Hello from Stockholm!

It's my last full day in Stockholm, though our flight to Oslo isn't till 9:50pm tomorrow! These first few days of travel have been a lot of fun, but also exhausting and hard on my feet!
I want to update with details but I won't be able to upload photos until I am in Poland, which makes it much harder, so I think I'll wait.

A brief story, last night at around 5am the fire alarm went off in our hostel because someone burned a roll and the whole kitchen was smokey. Lucky for us, our hostel has no windows (there are a few skylights). Few things in life are less enjoyable than waking up to a fire alarm and the smell of smoke, particularly in a foreign country. One of the employees turned off the alarm and opened the back door to air the place out, but I was still a bit paranoid about the air quality in our windowless room. All was well in the end, but it wasn't the best night of sleep. Our new roommate didn't arrive until about 2am prior to the alarm, and our other roommate was particularly rowdy getting dressed this morning. This is, however, the only time we will be sharing a room with strangers, so despite the fear of fire, it's been quite alright. The hostel is small but clean and has a kitchen which has allowed us to save some money.

Okay, not sure why I chose to write about that particular event, not exactly the most riveting from all of Stockholm, but perhaps the most recent occurence which stands out. More (interesting) posts to come, I promise!

Spring!

Not much wit here, just wanted the world to know that London can be warm and charming and spring-like. Here's proof. 

Miranda and I went to Euphorium and sat outside before she left, cause it was warm. Never mind the Subway, it's a perfectly lovely area.

Mahself.

Flowers in the park-cemetery next to my dorm

More of em

Blooming trees on my walk to school

BAM! Flowaz.

I am leaving for Stockholm in an hour an 20 minutes... jinkies! Needless to say, I am pulling my first all nighter in like... forever. I will tell you how it happened, I went to Leila's for frozen pizza dinner and soon enough Leila, her boyfriend and I are sharing our various family misfortunes and... next thing you know it's midnight. 

Hooray, first part of my adventure begins so soon! After Stockholm I am headed to Oslo, Paris, Berlin, Poland and Rome!

Playing catch up...

I have gotten requests (okay, just one) to update my blog, which was surprising since I often think no one is reading—I mean, even my mom forgets about my blog, and she's supposed to be an unconditional fan, right?

Two weekends ago I went to visit Adria in Oxford, here are the coveted photos. The day I got there I was feeling rather sick, thus it was a rather low key weekend, but the weather was beautiful and unlike my ice box in London, Adria inhabits a cozy dorm room with heating, so it was altogether quite pleasant.

This is Adria's dorm that's right on a river (stream? canal?). You can hear ducks quacking from her dorm room, and apparently sometimes canoers pass by her window.

The river

On my first full day in Oxford we went to go "see" the rowing races (we didn't in fact see much of the racing), it was crazy to see how big a part of the University culture rowing was.

This is the "boat house" for Adria's school (she was on the crew team last semester)

More boat houses

The city center in the distance

We walked around the city and well.. these cupcakes looked amazing.

The "scene"

Some of the fudge we sampled

More of the scene

This street won as one of google maps' most scenic street awards!

This is where we went for breakfast on the day I left

The week which followed my Oxford getaway involved two presentations and two papers, but I survived and I am done with schoolwork until finals! It has been an amazing relief. Since then I have been indulging in my two loves: food and coffee. Though I still have class for another week, it's been nice not to have any obligations, and the lovely weather has allowed me to spend a lot of time outdoors!

Hannah and I went on a walk in Primrose Hill, caught a glimpse of the zoo (on the right)

Roxanne and Hannah in Regents Park (proof I sometimes hang out with other people)

Adria also stayed with me for a couple of days before her spring break travels, and she left me with this useful note

Okay! Lastly, I went to an awesome installation at the Barbican with Miranda and Roxanne today. The video below sums it up. Let me just note that you actually get to be in the same room as these birds, and they're flying all around you! It was so cool, and it's open till the end of May so I hope to take some of you lucky visitors there!

Flowers!

It's going to be a long and stressful day, but I woke up my flowers blooming this morning!

Mr. Blue Sky

Hello it is March and these first two days have been absolutely amazing. It has been warm and sunny so I had to come on here and brag about it.
I didn't have class today so I went to tuesday brunch with Miranda at Andrew's Restaurant (our favorite diner) and then I went on my routine post-Andrew's walk around Islington. I listened to Mr. Blue Sky on loop and smiled to myself and felt extremely content. Sometimes I hate how much the weather affects my mood, but then there are days like today when the weather just makes everything perfect. I took a few pictures, but they feel a bit repetitive since I am often in the same places.

The sky! Deserved a photo of it's own.

I want to live here:

Closeup

For some reason they're really into park-cemeteries here...

Hot chocolate at Euphorium Bakery.

If they don't simulate the experience of crashing into an iceberg I am going to be very disappointed.

A lion chillin on a roof.

Flowers! Spring!

Time to do the dishes?