London: From Hindu Temples to Abbey Road

Yesterday I could not help but think of my interfaith life back home when we visited the beautiful Mandir Temple, Europe's largest Hindu temple, in Northern London. It is the most tranquil, peaceful place I have ever visited. And it felt so good to be around such a familiar culture seeing as I spent quite a large portion of my time in Sharon at Indian cultural events and interfaith meetings with yummy Indian food. Anyways, the temple was built almost entirely by volunteers and it's all hand carved. Unfortunately no photography was allowed indoors, but it was absolutely breathtaking! Fun fact: Due to London's huge Indian population, its two major languages after English are Hindi and another Indian language and its national dish is chicken tikka masala, or so they told us at orientation. 

After the temple we came back to the dorm to relax and cooked our first dinner instead of going out again. Then we went out to a nightclub in Soho...not exactly my type of scene but definitely an fun and interesting experience! I really loved that we could walk the streets at midnight and even later and people were out having fun and London was completely crowded and alive. Definitely a change from the "night life" in Sharon!

Locals visiting their house of worship

 Kira and I in front of the Mandir Temple

Me, Megan, Alexandra, and Emily with our 

baked mac and cheese! It was delicious!

On the tube on the way to Soho

Today we explored two of England's most famous exports: The Beatles and Harry Potter!!
We took the tube to Abbey Road and took the obligatory Abbey Road photo of us walking across, pretending to the the Beatles. We starred at Abbey Road Studios for quite a while, completely not being able to believe that we were in the place where the Beatles once stood. We even walked over to Paul McCartney's current home! On our way home we stopped at King's Cross Station to find the famous Platform 9 3/4 where Harry and company took the Hogwarts Express. We were running around between platforms 9 and 10, hoping that the platform itself actually existed. Alexandra finally decided to just ask for directions, and when she came up to a woman who worked at the station and said she had a question, the woman responded, "a Harry Potter question?" I guess they know the tourists well! Unfortunately, though, the only tribute to Harry Potter at King's Cross is a small replica of a part of Platform 9 3/4 with a shopping cart pushed halfway through a brick wall. Even as someone who never got into Harry Potter I felt like it didn't do the imaginary landmark justice.

Cute Beatles gift shop right outside of the tube station

near Abbey Road

WE FOUND IT!!

Graffiti near Abbey Road Studios

This is it!

Walking across ABBEY ROAD!!!

Emily and Megan in front of Paul McCartney's house

Harry Potter was here! The station was going through
renovations...otherwise it would look a lot more
like the Harry Potter set.

Me going through the brick wall with my cart (or,
in British English, trolley,) to end up on the side with the Hogwarts Express!

xoxo,

Sarah