The Week London had 4 Cacopardos

My parents and sister came to visit the last week of May. My parents have never been to the UK before so it was a big experience for sure. They saw lots of sights, spent some quality time with my boyfriend (and his family!) and got to know about my life here. We had a great week and I'm so glad they came.

SARAH!!!

My dear friend Sarah has been away from London since the beginning of December. She's been home in Scotland dealing with being sick for months, but was finally well enough to take a trip back this weekend to see her flat and her friends. Hooray!

Sarah meets Pete! These two know all about each other but she's been gone the whole time I've been dating him! She used to call him "her favourite person I never met". :) We spent a beautiful Saturday in Covent Garden.

Here's Sarah standing next to some Twilight stuff. We took this picture for my sister, who Sarah has never met, but who recommended the movie to her and now Sarah loves it. Yay, another one of them.

She and I spent Sunday at the BBC, going to see the taping of a show. Lots of fun, if you don't mind the 4 hour queue!

Sarah went back to Edinburgh this morning but has her one way ticket back to London for June 1st.

Crystal Palace (not Superman's)

I didn't have much to do on Sunday, and it was a really pretty day, so I decided to take one of my local buses to the end of its route and see some South London neighbourhoods I haven't seen. The end of the line is Crystal Palace, which is an area named after a former landmark called the Crystal Palace. This huge palace that was built for the 1851 Great Exhibition was put there and then destroyed by fire in 1936. In its place now is a park, with some weirdly out-of-place stone remnants still there. Very cool though.



Click here for more info on The Crystal Palace)

No family party, but a huge chocolate egg

Easter seems kind of different in the UK - not quite as big a family holiday celebration at least. I kept hearing people talk about Easter eggs though, and I had worked out that meant a chocolate egg (and not a dyed colored egg or a plastic neon hollow one like I thought at first). But it wasn't until Pete gave me my very own Easter egg this weekend that I found out what they are. Awesome.





So they don't dye eggs or have Easter baskets, but these chocolate eggs sure make up for it.

Saturday on the Heath

Pete and I spent yesterday at Hampstead Heath, which is an 800-acre park in North London. It's beautiful and we had a lovely day for it.



The handsome shadow in this picture is Pete.

















Look at this crazy animal! Some onlooker said it was some kind of Mandarin duck or something. I've never seen anything like it.













You can't really tell from this picture, but you can see the London skyline from parts of the Heath, including here.



When Lauren and I came to London in July of 2007, we came to the Heath hoping we'd see Russell Brand who jogs here. No luck either time.

Weirdest country ever

Britain loves "crisps" (what we'd call chips). But they especially love WEIRD crisps .. I mean REALLY weird.

Snapped these the other day at the corner shop.









Fish and Chips

Builder's Breakfast (bacon and eggs)

Prawn Cocktail

Chili and Chocolate

and ... I kid you not ... Cajun Squirrel

Boy friend and boyfriend

Friend Rob met Boyfriend Pete (that's officially how I refer to them now) finally met tonite - good times! We went out for Indian food, and look how much these skinny men in my life can eat. Annoying. Good thing they're cute.

More a ride than a mode of transportation

The Lewisham DLR station
Since I started dating Pete, I frequent the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) much more regularly than I did before. The DLR is this kind of monorail-type train thing, and while it's by far my most direct route to get to Pete's, it's almost laughable. I always say it's "more a ride than a mode of transportation". It feels like being at an amusement park, and like you should only be on it for 4 minutes to get from Pirate's Lagoon to Snoopy's Doghouse or something. I always expect to hear Merry-go-Round music when I'm on it.




























For you cartographiles, here's a map of my route from Lewisham to Woodford, where Pete lives (the thick blue line). It's about an hour door to door, 30 minutes of which is on the DLR. It famously takes about an hour to get just about anywhere in London.
Click on the map to make it larger.

My friend Rob

Dear old Rob deserves his own blog entry by now. He actually hired me at NHS Direct as a temp, which is where I now have a permanent job. Rob was my manager while we both worked there and then when he left at Christmas (breaking my heart), I took over a couple pieces of what his job was - big shoes to fill! Since then especially Rob's become one of my best mates and it's been great getting to know him better.



Last night I went over his flat and he cooked me this beautiful thai curry.















Someone please, guess this man's age. It's my favorite game.










Rob and me at our Christmas party in December.

Back to my Scottish roots

I spent 12 years at Gordon College as "a Fighting Scot", whatever that ever meant to this Italian-American. But I got back to the homeland over the weekend, visiting my friend Sarah who's been home near Edinburgh since early December. Sarah unfortunately has been really sick for over 2 months.

Sarah couldn't come to the airport but made me this great sign!
















We had this AMAZING homemade banoffee pie, which I need to introduce in the United States (banana toffee).



I had such a nice visit and was treated like a (the) queen. When Sarah's better she and I will go back up to Edinburgh so we can explore more.