Love, friends, London

After only getting four hours of sleep last night, and spending a full day wandering around the Museum of London and the city itself, I must admit that I'm in the mood to retire. Maybe permanently, if it were a possibility, but since I'm studying at university, I will contain my lethargy for the night that lies before me and the tomorrow that lacks any definitive plans.

I was going to write today about the value of boldness, of slowness, of contradiction and of balancing all of these things to make for a life that never feels wasteful. But instead I'm going to share pictures. Because when you're thinking a million thoughts at once, sometimes it's good to just write a bunch of captions.

My friend Dana, who is studying in Scotland at the moment, came to visit and as we walked through Regent's Park we saw these two cute older women walking past a fountain.

The walk had us encountering dozens of dogs as well, but this beagle stood out in particular.

We took a ride on a spinny park ride-of-sorts.

Then got closer to Camden Market...which this statue is not looking toward.

At Camden we saw clothing, jewelry, trinkets and Winnie the Pooh luggage.

We also saw pigeons beating each other up to get to some un-discarded food products left behind by market-goers.

After heading all over the city to see the sights, we walked toward Parliament. Eventually we ended the night with Facebook creeping and general long-time-no-see friend fun.

The next morning we waited in Leicester Square to meet our friend Danielle.

This was their first reunion since the end of the school year in June.

After the hugs were done and tickets were purchased for Singin' in the Rain (which we saw in the evening), we walked around Trafalgar Square where there was a Japanese festival afoot.

People did fascinating exercises and taught us how to count to eight in Japanese (I already knew how, but that's beside the point).

Once we'd had lunch, we walked to Covent Garden and Dana had her palm read by a "psychic." No photos could be taken, but here are some shirts on sale at the place.

We went into a café and took a silly mirror photo.

Then a few hours later, before seeing Singin' in the Rain, we grabbed some dessert at a local Patisserie.

But before the night was over, there was love and excitement in the air. And I captured it, perhaps slightly voyeuristically, but only out of sheer admiration for the beauty of the bride's dress.

I hope this gave you some idea of the wonderful weekend I had with friends. They provided love, happiness, fun, distractions and excitement to my London life. I walk away from the experience feeling refreshed, renewed and ready to battle all of life's unanswerable questions - that's what this blog is for, after all.