Hugh Grant and Bill Clinton

No, I did not meet either of those people although I kind of wish I did. What I did do was visit the neighborhood of Notting Hill which both of those guys have connections to. I picked a great day for it... rain, wind, cold, and cloudy. Oh well. It can't be sunny everyday.

I woke up kind of late, like 10. I just felt like sleeping in so I did. I went online for a few hours and looked up flights for when my mom visits in about three weeks (!). I have class on Tuesday and Wednesday that week but I am going to try and get out of them so that we have a whole week to do whatever we want. I love looking up flights and thinking about all the places we can go and things we can see. The possibilities are endless (well, not totally but it seems like it). Anyway, I got tired of being online so I got up and grabbed my guide book and walked up to Notting Hill.

Notting Hill is a pretty prestigious neighborhood and has been for a while. It's famous for a couple things, the movie and the Carnivale. During my walk, I walked by the bookstore, The Travel Bookstore (picture 1), that the movie Notting Hill was based on. For those that don't know, the movie is about Hugh Grant works in a book store and falls in love with Julia Roberts who is a big movie star. Its a good movie. The only thing Notting Hill is famous for, the Carnivale, is the biggest festival in London each year. It happens in July and was started as a celebration by all the Caribbean immigrants. Now, it's just a big get together that is vaguely like Mardi Gras.

So the main part of my walk was walking along Portobello Road which is a big shopping road. Lots of antique stores and clothing stores and just shopping. It was ok. I am not a huge shopper but especially not when I literally have no money on me (I left it at the flat). Also along the road are a whole bunch of vegetable and fruit stands which are cool (picture 2). There's a pub called The Gold. In 2000, Bill and Chelsea Clinton stopped in here for a drink and snack. I don't know why that is important but that's what it said in my guidebook so I took note of it. I saw some houses in two different areas that reminded me a lot of the houses on the island of Burano. These houses were painted more pastel colors though, bright but not the same (picture 3). They made me think of Easter for some reason (picture 4). I liked them a lot, probably my favorite part of the walk. At the end of Portobello Road, there is an area of cafes and food shops and stuff that is really ethnic. There were Moroccan food stands, Portuguese cafes, French patisseries, Spanish food marts, Greek gyro bars, and a bunch more different kinds of things. I really liked it here as well. I need to come back some day and have lunch. It all smelled so good. From there I walked back to the flats.

I lazed around and watched some tv. Nothing good was on so I read some more of the Odyssey and made dinner. Then it was more poking around the internet: facebooking, reading travel advice, e-mailing, sports blogs, and just wasting time really. Tomorrow, we are all going to Cambridge which should be fun.

Happy Leap Day!