Moving on up to the east side. To a deluxe apartment in...Walthamstow.

Ahaha. See what I did there? The Jeffersons. Well, I'm amused at least. :-D
Anyway. I realize that I've not posted anything that's been happening in a while (and so much has been happening too!). Things have been crazy lately though. I'm having to get internet installed at my new place so I thought I'd update at least once before I have to be internet-less for a couple of weeks. I took a few pics of my new place but still gonna take some more once I get everything organized and when I go exploring the neighborhood and surroundings. Here's the place so far though.

Kitchen! With an oven! And a...washing machine.

Living room

Dining room and back door

Front door. All our rooms are upstairs.

Big bed. Purple walls. Tons of places to put my stuff.

To the windowwwww....

The "garden" and the landlord's gym out back.

So there's that. More updates at some point in life maybe. I need to be super focused on my dissertation so you guys may well not hear anything from me til that's done.

Until next time,
Duchess

The Diamond Jubileeeee!

After trying and failing to see anything on the day of the flotilla procession on the Thames, I knew we had to mean serious business on June 5th when Joy and I went Royal stalking. We got to the Mall (street leading to Buckingham Palace) about 7-7:30am. AND I brought a ladder this time because tall people are for always standing right in my way.

So prepared! And festive!

We found a good spot pretty close to the closest we could get toward the palace and just waited til they came out around 10am.

That thing's kinda in the way but there she is!

Once she had gone by, we waited some more. She would be on her way back at 2:30pm so we had a while to go. I went to check out some different spots and luckily overheard a police officer telling people that they needed to be at the opposite end of the Mall when the Queen returned in order to be first to go toward the palace when they opened the street. So Joy and I made our way down to the other end. We got a good view of the return procession and everyone was in carriages this time around.

Okay so this time Camilla and her giant hat are in the way.

Once everyone had gone by and back to the palace...the street was opened. It was madness. We ran for it though, me carrying the ladder and all too. It paid off, though, and we ended up pretty much right at the front. It was such a great view...

Charles, the Queen, William, Kate, and Harry

It was a long but amazing day. I can't believe we managed to get so close. Once in a lifetime kinda stuff...well, ya know. I've seen her six times now but only once has it been the three times in one day and with everyone else as well. So it was a special day.

Coming up next: Short birthday post, Hackney Weekend recap, and whatever else happens in the meantime.

Until next time,
Duchess

Holiday Time Adventures Part 2: Cornwall!

Right. After spending the night in Bristol, I caught the train back to London to meet up with Joy. We then got a train to Reading (why I didn't meet her in Reading I dunno since the train back went through there anyway. My planning skills...just I don't know) where we picked up the car. I was mega scared to be driving and had my fair share of mini heart attacks the first day. This country has way too many roundabouts, by the way. And roads that are far too narrow.

Anyway, we started off by going to Jane Austen's house in Chawton. It was a nice house.

After that, we went to Stonehenge. I was way excited about it. As excited as I could be while simultaneously trying not to drive us into a ditch or something. We spent an hour or so wandering around Stonehenge, listening to the audioguides, and taking pictures.

Once we left Stonehenge, we stopped on our way through Salisbury to see the cathedral there. Then we made our way to our Exeter hostel for the night.

Day 2: We drove for quite a while then stopped in a little fishing village called Looe to have lunch and take a little break. 

Making friends with Nelson the Seal...

Lunch: Smoked salmon and prawn salad

And sticky toffee pudding for dessert! I think they
put Pop Rocks in it cause it was crackling.

After lunch in Looe, we drove on to St. Michael's Mount, our first castle of the journey! It was on a little island a bit away from the shore. In high tide, you have to get a boat over (as we had to on the way over). On the way back it was low tide though, and there was a pathway that you can walk between the island and the shore in low tide. Pretty cool.

I'm so strong!

Sweet dining room, yo

Replica of the castle made entirely of corks

We walked back on the path!

We drove to Land's End next so we could watch the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean, which is pretty cool!

We stayed the night in Penzance (Pirates of Penzance, woot!).

Day 3: We went to Tintagel Castle, the "legendary birthplace of King Arthur". I was excited like whoa about some King Arthur. It was situated on two hills. It used to be connected between the two but the bit in the middle fell ages upon ages ago. There were some ruins that date back even before the castle ruins on one of the hills. So it's a pretty old place.

