More sun...and in London!

What a wonderful surprise when I got off the plane from LA and it was sunny and warm back here in Londontown. And it stayed that way - for a whole week!

That meant lunches out on patios, drinks by the river, and a weekend of suntime funtime...

Saturday I met Helen in Hampstead Heath, an enormous park on the north side of London. It's a gorgeous park with tons of hills and meandering paths through lovely shady trees. There are also public bathing ponds - one for men, one for women and one mixed. I didn't go in any of them, but I definitely want to swim at some point this summer. The women's one is down a private path, enclosed by a fence and tons of foliage, so it's nearly impossible to see from the main pathway. Even though it was man-made at some point, it's the most natural looking little pond, with a few innertubes stationed in the water so you have something to hold onto when you're tired of paddling around. And there were women of all ages there, it was such a cool community feeling. In addition to the ponds, the Heath has everything you could ever want from a park - tennis courts, playground, a specific hill for flying kites. And it's so enormous...I was worried that since it was such a gorgeous day and I didn't get there til early afternoon that there would be no place to sit. Yeah, not really a problem. When Helen took me on a tour of the park later, we walked along some paths along huge lawns where there were maybe 6 people within sight. It's awesome.

In the "evening" (which i put in quotes b/c it's light out here until like 9pm) I went down to Clapham Common to meet up with Tim (one of my co-workers), his brother and a bunch of their friends. Clapham is almost straight east of my house and almost due south (but quite a bit) from Hamstead. The Common is a big green with a few different sections. There are a couple of ponds - but totally manmade, not all natural seeming like in Hamstead - but it's a great expanse of lawn and there were still tons of people out playing football (the non-US type), reading and lots and lots of drinking. Did I mention that yet? In all the public parks you can drink to your heart's content. In some of them (like the Heath) you can also bring your own grill and BBQ. This seems like a dangerous combo to me, but I guess it works here. So anyway, I was clearly way behind on the drinking when I met up with the Clapham group but it was still a super fun evening for me.

Sunday I went to Brighton to spend a day seaside. Not what I had pictured. I had been warned it was a pebble beach but I'd still never actually been on one. And because it was the first beautiful summer weekend, the train and the whole town were just totally insane. Streams of people on both sides of the street making their way from the train to the sea. It was odd. Also it was way more international than I was expecting from a day at the British seaside. I mean, I should have known, since London is totally international and obviously a ton of Londoners are going to head out there on the weekends, but still, took me by surprise. We did eat at this amazing vegetarian restaurant in town called Terre a Terre, which two of my co-workers had recommended. Yummy and the most creative vegetarian food I've ever eaten. Tim's roommate Kat was directing a play in Brighton for the Fringe Festival so we went to the play in the evening before the train home. It was a series of shorts about "American life", which I found really amusing. It was a really fun play and everyone did an amazing job. We rode back with Kat and her producer and a few of their friends. It's always fun for me to hang out with new people and it was a great day, even if it wasn't what i had pictured. I had wanted to go to Brighton a month or so ago and it was way more fun to go with friends than by myself (not to mention when it's sunny and 80, instead of rainy and 50). I'd definitely love to go back to Brighton when the crowds thin out a little.

It was seriously, the best non-visitor weekend I've had so far in London. This city is a totally different place when the weather is nice...everyone is so happy to be outside and it's fun to explore all these great outdoors spaces.