An Afternoon of High Tea

For my second night out here in London we made our way to a local pub called The North Star, as with everything else found here in Ealing it seems to be small and quaint and serve a variety of delicious beers and ciders.  I will admit that I stayed up far too late that night and managed to see my first sunrise from London.  It oddly seems to get lighter much earlier in the morning here, at least from my experience.  I would love to say that this was my one and only experience with watching the sun rise here, but it seems to be becoming an unavoidable trend.

A picture of the North Star during the daytime

After a grueling wakeup and a long commute into Kensington for some more orientation my roommates and I made our way to our first high tea experience.  We went to a lovely hotel named The Regency and were served a proper tea.  My two roommates and one other friend were both initially wary of putting cream into their tea, however when in London do as the Londoners do!  Luckily enough I grew up drinking tea with milk and felt right at home.   I ate my fill of crumpets and scones with clotted cream, but forgot to take a photo of them seeing as I was simply far too hungry.  The pastries were divine and adding clotted cream and jam to any baked good seems to create a delectable afternoon snack.  This was my first true high tea experience, but definitely won't be my last.

I did manage to snap a photo of my tea

After falling asleep with the sun that morning I made the solid decision to join my friends for a night of clubbing, yes you read that correctly, clubbing in Camden.  As many of you know, I absolutely love to dance, but clubs are generally not my scene.  After some convincing and the skillful thwarting of my nap by my friend Jason, I put on a pair of weird pants some red lipstick and got ready to head to what my school kept referring to as the "funky" neighborhood.  We walked off of the tube station and I knew we were in for a good night.  There were loads of people milling about, some with mohawks many with tattoos and raging dance music coming from pubs and clubs.  The decision was made that we were going to some club called Koko.  It was a beautiful venue, an old converted theatre in fact, that had a huge projection screen and at one point a live band even came on.  I didn't have a chance to snap pictures of the Strongbows that were drank there, but I did take some lovely photos of the club itself.

Some of the weird pictures on the screen all night

  

Koko in the daytime

Weird pants and Red Lipstick, photo courtesy of Jason

                               

The inside of the club, beautiful.  

One would think that since I brought the sun up the night before I would have tried to make it home early that night too, but sadly that was not the case.  We had so much fun dancing and prancing around Koko that we didn't leave until probably three in the morning.  Then Jason and I decided that we needed food (of course I did).  We found a street vendor who was selling burgers and chicken sandwiches.  I saw that he offered a bacon and egg cheeseburger and knew that it must be mine.  I did remember to snatch a photo of this, but only after I had taken a few bites (sorry!!).  It was ungodly delicious, they put some sort of garlic sauce on it and the burger was seasoned in ways that my mouth couldn't even identify.  

Delicious street burger and a view of my hand!

When we went to leave Camden that evening, we discovered that the price of a taxi was going to be out of the price range that most of us were willing, or even had enough cash on them, to afford.  So with the help of my roommate we decided to take a variety of night buses in order to find our way home to Ealing.  After promising myself that I wouldn't bring the sun up, I ended up doing so.  After three different buses and seeing a large variety of London, we made out way home to Newman Court at a casual 5 in the morning.  While we did enjoy some lovely views and the sounds of birds chirping it was an overall new experience for us.  

Goodmorning Ealing!! (This isn't my building sadly)