Staying Positive

As all of you may know, it rains in London…a lot.  It’s no mystery that the sun is barely ever out too.  This is the way the UK is.  Honestly, I love it.  Cloudy weather, in my opinion, is the best.  The weather is bleak, but the tea is warm.  And that’s the way I like it.  Nothing else brings warmth and cheer to the constant gloomy days. 

            The weather for this past weekend was again, predicted to be bleak.  Snow and rain mix was predicted all day for both Saturday and Sunday.  Still, my flatmate and I decided to brave this weather and try to celebrate the Chinese New Year in London.  According to many sources, London is supposed to be the largest Chinese New Year celebration outside of the Asian continent.  Whether this is actually true is a mystery, but while I’m here I’d like to believe it is. 

            As forecasted, the weather was absolutely miserable the entire day, Sunday.  It rained, but harder than the average London drizzle.  By the time we caught the parade and made our way to Trafulgar Square for the “Dotting of the Eye” Ceremony, we were both pretty soaked.  We stopped at a Café Nero on the square in order to plan out how the rest of the day would go.  Due to the weather, the café was crammed with people. The entire stay there was pretty overwhelming due to the sheer amount of noise.  Finally, we pressed on to carry out our plan of he day. 

            We walked back to China Town for one reason, and one reason only: Food.  Street food to be exact.   Between the steamed buns and the lo mein (and a small pineapple ‘lucky’ cake) we were full, and ready to be home.

            I’m really dwelling on the weather in this blog post because I need it in order to lead into my next rule.  The weather was so terrible and the streets were so crowded and overwhelming that we could have easily had one of the worst days in London thus far.  But because we kept looking at how wonderful of celebration we were in the midst of, the day ended up being a memorable one.

NO. 5 ALWAYS HAVE A POSITIVE DISPOSITION

            The weather may be awful and plans may not turn out the way you want, but you have to always look past those unfortunate circumstances.  Here we are in a new city in a foreign country.  If we dwell on all the things that go wrong, our travels will go to waste.  I will now forever remember ringing in the Year of the Snake.  I was with Nicole, my flatmate and friend from Mizzou.  It was raining.  We were cold and wet, but we were surrounded by so many people in our same situation that we could not see the negative of such an experience.

            I hate including more than one major story per blog entry, but since I was a little late on the Chinese New Year post, and we visited the BBC Television Studio today, I’ll have to make an exception.  It’s a pretty short one anyways.

I really just wanted to talk about Blue Peter.  Yes, the BBC is home to many television shows that I have watched over the years including but not limited to: Sherlock, Doctor Who, and Keeping Up Appearances.  Now, when I was living in England as a child, I used to watch a children’s program called Blue Peter.  The best way to describe this show would be like The Today Show but for children.  This is how I remember is at least.  It is no longer filmed at the London BBC location, BUT we were wandering backstage where they build the sets for the different shows during our tour and there was an entire Blue Peter set.  I recognized it before even seeing that iconic blue ship plastered everywhere. I can still remember watching this show with my mother in the mornings.  The memory is vague, but it’s still there.  I guess this is another situation like the “smell”.  It was a site that transported me back to a time that is very fond to me. A time when my mother would have tea and biscuits ready for me every day when I came home from school.  Maybe I am just overly nostalgic. But how can I not be when I am in the place where many of my fondest childhood memories were made? 

            Well, if I get this emotional over smells and Blue Peter sets, I expect disaster when I finally make it back to my old school in Lakenheath. 

Cheers,

Janelle