clapham common fun fair & london marathon

last weekend was quite active after having moved into my new home!  after having a slow saturday (thanks to the birthday fun on friday), we headed to the clapham common fun fair that was taking place with the roomies and some friends.

clapham is in south london and has a huge common, basically a huge field that takes you around 20ish minutes to run around the perimeter.  yes, that is speaking from experience.  it's big.

so in one part of it, they were having a fair where you paid for a wristband for unlimited rides. besides, it was only £9.  turns out my stomach isn't quite what it used to be and i can't handle these spinning rides anymore--not to mention the slight hangover i was still feeling.  hangover + spinning rides = no bueno.  i went on two rides then proceeded to watch everyone else go.  this thing below is the first one i went on.  it was awful.  the chairs spun in addition to that arm spinning.  i had my eyes closed about 75% of the time as i screamed my head off :)

the death of me

after that we headed to a really cool pub called the windmill.  it is a really large pub with tons of sitting rooms and tables.  i couldn't resist and ordered some fish and chips!  unlike the states, they do one big fillet here instead of multiple pieces.  it was pretty tasty though the mushy peas didn't leave much to be desired.  the brits also LOVE mayo.  i don't get it.  it weirds me out.  

fish and chips!

sunday was the london marathon which is a pretty big deal around here.  it's not easy to get into the marathon!  you don't just register.  you have to raise money for a charity to get a spot.  everyone that ran sported a jersey for one charity or another.  pete, zoë and i rented some cityshare type bikes (only £2/day!) and biked into central london to catch zoë's friend who was running over by westminster.  let me just tell you how uncomfortable i was biking on the OTHER side of the road SANS helmet on streets that had no bike lanes.  there may have been a few times i had to bike around double decker buses that were starting to pull out from their stops...that was not fun.  thankfully we all returned our bikes unharmed.  

tons of these stations around the city

marathoners

harrods!

after the marathon, we biked over to green park which is by buckingham palace and hung out there for a few hours basking in the sun.  people here love parks.  there are a lot of them, and on a nice day, everyone is out picnicking.  the mentality here is very much like the PNW in that as soon as the sun's out, and it's semi-warm, there is pressure to be outside!

i'm getting ready to head to dublin tomorrow!  today is a bank holiday so we had the day off, and then we get monday off for easter even though it's on sunday...yea.  anyway, i figure it's time to take advantage of the time off so i booked this last minute.  i fly out very early tomorrow morning and fly back early monday morning so i'll have two full days to explore.  supposedly guinness tastes better there.  i'll be the judge of that :)