Yesterday morning I had decided to go see the Trooping the Colour Parade, but then I realized that it would me going and battling 100s of millions of wild eyed Brits, aching for a view of the Queen. And I realized that if I could be transported over to a prime seat, I would probably go, but since I had seen the parade just last week and I have seen pictures of the Queen, and I have an imagination, and I am extraordinarily suggestable, by next, I’ll think I saw the Queen in the Parade. I’ll probably think I was in the parade…

So I thought about lazing around all day, moaning about how I miss Michael, but I dragged myself into the shower and started my day. I began with the intention of making it over to Regent’s Park, which is supposed to be beautiful. I had a book in my backpack, and figured if nothing else, I would read in the park and enjoy a little sun (it STILL hasn’t rained hard since I have been here….maybe one day at the beginning…). So I walked over toward King’s Cross Rail Station since it is kind of on the way. Across from King’s Cross is St Pancras Station, and there is a beautiful church right behind it. I got an “Award Winning Cornish Pasty” and tea for breakfast and sat outside the British Library (right next to the station) to eat. A pasty, by the way, is like a calzone, but filled with non-Italian stuff. Mine, for example, had cheese and mushrooms. Since I was sitting at the Library, I figured I better check to see if it is worth seeing, and I am glad I did. I spent about 90 minutes looking at 2 exhibitions. The first was “The Ramayana. Love and Valour in India’s Great Epic.” The Ramayana is an ancient Indian epic which follows Prine Rama’s quest to rescue his beloved wife Sita from the clutches of a king with the help of an army of MONKEYS! It is considered to be one of the most important works of ancient India, and dates back to about 500-100BC.  There was this crazy, horribly great movie playing there, too, that brought this epic to life. The movie had astoundingly poor acting, yet I was strangely drawn to it, and watched for a good 15 minutes before I was able to pull myself from the clutches of the movie with the help of an army of…. oh wait, that’s something else. Then I went to the Treasure Room, where I saw the Magna Carta, several original documents written by Leonardo Da Vinci, Shakespeare, all sorts of Queens and Kings, religious documents, original Beatles songs written on little scraps of paper… that kind of thing. Good stuff.

I set off for the park, and didn’t get lost once!!! It was only a mile or so away, so I guess I shouldn’t be too proud. The park is in fact, very beautiful. It has a lot of formal gardens and fountains, and huge areas for people to play ball sports. There were people playing football (soccer), cricket, frisbee, and I even saw a small group throwing around an American football! I got another tea and found myself a bench and read my book for a long time. At some point, I headed back home by way of Oxford High street, which was an absolute zoo, and found my home around 6:30pm.

I found Isabelle in near tears because she has just got a laptop from work, and she couldn’t get it to log onto the internet. Luckily, the problem was password related, and we fixed it right up! Around 8pm, a friend of hers from work came by and we all went swimming in the Jacuzzi (which is NOT a hot tub… very disappointing because I though they were the same thing). Then sat in the sauna, which was so nice and warm, and we all just talked about life. The guy is from Spain, Isabelle is from France, and I am from the US, so we each had our own native language, but they both speak English pretty well. Having said this, we had a few moments of trying to understand each other, especially over the roar of the Jacuzzi. Later we went out to dinner and had another talk about life. I am finding that it is a lot easier to make friends here than in the US because everyone meets each other at work, and eventually, you start to meet people from other people’s previous jobs, etc, and everyone just has a good time. It seems like it is a lot easier for people to just hang out, too – men and women are friends with no deeper expectations. I’m liking all the people I am meeting and having a lot of fun by spending my days exploring, and my evenings being social. One more piece to fall into place to make life complete…. you know who you are!!!