Alaska -> Paris -> London.

I had one of the loveliest of weekends. Not only did I have a barrel of laughs, but I was able to laugh with one of my best friends, Caroline.

This is our year. From Alaska, we both chose to study abroad, her living in Paris for the year, and I living in London for the year. Being close has never been better, especially when we begin to get homesick. And in the autumn months, we get particularly reminiscent of home.

So on Saturday, I was reunited with her.

It was glorious. To see a familiar face is truly a special gift, and we didn't quite realize it until we were hugging the death out of each other!

Although we only had the weekend with each other (which was essentially 48 hours), we experienced so much and made some truly fond memories. It just goes to show that real and true friendships last through thick and thin, distance and time.

Plus, two Alaskans in London make for quite an adventure...

Meeting up on Saturday afternoon, Caroline and I caught up for a few hours and then made our way to a house party. She met this American in Paris at a club, he invited her to his tailgate party for the Notre Dame football game, and before we knew it, we were joining the plethora of college kids for what would be my first (and probably only) college party.

It was a good night. We played games, chatted with various other college students, drank, and had a casual but entertaining evening. The photos below sum up our purely joyful moods...

The next morning, after a hefty eleven hours of sleep, we made our way to Daisy Green for brunch. Seated outside in the chilly morning air, we warmed up with coffees and hefty amounts of brunch food.

Wanting to get some fresh air, we made our way to Shoreditch and walked along Brick Lane's weekend markets, stopping once again for a second coffee at this little hole in the wall called Belleboi. We had recognized these fancy cups walking all around and followed the pattern inside to enjoy some pretty unique cups of coffee. Whilst Caroline sprung for the traditional Americano, I splurged for the Fat Americano, which was vanilla Coca Cola on ice and two shots of espresso.

Absolute genius.

How did Alaska ever let us leave?