The Adventures of Diana and Stasy - Day 40

Clearly, our barista was hard of hearing.    

      Through my friend, Eric, I met Ashley - who I've mentioned before. Ashley's friend, Stacey, came to visit her from Saskatewan, Canada and in a wicked twist of Fate, Ashley got called to the States for a work conference that she just couldn't miss. Poor Stacey! (And poor Ashley!) So Ashley contacted me and said, "Hey, my awesome friend is here from Canada and maybe you guys wanna run around the city together."
And that's just what we did.
    Let me just tell you, Stacey is awesome. I mean, I should have expected as much, Ashley's pretty awesome too! I met up with Stacey at noon at the Embankment Pier and we took the Ferry to Greenwich, a few miles outside the city. It is the cutest little town and we took our time exploring its cool little nooks and crannies! (See photos below!)

London Eye from right underneath.

New best buds selfie!

Can't get enough of this bridge!

There it is again!

Finally in Greenwich at the Visitor's Center.

A prominent British clipper ship from yesteryear - The Cutty Sark

Queen Anne's Court at Royal Naval College

The Painted Hall, so aptly named. 

All I could think of was "HOLY CRAP THIS LOOKS LIKE THE GREAT HALL IN HOGWARTS!"
Yeah, I'm mature.

A pensive moment by the fire. 

At the Greenwich Craft Market

    We reboarded the Ferry and headed back to the city, walked around Tower of London, and then went to meet up with Dave (Ashley's fiancee) and his friends for dinner in Shoreditch. We went for Vietnamese food only AFTER we pub crawled all the way from the Aldgate tube station to the restaurant. Damn you Aspall's! So good, but soooooo bad.

On our stroll from the Ferry to meet Dave.

Look who we bumped into! (No, that's not Dave.)

The Ten Bells (Pub #1) - Notorious stalking ground for Jack the Ripper. Mwah ha ha!

At the pub! Aspalls in hand. Missing Chief.

      How did I not take any pictures of dinner?!?! Musta been too hungry or umm... drunk. Anyway, after dinner, we headed out to another pub and then managed to stumble our asses to the tube just before it closed. But long story short, Stacey was SO FUN. We really had a blast. And it just goes to show you that everyone is a potential friend! I know that's a little "kumbya-ish" but it's true. All of the people I know here are friends of friends of other friends. It's crazy.
      Here it comes - Life Lesson: it takes a little bravery to go out and meet people you don't know, but once you step out of that comfort zone for one minute, you can be instantly surprised by all the awesome things that come your way.  Trust me!