This is the end.

Yesterday I did my own thing in London, and it was great.

I had decided the night before that I was going to find this food place that was in my 1000 Things To Do in London book, and get a scotch egg there. There was a picture and it looked really good, a hard-boiled egg covered in some sort of batter with bread crumbs and I think meat. So first thing when I woke up, I went there. I met Shawn at the station completely randomly, and she decided to come along. So we found the place really easily, and we bought our scotch eggs and various other food items (Shawn got a "fairy cake," which is funny because I had tried to figure out what a fairy cake was before--turns out it's just a regular cupcake, it's what they call them here) and ate them in Regent's Park. And yes, they were as good as I was expecting them to be. After that we decided randomly to go to the London Zoo, as it was nearby. It was pretty cool, AND I got to see where Harry Potter was filmed in the first one, when Harry makes the glass disappear.

After that we parted ways, and I went over to this art exhibition which was actually a tunnel full of graffiti. The UK graffiti artist Banksy invited other graffiti artists from around the world to the tunnel to spray paint what they wanted as a kind of art project, and it was pretty incredible. When I got there, there must have been thousands of people waiting in line to see it. I got there after waiting maybe 45 minutes, and it was worth it. I don't think I'll ever see anything like that again. It was nuts.

Later on I had dinner at Tuk Tuk with Renee, and then went to a surprise party. Not a surprise party in that we threw it for someone who didn't know it was going to happen, but in the fact that none of us knew about the party until hours before. Whatever. I'm almost home. 15 hours.

It's weird to think about. Surreal, really. I can't believe I'm leaving this city, which I love, but I also can't wait to get the hell out of here. It's been a rough last few weeks and I think it's really time for me to go home. It was probably time two or three weeks ago, but that's the past and I'm ready for the future of a comfortable bed, real food and a car. And NEVER LIVING WITH FOUR OTHER GIRLS AGAIN.



After we were done eating and kicking at pigeons, Shawn mentioned the London Zoo was in the park. My response: "The zoo?? Let's go!" And after waiting in line for about 30 minutes, go we did. And it was fantastic. Gorillas, giraffes, zebras, you name it and we probably saw it. Except there were no elephants.



After three whole hours at the zoo,