That Time I Walked a Marathon in 3 Days

Hi family,

Funny story I had the whole four days planned out with Tanja perfectly not realizing that my California stroll just can’t compare with the Munich march. So after three days of walking around 9 to 11 miles, we finished everything on my list. So today was a day of improvisation!

Being the best friend that I am, I waited for the coffee shops to open and brought Princess Tanja coffee in bed. Did you know that taking a boat counts as public transportation in England?! Like what the heck. It costs $50 to get to Catalina island, but today Tanja and I took a boat to Greenwich Village for 7.50 and Tanja thought that was expensive!!!

Back to blogging, today was so sunny and nice. We started off with the markets, and I’ve grown to love them. They’ve got so much character and each stall is so different. Especially near the docks, however the further we got into the city we came across “vintage markets” which literally looked like garage sales inside white booths. Just junk, and there were even CDs. When did I become old enough to have CD-ROMs become “vintage” market finds….yikes! Mostly we just strolled around taking in the English cottages growing roses in their front lawns. I swear it was the suburbia of England there.

What was actually really amazing was the fact that I stood on Earth’s zero degree line of longitude. Ever wonder what GMT means? Greenwich Mean Time. Don’t worry I was totally clueless, until Jes sassily informed me. There’s an Old Royal Observatory which is on this line and that’s where we went!

Jes told us to go to Camden next, but Tanja and I were not prepared for that town. Leave it to Jes to suggest an “alternative” market and conveniently be busy that day hehehe. Just kidding Jes, love you. But seriously, weirdest part of town. One moment we are in super cute suburbia, and the next moment we are in punksville. It’s like when Disneyland does their goth day, but this was a town with permanent punk, rock, goth day. And obviously this became insta famous or super popular, so now you have the people of Camden and then all these tourists and the area was over inundated. So Tanja and I got off the train, and then bounced real fast. I’m not claustrophobic but this was Japan or Bangladesh street traffic worthy. That’s saying something.

Tanja and I decided to walk (and by Tanja and I, I mean Tanja 😉 ) to the next subway station through the gardens to catch the tube to Notting Hill. They were having more weekend markets. We found the cutest Italian restaurant with the worst service, so we were probably there over an hour just to eat bruschetta appetizers as an afternoon snack. Overall Notting Hill was cute, there were little shops and pastel houses, but it still did not seem to hold a candle to the charm of Kensington. It was nice to walk around, but at this point Tanja and I were a bit tired of walking through more weekend markets haha. We called it a day, took the tube home and rounded the evening out with a personal record of 12 miles for the day! Honestly, our feet hurt so badly once we hopped into bed to watch How I Met Your Mother there was no going back. I am really sad for Tanja to leave, tomorrow, but she keeps telling me I’m not allowed to be sad the night before she actually leaves because we still have the morning to enjoy before her flight. Having international friends is hard, but who knows, maybe work will send me to Germany during fall semester and our reunion can be sooner than a year away! At least I know I always have a great crash pad in Germany.

Update you more later!

Lots of love,

Carolyn