made a quick two-day trip to Paris via the Eurostar. London was so blizzardy and gray, and I hadn't seen the sun in months. So even though Paris was also cold, the sun was such a treat!

This was me every moment I got direct sunlight on my face. Vitamin D is a beautiful thing.

Does this even need a caption? Mom, me, and Notre Dame :)

Notre Dame is so stunning. (It will never beat Westminster Abbey for me though!)

Traveling with Mom means you take extra bread, meat, and cheese from breakfast and make an incredibly delicious lunch out of it. It made for a free lunch overlooking the Seine and Notre Dame in the background. Can't beat that.
Notre Dame at sunset. What a stunning walk to dinner..

My biggest weakness...nutella crepes. And they were everywhere!

Of course we had to get some Eiffel Tower pictures :) 

Our last day we hiked up to Sacre Coeur for some beautiful views.
My mom's visit was so special and fun. I was able to show her where and how I live--my flat, my usual walks around London for groceries, books, coffee etc--and many of my favorite places, and also was able to introduce her to some of my friends. We just had the best time eating, drinking, freezing(!), traveling, and exploring... what a perfect visit :)

In the interest of keeping this blog a manageable length, I will end it here, and write another soon detailing the fun events of the past month!

xx