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The first weekend

Where do I even begin? Too many activities, too little time! (too many dumprings, too rittle time...HI stace!)

Well, I thought I really missed Parisian food, (Gusto Italia beside KP's apartment: the improved Theresa's)

but I was wrong! Discovered that outdoor markets are really the way to go. Ventured out to the Portebello road market on Saturday morning despite the heavy rain, and found myself in Notting Hill. And it really is what they portray it to be in the movie, except even prettier and daintier!

Quirky too!

Then, I found myself being pulled to Trafalga Square by intuition. And with my luck, came upon the Big Dance 2012 grand finale. The Big Dance is like an organized flash mob that randomly pops up in spots around the UK. It just so happens that their last HOORA was in Trafalga Square, where hundreds of dancers, young and old, grooved to the music. The screens flashed between their dances and clips of historical Olympic moments, which made my hairs stand up to see the beautiful and inspiring flashes of pride, happiness, and failure... There were thousands of people surrounding the square, but luckily, I got VIP standing with my research media pass!

Continuing to push through the rain, I met up with my Greek friends, Stavroula and Arionas, for dinner and drinks. They introduced me to one of their go-to Italian restaurants by Paddington, and the gnocchi really pushed me over the edge. It's funny to me that although we're from far corners of the world, and from very different cultures, we can relate to each other easily because we share the same problems with money, family, academics, you name it!

Jumping to more fun free events (LIMITLESS here), I listened to a Paul Simon concert in Hyde Park with another Princeton student. He may be THE luckiest person alive, landing himself a FREE Bruce Springsteen ticket yesterday but just standing in front of the ticket area. The sun finally showed some love today, and it was so enjoyable to just chat about American/Canadian in the park. (Although he NAILS the BBC British accent, which will be making a special appearance on my blog soon!)

Oh and to preview the Olympic village folks, here it is! It is completely closed right now except for contractors and security. When I visited today, there was nearly a hundred military personnels on site...I'm not sure if you guys have heard, but G4S, the private security company, came up short with their staff TWO weeks before the Olympics, so 3500 extra British troops were called in to fill the gap.