an expat independence day

yesterday, in honor of america's 233rd birthday, molly, madeline, and i decided that the most patriotic thing we could possibly do was obviously to go to windsor castle and run through the gardens. in short, it was amazing.

locked outside the gates before starting
looking back down "the long walk" at the castle. at 2.3 miles, it's a seriously long walk

lily pads in a random pond that we stumbled upon when we decided to take a detour
they covered almost the whole surface.

molly in "senior portrait pose" by obelisk lake
(the obelisk is to the left of the tall tree off to the right)

the copper horse at the end of the long walk, mimicking the rider's pose
(we are embarrassing)

we were trying to keep to a route that we had seen in a guide book, but there were so many paths and so many things to see that we quickly lost the original route and settled on running for time. it was a slightly cloudy day but that was appreciated because it meant it was a little cooler. basically, we just wandered around the grounds coming across things like the polo grounds, a totem pole, random bodies of water, the cumberland lodge, and a lot of horseback riders. we met back up with madeline and grabbed lunch at a grocery store which we ate waiting for the train back. including the 30-50 minute train ride (the way out was local; the way back was express) we were only gone for about 6 hours. it was a really nice little day trip. and something that i'll remember much more than seeing a million stately rooms inside the castly itself (which we didn't want to pay for and didn't think they would appreciate our post-run-selves)

for the afternoon, we had heard about an expat gathering in battersea park and had been planning on heading over there for burgers and fireworks. unfortunately, someone had forgotten to register the proper forms for the fireworks, but we did have a quite nice day in the park. the lounging on the grass was appreicated after the busy morning. following this, we eventually made our way to the pig's ear pub where we had a drink over a scrabble game. the staff there wasn't too friendly, but it was still fun.

this morning helen and i slept in, not leaving our beds until almost noon. then it seemed like everyone in the program was scrambling to get the response-paper-blogs posted because they are due sunday evenings. we need to do four of them a week. now that i have them out of the way, molly and i are going to go for a short run and later tonight there is a festival in hyde park similar to the one last weekend in that we should be able to crash it (at least i'm hoping it is since i've talked it up to the summer school kids...). but kanye west is headlining so we're going to go have a picnic dinner and hopefully hear him play for free!!