Health knowledge made personal
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Windsor castle was very impressive. I was so glad there was a beautiful sunny day for our day trip!  Yesterday was the opening of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee (60 years since she became queen) this year, so it was pretty packed. Tomorrow is officially 60 years to the day since the Queen became the Queen. There was one big area just full of pictures of the Queen. Most of the pictures involved horses. She's so involved in horses- from her own horses, to attending races, horse shows like Badminton, and polo matches, horses are a major part of the royal life. Here she is (in the middle) on her horse Tinkberbell. The two horses on either side, ridden by other members of the royal family, are children of Tinkerbell.  I also liked this picture a lot. The Queen took Ronald Reagan riding when he came to visit her! Sorry for the glare (I was being sneaky).  And this is my only inside picture, because I got in a little bit of trouble by a mean guard lady.  St. George's chapel was also beautiful. It was the end of our tour, so seeing as we hadn't eaten yet and it was 2:45, we rushed through it a bit.  We did pause of course for a photo with one of the Guards.  We went back into the town of Windsor for lunch. After trying one pub that was too full for a party of 9, I suggested a cute Italian place down the street. I only chose it, because the light green painting on the outside was so pretty, but everyone ended up loving it. It was owned by a little Italian man and apparently my friends all loved their pastas and pizzas.  The décor was so charming- little yellow flowers everywhere. It reminded me of when I was in Seattle a few years ago and there were people on the street handing out yellow flowers to everyone who passed.  I loved the chalkboard specials on the wall, but the wine was pretty expensive. Since we had already had to buy a train ticket and expensive ticket to Windsor castle, we didn't want to spend any extra money on wine.  My roommate had pasta with mussels. I learned something from her- you don't eat the mussels that aren't opened, because it means they haven't cooked. She had two unopened mussels in her bowl!  My salad was really good too. I had a chicken and avocado salad, but unfortunately they were a bit stingy with the avocado. I finally had dressing that wasn't disgusting too.  Right after lunch, we were walking and found a Barbour store with a huge SALE sign outside. I was so excited, because I've been dying for a zip-in to wear inside my coat to make it warmer. I just wear the outer shell and although it's good in the South of the USA, it doesn't do much good here in London. I got a warm vest that zips in. It was a good buy- I was so much warmer a few hours later when the snow started coming down!  Sadly the cute red rain boots weren't on sale.  After a little more shopping, one of my roommates and I went to a place called Mill House and had some tea. A coworker told us we had to have the "cream tea" while in Windsor. I saw it on the menu of this place, so we went. The cream tea included scones and all this other stuff, so we decided to just ask for tea and cream. The Turkish owner who was serving us seemed amazed when we liked it. He told me he only likes cream in coffee. It tasted amazing at first, but it gave me a stomachache! I didn't use that much cream, but I guess I'm not used to it. It was good for a few minutes though.  The cream dispersing throughout the tea was so cool! I wore my shirt I bought last Saturday in Zara. Yes, I had on short sleeves. No wonder I had to buy a zip-in for my jacket. I'm absolutely awful at dressing for the weather. Like literally probably the worst person ever. I've never had an umbrella when it was actually raining in my life.  Once we made it back to London after hanging out at a pub in Windsor for a little longer and watching a rugby game on TV, three of the other interns and I popped into Sainsbury's right at the exit of St. Paul's tube station where we got off right by our apartments. After seeing the amount of snow, my instincts kept making me feel like we needed to stock up in case we were snowbound, even though I knew that it wouldn't really be that bad. I'm just not used to seeing so much snow!  This is the British grocery store in case anyone's curious. They have some good deals, like low fat cottage cheese for 95 pence and a huge head of broccoli for just a pound ($1.55 ish).  We trekked home through the snow and ended up all eating dinner on our own before reconvening at the boys' apartment to hang out for the rest of the night. We watched lots of funny YouTube videos.  I slept in until 9:30 this morning and now I'm blogging in our den watching BBC News. The news is so funny! Some quotes I've heard this morning..."Some saw the snow fall as an opportunity for thrill-seeking" - this was shown with footage of some boys recklessly riding 4-wheelers through the snow. There was also much discussion over the "abandoned horse racing" of the day. Two or three races got canceled. That sure wouldn't be "news" in America. Can you imagine CNN discussing the abandoned horse races of the day? I love this country. So cute. Well, my roommates are probably still asleep, but seeing as there's snow everywhere, I really want to charge my camera (phone) and go to Hyde Park and walk around in the snow! I'm meeting a friend for dinner and her borough (Greenwich) has a big parade today to celebrate becoming a Royal Borough, so we're meeting in the afternoon to see the parade and fireworks before we eat dinner. I need to email her and make sure the parade's still on- they seem pretty panicked about all this snow! Have a good Sunday! |
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Yesterday evening in Windsor the snow started and by the time we got back to London, it was everywhere. I can hardly believe it! It's so strange to me to see snow that actually sticks to the ground.
But back to the beginning of yesterday's trip to Windsor...
It was a pretty sunny day yesterday morning! I put my sunglasses on for the second time since I've been here! We had no idea when we left our building Saturday morning that we'd be returning to a snow-covered street.
We were taking the train from London Paddington to Windsor Eton. We aimed for the 9:30 train, but our friend was meeting us who lives an hour away, so we ended up catching the 10:45 train. It was so cold waiting in the train station, but I was entertained by all the cute little kids everywhere in puffy coats. My roommate and I both pulled out our earwarmer headbands!