Friendship

[Wow, 7 followers! That's 7 more than I was expecting; Thanks guys!]

Today we went to Windsor and paid for our first attraction. It was worth every pound though to see the inside of that breathtaking castle. It was stunningly beautiful, even in the overcast and drizzly weather. Laura and I managed to lose track of each other in the first room, and didn't end up finding each other until about 3 hours later - so it was a quite morning. I really enjoyed reading everything in the rooms though. So much elegance, intricate designs, history, detailed armor, gold, extra large portrait paintings, etc. Relative to the tiny chairs and desks it almost felt like being in a life-size doll house. I don't have too much to say about Windsor because I know so little of British history and I get so confused with all the people named the same things with different roman numerals that I never know who is being talked about and how they fit into the greater picture. But I did do lots of interesting reading, and I did appreciate the beauty of Windsor Castle.

Later Laura and I went into downtown London to meet up with Emmanuelle, the French intern who lived with my family back in 2001 (just realized how long it had been today - boy do I feel dated). It was so wonderful to see a friendly face here. We went to Covent Garden and wandered around until Emmanuelle picked a pub where she treated us to dinner. Completely unnecessary and quite a nice unexpected occurrence! After that, she took us to an amazing pub called Porterhouse that had beers from all over the world. There was a strawberry beer on tap that she raved about so Laura and I both got one of those. Again, her treat. Too sweet. We tried to pay for her or buy her dessert and she absolutely refused! The beer was incredible!!! Makes up for all those terrible English beers...We parted ways around 9pm but there's a chance we'll meet up again before we leave on Thursday. Catching up was so much fun!

We then returned to Jit's flat to spend our last night with him. We walked around town looking for a place to buy him a beer but everything was closed. So now our plan is to make him breakfast in the morning :) We ended up sitting around sipping wine and watching another movie (after having an interesting conversation regarding arranged marriages in India).

Quotes:
Laura: Do you wanna get a Woo Woo?
Hilary: What's a Woo Woo?
Laura: A vodka (blah blah blah)...
Hilary: I don't like vodka.
Laura: But it's a WOO WOO!!

Hilary: Jit, tomorrow can we borrow your telephone?
Jit: Do you really need to ask?
Hilary: Yes. In America, it is polite to ask for things.
Jit: You are friends. So you can just take.
Hilary: Is that how it works in India?
Jit: Yes. You ask "can I borrow something?" and your friend will say "no". And then you just take it. That is friendship. No need to ask.
[He is too kind!]

Accomplishments:
Sending our London to Amsterdam bus tickets to Liverpool THE CITY instead of Liverpool THE TUBE STATION IN LONDON. Fantastic.

Travel Tip:
Have a meeting point and time whenever there's a possibility of parting ways. Laura and I spent a combined ~2 hours looking for each other in Windsor. Good thing that town is small and we had talked about eating lunch at this sandwich shop earlier...which is where I eventually found her.

Nice People Alert:
Emmanuelle Harscouet - for treating us to dinner and drinks in such a cute part of town! Such a nice surprise :)

Only two more days to play in London. It feels a bit reminiscent of Semester at Sea, where you spend just enough time somewhere to know you want to go back - but then it's time to embark on the next adventure. I'm sure we will make the best of it; there is so much left to do!

P.S. At the end of each country, you can look forward to two photo blog posts. One will just be of the authentic food I ate! The other will be the best of people and places that most represent our adventures in the country. Get excited.