A Saturday in Shoreditch...and the London Eye!

This Saturday was my roomie and world traveling bestie Nicole's 19th birthday! I surprised her in the morning with balloons, confetti, cake, and a card signed by the whole GCP squad before we set off for a fun afternoon in Shoreditch with some of the girls. We all came to the conclusion that Shoreditch is London's equivalent of Brooklyn, New York - it's super artsy and urban-cool with a ton of unique shops and food, plus some amazing graffiti street art. It was like a completely different world compared to South Kensington! 

The GCP group from last year highly recommended a particular restaurant in Shoreditch: The Cereal Killer Cafe. It's a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant that just serves cereal! Walking in was like taking a trip back in time to the 90s - there were a ton of old-school tvs playing old cartoons and there was cereal-themed memorabilia hanging all over the walls. This cafe serves cereals from all over the world which you can mix and match with all sorts of toppings and milk combinations, or you can order a "cereal cocktail" which is a mix that they've created already. Susie and I got the chocopottomus (it had cocopops, krave, a kinder happy hippo candy bar, and chocolate milk), Nicole got shooty shooty bang bang (it had krave, chocolate stars, popping candy chocolate, nutella, and white chocolate milk), and Manisha and Aashna made their own concoctions! It was so fun and the cereal was delicious - especially since I've been living on a bowl of store-brand corn flakes for breakfast lately ;) 

The menu board - they even served PopTarts!!

SO many cereals to choose from...

...even more cereals!!

Nicole, Susie, and I's picks - can you tell we like chocolate?

After our cereal lunch we explored Brick Lane, one of the main shopping streets in the town. Since it was the weekend there were a ton of pop-up markets going on and a ton of food vendors lining the streets - it seriously smelled SO good. We popped into a few thrift stores which were filled with all sorts of vintage clothes and accessories. There was also a big vintage market in the basement of this huge warehouse which we got lost in looking at all of the cool stuff! I left with a big, cozy flannel which I'm sure will come in handy this weekend in Scotland. 

Cuteness in every corner

Clothes from all decades

Loved this old varsity jacket...and the vintage Converse

Susie and I checking out two (of the four) pairs of sunglasses she bought...typical Suz :)

Besides its unique shops and restaurants, Shoreditch is also known for having some amazing street art and it did not disappoint! Practically every wall and alleyway we passed was covered in vibrant, colorful graffitti and paintings. Like I said before, it was very different than beautiful, polished South Ken, but nevertheless very, very, cool. We all decided that we would definitely have to come back for a day of sampling the different food vendors and seeing more of the art. 

Found a particularly colorful alley

Such cool details

We even got to see one of the artists at work!

No piece of wall left unpainted...

After walking around for a bit we headed over to Waterloo to meet the rest of our group for our next EUSA sponsored excursion: the London Eye! It was dark by the time we got in, so we got some really pretty nighttime views of the city! One of our program directors bought Nicole and MaryP caterpillar shaped birthday cakes (apparently it's a tradition that every British kid has to have one at least once in their life) and we sang Happy Birthday to them when we reached the top - it was so fun! My friend Mike took a time lapse of the entire London Eye trip and it turned out so cool - you can watch it below! Afterwards we headed to Pizza Express for dinner and then hung out for a bit at a local pub to finish the week-long birthday celebration. 

(Unfortunately, my camera battery died just as we left Shoreditch, so these London Eye pictures are thanks to Nicole)

Love this city!

My all time fave - Big Ben!

The pods you get to ride in

Me with the birthday girl :)

Love them...

The whole GCP squad!

On Sunday I caught up on homework, did some laundry and cleaning, and took a walk around Battersea Park with Susie. The week ahead is going to be filled with classes and more homework but I'm going to try to check off a few things from my bucket list as well! Hope everyone has a great week - talk to you again soon...