Last Tuesday, I embarked on another bookshop hunt in the Charing Cross area. I walked from Hatchard's on Piccadilly Road on down to Charing Cross, where I spent the afternoon browsing through some great used bookshops. My favorite was Henry Pordes Booksellers, which is lined floor to ceiling on two floors with used books of all genres. The older man working there was just what a bookseller should be: he was sitting at the counter chatting about Tolstoy when I came in and looked somewhat disgruntled when I interrupted his reading when I approached the counter to pay. He then lovingly wrapped the book I purchased in brown paper, folding the edges perfectly without crinkling the paper. Just the look of the brown paper package in my arms the rest of the day made me smile. I ended my little jaunt with coffee and chocolate cake at the Foyles cafe (I'm so weak, I know. I couldn't resist the cafe or the cake).
Tuesday nights I attend a small group from Tower Hamlets Community Church with some amazing people who love God. The older members have pretty much adopted us QM students as younger siblings, which is really neat. We gather for a couple of hours each week to eat dessert, drink coffee and tea, and study the book of Mark.
Wednesday afternoons, another bible study - this time with just fellow Christians at QM and only meeting for an hour to pray and learn together.
Gosh, this really was a quiet week compared to the others I've had. I did go out to eat last Thursday night after Christian Union. A group of us went to Nando's, "home of the legendary, Portuguese flame-grilled PERi-PERi chicken." Nando's is THE place to go out to eat here in East London, and apparently it's big all over the UK. The food is delicious.
Friday afternoon, I went to the cinema to see "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy." I had read the book shortly after arriving in London as was excited to see the film version that just recently came out. Gary Oldman and Colin Firth were absolutely perfect for the parts they played.
Saturday morning I attended a training session with members of 7 different churches in the Tower Hamlets area for a night shelter that the churches collectively run from December through February. The project, called growTH, is really special and very much needed in this area - homelessness is a problem, and for Christians to show hospitality to those without a place to go is so important. I've been praying for the shelter as everything gets organized and I hope to be a part of it. After the meeting, my friend Shana and I headed to Kensington to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum. The V and A is HUGE and has some really unique exhibits on jewelry, glass, architecture, and silver. The furniture exhibit - what I think the V and A is famous for - is unfortunately closed for another year, so we didn't get to see it.
The V and A - Reproduction of the Trojan Column
The glass fixture over the lobby of the V and A
The V and A courtyard
We then headed to the Natural History Museum just to see the main lobby of the building. We were pretty museum-ed out by this point, so we just stepped inside.
Museum of Natural History
We then, I'm afraid to say, did the typical tourist-y thing of going to Harrod's. I thought I've been in big stores before - I've even been to the Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly - but even that could not compare to the size of this place. We made it through the food section before we just had to give up. It was sensory overload - so many delicious smells and beautiful decorations and so many people! We walked past the bakery, the cheese counter, the florist, the vegetable and fruit counters, the coffee and tea area, and.... the CHOCOLATE. We managed to get a free sample of Harrod's chocolate and I think my life is pretty much complete now (well at least it felt like it for those two glorious minutes).
One of the food departments at Harrod's. Stunning.
After deciding we could not afford to eat at Harrod's, Shana and I headed to Chinatown for some Chinese food (duh!). We ate at a small cafe there, splitting dishes of vegetable lo mein, sweet and sour chicken, egg-fried rice, cooked veggies, and wan ton soup. The area was pretty crowded that night because the London Film Festival is taking place in nearby Leicester Square.
Chinatown
Sunday morning I helped set up at THCC for service, then spent the afternoon catching up on reading and actually doing some homework. Monday was an errand day, which included a trip to Barclays Bank to sort out my account, opening a membership at the Idea Store (aka the library) near by in order to get 1GBP tickets to the Tower of London, and a major shopping run to Sainsbury's. At night I attended a screening of 'Jane Eyre' in the chapel on campus.
Since then, it's been a pretty quiet week - seminars, small groups, yogalates, some laundry, some homework. It's been quite nice to be just a student for a few days instead of a world traveler.
Speaking of being a student, I thought I'd share this - I've been eating pretty well, making meals for myself and all that. This was one of my dinners last week, however, and it's pretty creative (if I do say so myself):
Scrambled eggs with chopped up turkey slices, gouda cheese, and cucumbers.
I have discovered that anything can be tossed into scrambled eggs and still taste good, haha. I do not eat like this all the time, just so you know: this was just before I got a chance to go shopping and I needed to use up some of the lunch meat and veggies in my fridge.
Anyways, that's all for now. This weekend's a busy one so there'll be more to tell next time.
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