Secret Santa Party!!

I love the holidays- how could you not?! Luckily, so do all my roommates and friends. We decided a few weeks ago to do a secret Santa gift exchange between six of us and last night was our party! We all made delicious food - brie and cranberry appetizers, taco mac and cheese, roasted veggies with a garlic lemon aioli, assorted pates and baguette, fish and chips in pastry dough, and brownies! We decided it was a celebration so we topped it all off with sangria and champagne- we had a great time!

Here are some pictures from the night...

Our "tree" and present pile!

Viveca and Ana 

Viveca and Katie

Part of Viveca's present was shoes for me!! How cute do I look? Thanks Emily!

The dancing begins... notice Emily's new Christmas socks

Mmmmm

Katie posing with our table

I can't believe I have less than a week left in London... I'm excited to go home and see everyone but I don't want to leave here!!! :(

Allie In London!

Last weekend Allie came to London to visit. We had a lot of fun and I got to do a lot of the things that I hadn't had a chance to do yet.

Allie's first day in we went shopping for a bit in Oxford Street (before all the shops were vandalized by the student protestors!) then took the tube down to The City to see St. Pauls, the Millennium Bridge, The Tate, Thames, Tower of London, Tower Bridge and London Bridge.

The London Skyline at night

Walking across tower bridge

The next day we got up early to walk through St. James Park and Green Park to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. It was certainly an event! I can't believe they do all they did every other day.

The band of guards playing Beatles songs!

Afterwards Viveca and I walked Allie over to Westminster Abbey so she could take the tour. Since we had already been when Viveca's mom visited, we opted out and walked around by myself. We met back up afterwards and crossed the river to see Parliament, Big Ben, The Eye, and the Thames Christmas market! Then we met up with a friend of Allie's brother who walked us to Trafalgar Square to the National Gallery and to Leicester Square.

The next day we decided to go to Madame Tussaud's which was a hoot! Here are Allie and Viveca posing with some miscellaneous celebrities...

Allie and JT

Viveca and George, hamming it up

Whoopi being sassy

Forget Kate- Prince William has a new girl!

After the wax museum we walked to Abbey Road to take the obvious tourist photos and see Abbey Road Studios. Unfortunately, it was dark (even though it was only 4) and our pictures didn't turn out so well. At least we got to see a nice area of London (St. John's Wood). We then took the tube over to Notting Hill to get dinner and to see the area. After dinner we walked from Notting Hill through Kensington, South Kensington, and Knigtsbridge, and through Hyde Park so Allie could see Harrod's.

A fun weekend with a friend from home - who could ask for more!

Highgate Cemetery

A few weeks back we took a trip to Highgate Cemetery for Gothic Lit. It was really one of the coolest things I've done in London so far!

Highgate is a really nice area of London in Camden about a mile away from Kings Cross (right by me). The cemetery itself has a really strange history. It opened in the early-mid 1800s along with six other cemeteries in London meant to alleviate some of the crowding in inner-London church yards. Highgate was a very fashionable and expensive place to be buried, and there are a lot of old timey rich folks' graves there today.

However, Highgate went into disrepair and became abandoned for many years. Throughout the 60s and 70s it was often used in filming of horror films. Also during this time, many crazy occultists would break into the cemetery, steal bodies, perform rituals, and other creepy stuff. There is also the story about the modern Highgate Vampire, who supposedly hung around the cemetery during the 1970s.

There are two parts to Highgate, the west side and the east. The west side is only open to those on guided tours, which have to be arranged in advance. The east side is accessible by a small fee (which we didn't even have to pay, as it was sponsored by NYU!) We got a great tour guide who knew so much about  everything there. It was really neat!

The grave of Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian dissident and journalist who was poisoned in 2006

The entrance to the Egyptian Avenue

George Wombwell: Menagerist, I thought this grave was so cute! His story is really interesting too

The Circle of Lebanon

View over Egyptian Avenue from the Circle of Lebanon

Rossetti family grave

So. Cool.

And for the big finale- Karl Marx! We got to see his original grave before, which is much smaller and barely noticeable.. 

After our tours we took a walk around the village of Highgate, which is adorable, and got some lunch. A very neat experience that I probably would not have done if not for class, but that I'm really glad I got to do!