Steep stairs! This is the part where it would have been connected but fell in the middle.

Hanging out on cliffs. As you do.

This was the part where we were meant to go to Dunster Castle next, but they decided they were too good to be open at normal times so we just went to Boscastle instead. We walked on some paths and hung out on more cliffs. Then it was adventures in finding the Minehead hostel. It was hidden and up a mountain with a ridiculously unsafely small parking area. I don't even want to go into all my issues with that place. Anyway, the next day we just headed back to Reading and then it was back to London.

Bonus! Here's some pictures of how small the roads were:

Crazy, right? And these are supposed to function as 2-way roads. Um...how?

Stay tuned for posts about the Diamond Jubilee and my birthday.

Until next time,

Duchess

Holiday Time Adventures Part 1: Manchester and Bristol

So much has been going on lately I'm gonna have to make 3 or 4 different posts so it doesn't turn into one massively long ramble. Let's go in chronological order. Starting with Manchester and Bristol then. Stayed at June's place in Manchester for a couple of days at the end of last month. Mostly, I just lazed around in the back yard cause it was warm and sunny for a change (please come back, nice weather!). So that was nice. Got back on a Sunday afternoon and I set out the next morning for Bristol.

I spent a few hours wandering around Bristol seeing a few of the sights and parks and things.

Went to a nice old cemetery to start off with then headed to the cathedral and ended up happening upon a film shoot they were doing right by the cathedral. I didn't see much but someone said Keira Knightley was in the movie and I could tell they were all in like Victorian era dress. After that, I wandered over to Cabot Tower to get a bird's eye view of Bristol and its surroundings. That was quite nice.

 

 I was mega tired from climbing all those steps so I went back to my hotel room and took a nap before the Passenger concert. It was one of the best concerts. I videoed the whole thing basically. Here's him doing "The Sound of Silence" which was absolutely hauntingly beautiful (I nearly cried):

Here's one about rain that basically sums up England (he drops the F-bomb in this one just to let you know):

This is my favorite that the opening act, Stu Larsen, did. (Look, ma! He's Australian):

So that was Bristol. Tomorrow I'll write about Cornwall and the Jubilee. And sometime I'll have to write about tomorrow and everything we're doing for my birthday. Yay! I'm 25!

Until next time,

Duchess

Here, have some updates!

The most exciting things lately...

1) Seeing the Queen. Twice! Once when Joy was here for a day and we happened to show up around Westminster when she was arriving for the opening of Parliament. And once today when I was leaving my shift at the Chelsea Flower Show and she was arriving in her car. I was too far away to get a good picture the first time and she was moving to fast today for me to have time to fumble around with my phone and get it ready in time.

2) Work today was quite nice at the Chelsea Flower Show. Our team was serving the VIP tables so we had Alan Titchmarsh. I know his name and know he's famous but never seen anything he's in, I don't think. At least I know he's famous so it's not completely lost on me like that shift with all the famous artists I had no clue who they were. Some people worked an event with Kanye and Kim Kardashian last week. I know them but still don't care. I would've totally interrupted Kanye though if I was there. "I'm happy for you and I'ma let you finish eating and junk but...Duchess is the best waitress-type of ALL TIME." *drops microphone and walks away* Oh! I did see a British dance group called Diversity perform on one of my Battersea Evolution shifts last week (that 11 hour one, yeah). I didn't know them of course, but they were still super cool.

3) I joined a hiking group and had an amazing time with them in Dover a couple of weekends ago:

I spent all day having conversations with strangers. Whaaaat. Yeah, I don't believe it either. Hahaha. Anyway, I've signed up to go on a hike to Canterbury with them in 2 1/2 weeks. Real life Canterbury Tales up in here, what what. I am excite.

4) Super busy for a couple of weeks...Chelsea Flower Show shifts again Wednesday and Thursday (7am starts for both. Why did I sign up for that again?). Manchester for the weekend. Bristol on Monday to see Passenger perform:

Then traversing Cornwall and the countryside in Part II of my Adventures with Joy for a few days. Come back to London, have a few days to recover from non-stop awesome, and then it's the Diamond Jubileeee. I'll take pics of the Queen then. I'll be ready for it.

Wooo! I gotta go not sleep now. Maybe consider working more on this dissertation proposal. I have all day tomorrow to finish it up (and a bit of Wednesday as well).

