A Good Day

Sunday morning we arrived at Victoria station literally exactly on time to meet Hazel. We had been there for pretty much one minute when she showed up, a lovely reminder of home. The weather was absolutely gorgeous so we decided to head up north to Camden Market, wander about there and then hit up Regents Park.

Oh Camden. It is absolute madness and mayhem up there but in a good way. There are actually several different markets- Camden Market, Camden Locks, the Horse Stables Market, Inverness Market, just to name a few. However, they're all pretty much the same. Vintage clothes, cheap collectibles, books, tons of ethnic food (right by the canal, it's like an international potluck of food!) and anything weird or crazy that you can imagine. There was one kiosk devoted entirely to motorcycle racing jackets, there was another stable that had the most ugly wedding dresses that you could ever imagine (although we decided that Hazel is going to wear one on her wedding day :) ). It was a treat to wonder what would be around the next corner. Oh, and Shiri was finally excited to get the jersey she wanted. And Youval, we bought you something too. You're going to love us forever.

Eventually though, Camden wore us out and we wandered about until we found Regent's Park. We hiked up Primrose Hill, while snacking on Hazel's Honey Nut cheerios (by the way, you may wonder why we talk about food so much on this blog- it is because we miss it. At this point, we are compiling a list of where to go when we get back. Jamba Juice, Panera and Pei Wei are at the TOP of the list. And Michal wants a turkey burger really badly....) and got a gorgeous view of the city. We could see Canary Wharf, Battersea, the BT Tower, St. Paul's, the Tate, all the major hotspots of London. We were so lucky that it was a gorgeous day because it felt like we could see just for miles. Although we really couldn't. But you know the feeling.

We trekked down into the Primrose Hill area (keeping our eyes out for Jude Law) and got our usual at Tesco. Then we trekked back up the hill and sat down for a lovely picnic lunch. The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around Regent's Park. We of course had to walk past my future home in Cumberland Terrace (where we spotted a fox! No joke! It was so random!) and then went into the gardens where we stumbled upon a tango show, I guess you would call it. There was tango music playing and a bunch of people were just tangoing. Very strange but really cool at the same time.

We walked all the way down to Baker Street, checked out the resident of the famous detective (and husband to my favorite Mary Russell) and then decided we were tired of that area and our feet hurt and we were looking for a Flake so we tubed it down to Trafalgar, pointed out the Tower of Big Ben and all the monuments of Trafalgar to Hazel and then sat down to eat our ice cream. We spent a good forty minutes people watching in the square, including the most resilient little boy who fell down numerous times, nearly toppled into the fountain several times and enjoyed splashing his sister (but not getting splashed back). And we concluded that "manpris" will never be in.

We met JJ and her friend Ellen at the Marylebone Station at a quarter to five and went to go find St. Mary's church. Let's just say that church was an experience and luckily we all felt the same way about it- slightly lost and confused but also interested and intrigued. To make a long story short (and we will tell the long story if asked), the church (although being Anglican) as recently gotten big on the idea of healing through prayer. Towards the end of the service, they said if you needed prayer for healing to come up. Literally half the congregation (so like over a hundred) came up for prayer and that's when the oddness began. We are not to judge what was real and what was not, but the pastor was going on about how the Holy Spirit needed to come in and how the church needed to be a place of fire and as people were being prayed for, they would sway or do a kind of dance or speak in tongues or moan or even, as we witnessed at least twice, fall over. It was incredibly bizarre and after the service was over, the five of us headed back to Regent's Park to the boat area to discuss. Luckily we all felt the same way about the situation and had a good chat about it but needless to say, I don't think I'll be asking Scott to implement "the fire tunnel" into Thursday night group....

All in all though it was a wonderful day, which we probably would have appreciated more if we knew what was coming the next day.....