Don't rain on my parade

It's been a rainy weekend in London. Though the city is famous for its grey, drizzly days, I read that the annual rainfall is actually pretty unimpressive. In fact, it's less than the averages for New York, D.C., Atlanta, Boston, Chicago and pretty much every other American city other than those in the Southwest. So why the reputation? Well, it's normal for the London skies to spit out a few sporadic showers before drying up and turning sunny{ish} for the rest of the day. So though the actual rainfall doesn't add up to much, the number of rainy days does. Tada!

We, however, haven't allowed this drizzly weather to get in the way of exploring. Our class was scheduled for a walking tour yesterday morning, but when that was cancelled we ended up having the day to ourselves. So a group of us girls decided to trek about a mile or so to Covent Garden, an outdoor market with tables of handmade goods, shoppes, restaurants and street performances. Unfortunately, I got districted by some sparkley things about two minutes after arriving and was separated from the group. This didn't worry me until I walked around for a couple minutes and began to realize how absolutely massive the place was; two stories, stalls in the middle and loads of shoppes and restaurants on either side {plus more booths spilling out the doors!}. After a frantic fifteen minute search, I began to wonder what I should do. Should I go back to the flat? Should I meet them at our next stop? No - I doubted my ability to make it to either of those places on my own {plus I didn't want them to worry about me!}. Finally, I thought back to what McGruff the Crime Dog taught me in second grade: if you get lost, go back to the last place you remember seeing your guardian and stay there. So that's what I did, and after about twenty minutes I was at last rescued. PHEW!!

The next stop on our tour was the Strand Hotel for afternoon tea. Though we arrived sopping wet and frizzy-haired, it felt so wonderfully girly to sip out of little tea cups and munch on finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, and a variety of scrumptious pastries. Afternoon tea on a rainy day - could it get any more quintessentially British? I think not.

The weatherman is forecasting rain for the next two days, but I don't really mind. I just need to get some new shoes...