pittsburgh and fryd meet london

so last week mrahsters and gary came to visit me. i could write a small novel on this week of my life, but because i hate reading, and im pretty sure half the people reading this are engineers and know they do too, i'll try to keep it short.

 i went to bed at 5 am and woke up at 7 to pick garhead up at gatwick and maria at heathrow. without cellphones, picking up 2 people in international aiports is not simple. "DO NOT leave the baskin robbins" "i will find you" (turns out there was no baskin robbins and jesus himself walked me smack dab into my sister at heathrow)

 let it be known, that i am a really good person/ sister. maria refused to take a simple train ride to get to london because she was afraid of being kidnapped and sold into the sex trade, completely rational fear, so gary and i took the hour long tube ride to pick her up, only to find that she brought the biggest suitcase known to mankind.....for 6 days. i am here for 6 months and we had equal volume size. you can never have enough boots, party tops, jeans, socks, bobby pins..you get it

this is not an accurate picture.

after we got back my teeny little room instantly exploded with mess. i now know why the bathroom maria and i share at home for the past 17 years is always disastrous...dear mom, its not me. anyway, we hit the ground running first stopping in westminster to check out parliament and all those other "london skyline" buildlings for gar, who had never been to europe before.

maria in her natural pose

a summary of how my week went: maria hates monuments, all things history, and touring, but loves shopping and getting ready at least 3 hours before we need to leave. gary likes monuments, history, and touring, hates shopping and somehow already has his party top on.....he learned more than he's ever wanted to know about cute tops, clashing, and straightening hair.

so after about 20 minutes after arriving in london maria NEEDED a party top for the night's festivities, off to oxford street we went and we left gary to explore a bit of the city. we ended up going to primark 3 times

they really like eachother

basically the week went like this: touring all day, going out all night,  send daina to the hospital for exhaustion, repeat 6 times..also, add fried chicken at 3 am 4.5 times

but some really favorite things i liked was going to brick lane for food on sunday, gary and i ate moroccan and mrahskis...clearly chicken terreyaki, is that a question? and st pauls for ashes on ash wednesday, followed by fish and chips afterwards. kinda felt like i was back at our lady of grace going to the fish fry. though let me say, st pauls for ashes was one of the most beautiful church experiences i've ever had and i know gary and maria agree.

i also would like to tell you an excerpt from my real life. all week i begged maria and gary to ride bikes in hyde park. i have yet to figure out why that is a repulsive idea, but they were absolutely not feeling it. so the last day we left primark, and are walking to a pub gary wanted to go to. guess what we had to cross to get there? instead of walking through the park, maria wanted to walk  AROUND the park on the crowded street parallel to it.... i forgot, there were probably sex trade killer people hiding in between the magical horses and moats and boats and buckingham palace.... now it all makes sense. i made them walk through it anyway, and maria complained about pebbles in her shoes.

playing the lie down in the middle of crowded public area and see what happens game

workin it

not only did gary and mrahsters come to visit me...the noble sarah fryd was in town as well on some sort of school trip thingy..it was so nice seeing her,  we all went out the last night maria and gary were here and we all packed into my room to sleep for all of 2.5 hours, maria decided to roll in late, calling me at 5:30 am, so i made her sleep on a suitcase, with no blanket or pillow. that was sad.

gary and i walking abbey road style across abbey road

where's maria? oh wait...do you think she wanted to go here? no. there's too much history.

we also tried to go to hogwarts, but were thwarted by the lameness of platform 9 3/4...honestly if i was 6 i would not be impressed, at kings cross station they have a laminated poster and a shopping cart

maria about to get on the express

i said goodbye to maria and gary the next day, and fryd and i went to primark (4x in one week now) and let me say, i would be a great personal shopper/mom/person who holds your things while you try on 15 jackets and shoes and everything

frydhead and me in bricklane

the next night i literally wanted to sleep for years, but there was a foam party at drapers, our school bar, why sleep when you can smell like a washing machine in 3 feet of foam with complete strangers? you can guess what happens next, and here are some pictures

it was wild.