I had to go to to the hospital...

Well...the title says it all: I had to go to the hospital this week. But fiirst things first let me tell you about last thursday and friday. So last thursday my brother and his girlfriend Raya arrived, but because my brother wasn't feeling well me and Raya decided to get some breakfast without him. They were staying in a place at Islington. There is a story attatched to this as they were supposed to stay at a friend's house but those plans fell through so they had to find something else, but had no luck doing so. They were thinking about giving up and not going and as I really didn't want that to happen I decided to post something in a facebook group full of Dutch people living in London. We got a couple of replies but there was one reply from a very nice man saying that my brother and his girlfriend were allowed to stay in his appartment in exchange for a bottle of wine and the cost of his cleaning lady. Great!

So me and Raya went for breakfast near the appartment. Later in the day we decided to go to Camden but I didn't have too much time there because I had to pick up the kids- and maybe because they took a bit longer to get ready than expected (I ended up having to quickly rent a bike and sprint to school as my tube had a delay: fun, haha!). In the evening I had to work so I didn't see them anymore that day.

On Friday I only had to work in the morning so we decided to go to the V&A to see Alexander McQueen's Savage Beauty exhibition. We met up at Paul's, their favourite French bakery (it's originally French but they have about 30 Paul's in London now). When we arrived at the V&A the queue to get tickets was too long and they didn't have tickets left for that day  so we bought tickets for the day after. Fun fact: I pretended that I was a student so I paid 9 pounds instead of 16. Sorry nice guy at the desk, haha!

Raya had never been to the Natural History Museum so we went there and after we went to sketch. We finally got to see the egg toilets! We tried last time but we went there too early so the egg toilets was still closed.  So without further ado: obligiatory egg toilet selfie.

Raya has a friend who lives in London at the moment so we visited her in Shoreditch as she is working at 'the basics store' in Redchurch street. In the evening we had a cocktail at Boxpark and dinner at Brick Lane.

We booked the tickets for the V&A for saturday so we had to go there. But because of Raya and Ruben's undying love for broadway market they decided to come down to Hackney first. Mostly for Raya to have a haggis toastie at one of the stand. Then we went to South Kensington again to go to the V&A. Again. If you have a chance to go to this exhibition: do it! It's really nice although I don't think it would be worth the 16 pounds that you would normally have to pay (but maybe that's just because I am so used to free museums now). You are not allowed to take pictures (which some people clearly didn't understand or chose to ignore...) so no pictures of the exhibition from me unfortunately but you can probably find them online.

The pride in London was also on this day so we went to the city and saw some of the parade. I gave some high five's and kissed a girl and I liked it, hope my boyfriend don't mind it ;). Then I had to go because Maudi at the last minute needed somewhere to put her luggage so we went over to my house. I also went for dinner with Maudi and her friends as it was Maudi's last night... A last minute decision made me jump on a train to Kingston. I helped Maudi get to the airport in the morning and we had to say goodbye. I will see her soon though. Maudi if you read this: thanks for everything, I miss you already!

Monday: the hospital day (does it look more serious when it's written like this).

On monday I had to work in the morning. Which is very normal except for the fact that I accidently cut my finger while slicing a watermelon... I didn't think it was that bad at first but unfortunately it kept bleeding. And bleeding. So me and my hostmom decided that it would be better for me to go to the A&E (EHBO for the Dutchies reading this).

I wasn't in that much pain but because my brother and Raya were in London and we had made plans I was a bit sad. I called my parents, my mom was quite shocked and said "I should have been there!" Ehm mom.. things like this happen. In the hospital I had to wait for a little bit, luckily not the hours I thought it would be. I got called and a medical student checked my finger. I think he was a bit nervous as he was really afraid to touch the wound and also he asked me "can you feel this" about 15 times, but maybe this is normal. Because it wasn't a cut over a joint they decided not to stitch it so they wrapped it up and I had to wear a bandaid for the next couple of days.
Oh and hooray: I got a free tetanus shot! Weird fact about the English health care system: when they finished I was like ok, do I need to sign something, pay somewhere, do anything? And they told me it was FREE. And I was ready to go.

Luckily Ruben and Raya did not arrive at where we supposed to meet yet, so we went to Ladurée together.

Ah, Ladurée breakfast! The best thing about having Ruben and Raya visit me is that we go to places that we all really like. Bad thing about Ruben and Raya visiting: I am always broke when they leave.
We wanted to go to Greenwhich so after looking around the stalls at Covent Garden we went there.

I don't know why I haven't seen some of these places yet after being in London for this long but it was really nice to finally go there. We took some touristy pictures, had lunch and walked around a bit more before I had to leave again to pick up the kids. When I got to the school everybody was staring at my hands. Apparently someone said that I chopped off most of my finger...

I bought some macarons to treat myself. On tuesday we went to the Sky garden which is basically a free viewing platform in London.You have to book it in advance but it is completely free.

We went to skygarden and then we had to go to the place they were staying at to get their stuff and go to Stratford to catch the bus. They have been home for a while now and I am missing them a lot but I am really glad that they were able to visit me in London one last time.