Oh, the Irony!

Well, with a new house under contract and things looking up, we hugged our parents and shed a few tears before boarding our plane back to London. It is insane how quickly six months have flown by. I remember sitting in the Chicago airport back in September and saying, "I can't believe we are moving to England! This is the last time our feet will be on American soil until March!" And in the blink of an eye, March arrived, and we were waiting at Heathrow airport thinking, "I can't believe it's already time for our visit back to the States." And only three short weeks later in the Houston airport, "It doesn't seem real that we are already going back to Cambridge." I don't even want to think about how stealthily July will sneak up on us.

But anyway, as soon as our bleary eyes caught a glimpse of the cobblestone streets and historic colleges, we realized again how lucky we are to be here. This term is entirely devoted to Matthew's internship and dissertation, which means he doesn't have any classes to attend. Which meant that for the first week we were back, we had no type of schedule to adhere to. Which meant that it took an entire week for us to get over our jet lag. We would stay up until three in the morning and then not wake up again until two in the afternoon. It was ridiculous. But sometime during that madness, Matthew was able to plan a splendid birthday surprise for me. As I mentioned before, my birthday was on Easter, and it was a rather laid back day. We slept in, went to the evening service at church, then came home and dined on a succulent ham while watching Mary Poppins. I thoroughly enjoyed our casual time spent together, but Matthew is a gift-giver, and he felt the need to do more. So this past Sunday, we went into London and celebrated a festive day of food and music and pretended it was my birthday all over again.

During the hour-long train ride, we kept seeing these hills covered in brilliant gold flowers. Matt thinks they are canola plants. I'd buy it.

Stop #1 for the day was a place called the Bacchus Pub and Kitchen. Reviews on the internet claimed that this was the spot to find the best Sunday roast in town, and from the taste of it, I was convinced. The restaurant was a little off the beaten path, you might say. I was glad we went during the day time, if you know what I mean. But that Yorkshire pudding was magnificent. Oh, and I did not purposely order pink tea. I asked for lemon verbena, but the waiter thought I said ribena, which means grape juice. I'd never heard of such a thing, but whatever, it was yummy!

With full stomachs, we were on our way to stop #2. We saw loads of cool buildings between the South Kensington tube station and our destination. The curved building on the right was a bunch of mansions.

This was one of the many impressive edifices owned by Imperial College London. A few of Matt's classmates did their undergraduate work there.

This was the Royal School of Music. Don't really know how you get in there, but it sure was pretty.

How quaint!

And, dun duh da daaah! Stop #2 was the Royal Albert Hall. Last time we came here was for the Christmas concert with my family, and it was dark, so we didn't see much of the structure. I'm glad to have had the chance to revisit it.

Despite the fact that my husband possesses a strong distaste for all musicals (except Phantom of the Opera), he sat through almost three hours of the best of Rodgers & Hammerstein without a complaint. And he only fell asleep once. We bought tickets for the cheap seats in the uppermost level, but when we got there, we were upgraded to the stalls for free! And our chairs swiveled so you didn't have to crane your neck sideways! Paid £12 a piece for tickets that should have cost £50 a piece. Happy birthday to me!

The best part was when they played the music from Oklahoma! Oh, the irony of it all. Listening to the Royal Philharmonic play a rendition of my state song while sitting in a world-renowned concert hall in London. Is this real life? The older gentleman above my shoulder in this picture hummed along rather loudly to every song. I couldn't be aggravated though because I kept thinking that my dad would do the same thing if he were 30 years older. Hubs and I were essentially the only people without gray hair in the crowd, but I loved every second of it. The emcee made several jokes aimed at the younger generations who no longer appreciate music without synthesizers, etc. Well, I'm only 23 and I appreciate the classics! Geez, old people these days.

After the concert, we passed the Natural History Museum (haven't been inside that one yet) on the way back to the tube.

Which brought us to stop #3, the OXO Tower Brasserie. Dinner overlooking the Thames while the sun set. Priceless. Can't exactly do this in Oklahoma or Texas. (By the way, this was the same restaurant and bar that we visited with Jenna and Allison back in January.)

Matthew had the quail with fig, pumpkin, and bacon. (He is more adventuresome than I am when it comes to food.)

I had clam chowder and rosemary seasoned chips (fries.)

For dessert, we split a bitter chocolate tart with milk chocolate mousse and buttered pears. I died. And I didn't get their picture, but there was an artsy couple setting the mood with some jazz music while we ate. The guy (who had a Euro-mullet) was tearing it up on the piano while the lady sang in that typical breathy, coarse, jazz vocalist way. They were cracking me up because I think that they thought no one was really listening to them. They did one song in French, which was nice, but then they sang something about "making whoopy." No one but Matthew and I seemed to find it comical.

Having finished two meals and a show, we were pretty exhausted. That much fun is hard work, you know. We said goodbye to St. Paul's and made the chilly commute back to the train station. It's days like these that make me appreciate public transportation. No thinking involved, just hop on and hop off, and take a nap in between.

Needless to say, it was an awesome fake birthday. I love it when Matthew pulls romantic stuff like this out of his sleeve. He definitely knows how to make me feel special. Whether we live in Tulsa or Houston or Cambridge, it's nice to have such a companion. Spending time with him never gets old.