Promise more updates after my big adventures!

Until next time,
Duchess

Paris

Last week, June and I went to Paris for two days. It was fabulous (super cold, but still fun times). My first thoughts on arriving...being in a country where you don't speak the language is entirely disconcerting at first. I had no idea what was going on and it was just so strange. I wouldn't have gotten anywhere without June and her fluent French. Before we left, we discovered that my top two attraction choices were closed: the catacombs and the bookstore Shakespeare & Company. Here's me being sad about the bookstore (we just happened to be walking along across the street from it at one point and my librarian-sense must've started tingling or something cause I just knew):

Apparently all the museums are closed on Tuesday, so the first day we went to Notre Dame. Absolutely stunning. It was huge and it had massive stained glass windows and old religious arts and relics. The outside was so detailed. We even found a lobster. I'm not real sure why there's a lobster...so don't ask.                      

The Holy Lobster of Antioch!

After Notre Dame, we did a bit of walking around, found our hostel and got checked in, and then went for dinner at a cafe opposite the Sacre Coeur (it's another church). I had a ham sandwich with cheese and egg on top of it. I guess the French don't know that the bits of a sandwich go on the inside. Once we had finished dinner, we went up to the Sacre Coeur. It's on a hill and you get a great view of the city from there. We saw the Eiffel Tower way off in the distance and I insisted on going to see it straight away, which was great because it was all lit up and beautiful. It is so much taller than I thought it'd be, by the way. Very impressive indeed. It started sparkling! I was so excited about that! And I got video of it!

Sparkly Eiffel Tower from Jessica Smith on Vimeo.
We were entranced by the lights for a while but once we came back to reality, we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. Took a quick photo of it, then walked down the main shopping street which was mainly composed of snazzy stores like Louis Vuitton. There was even a Mercedes Benz showroom. I, of course, was lured in by the pretty cars and had to take pictures of all of them.

That was basically it for Tuesday. We spent all of Wednesday in the Louvre...and still probably didn't even see half of it. So. Much. Art. All the little descriptions were in French so I had no idea what anything was about most of the time. There were a few things that were on the audio guide so I got to hear about them in English at least. My favorite part was Napoleon's rooms which were on display. Dude had huge chandeliers.

Fancysauce

We saw some beautiful works of art, and of course the famous pieces too like Venus de Milo and the Mona Lisa.

Venus de Milo

Random statue in the sunset (or "I'm so artsy")

Mona Lisa

That's about it really. We had dinner Wednesday night in a nice little restaurant called L'Arsenal. The waiter guy was so, so nice. We tried to tip him a lot but he wouldn't take it because you're not supposed to tip in France. If you guys go to Paris, you should go there. But don't eat the horse burger because they had horse burgers on the menu (thank God that June knows French!). I had a skillet of potatoes with cheese and ham that was pretty delish. Yay Paris!

Until next time,

Duchess

Dragons and Sheep Parts....

Seems I haven't updated in ages. I have time for a quick entry though. Been quite busy lately with classes starting back and things getting back into swing. I have started taking all kinds of dance classes too: ballet, salsa, street, popping, anything else that happens to be going on. Won't be getting any dance classes in this week though (or football). June and I are going to Paris in the morning for 2 days. Then I have some catching up to do on Thursday and another packed day on Friday.

Yesterday I went to Chinatown for the Chinese New Year parade. I guess if you're short, you should get to these things hours before anyone else because I couldn't see a thing. I thought I'd catch the parade on its way back down to Trafalgar Square so I asked some people working the event where it would come by and they had no idea what was going on. I'm fairly certain these people were just grabbed off the street and given Yellow Vests of Authority for the sheer hell of it. Ended up missing the parade in all this mess. So went to find a spot to watch the performances in Trafalgar Square. It was over-crowded and I still couldn't see so I gave up and went to this bookstore I'd passed earlier and bought a book. Went to grab some Chinese takeaway and finally saw something interesting just before leaving for home. I got a video of it...


Chinese Dragon from Jessica Smith on Vimeo.

The cultural immersion continued when I got back home. Last night, we had a Burns Night dinner (a Scottish holiday). Katie made haggis with neeps and tatties for us and then Emma brought a sticky toffee pudding with custard. Good stuff.

I should go to bed now. Getting up early for the train tomorrow.

Until next time,
Duchess