13. Happy Birthday to Me

...And we're back! After a brief hiatus, I'm back to tell you all what I've been up to in the next couple posts.

I celebrated my birthday on October 12th. The biggest difference is putting 24, instead of 23, on the elliptical machine in the gym. Also, I am now the age I will be when I graduate with my masters and move home(?) I love my birthday. I like to tell everyone I run in to on that day. I'd really like it if everyone could organize some sort of parade and give me a high five and a fruit roll up when I walk down the street. I would do the same for other people if they wanted, so, it's only fair.

Hayley and Stephen came to town, which made it an even bigger cause for celebration. We went to Cinnamon, my favorite restaurant in the whole city! Instead of going in to a description of everything we ate,which I think can get boring because no one else ate it but us, I'll just say, we shared everything and it was delicious. I highly recommend it if you're ever in Ranelagh.

Mouthful of Brownie with Pistachio Ice Cream - YUM!

Then, we went to The Bernard Shaw, a divey, arty pub with a painted double-decker bus in the back where people buy pizza. This was followed by Against the Grain, a pretty good beer place where we had shots of a 32%abv beer, called Tactical Nuclear Penguin. Finally, around 1:30am, we found ourselves dancing in a crowd at Whelan's. Surprisingly, we made our flight to London right on time the next morning.

Saturday, we went to Borough Market for lunch and the best, somehow strawberry-flavored, coffee ever (from Monmouth) before meeting up with Hayley's group of British best friends. At the end of the night, for the second night in a row, we found ourselves dancing. This time, at a gay bar, called The Joiners. Actually, this wasn't the first time I found myself dancing at this particular bar after 4am - and I suspect it won't be the last. Miraculously, I awoke before 11am on Sunday and found my way to Camden Town, solo.

Going to Camden Town was the goal of this trip to London. It's like if St. Mark's Place in New York from 2 years ago exploded. After that, I couldn't get a hold of Hayley to meet up and had one of those poorly planned missed meet-up panics. You can't go home because you don't have a key and you don't know if you just missed them or if they haven't gotten there, yet. Those are the worst... Needless to say, I finally found them and, after giving her a reasonable amount of grief, we had a good night. I went home early, so I wouldn't miss my flight early the next morning

I missed my flight the next morning, anyway.