As I walk down the residential streets in London, I often feel I can see into a small glimpse of someone's life, as you are eye level with someone's living room or study, or you can often see into the windows of the basement flat below. 

She gardens... 

He doesn't make his bed...

It's private and public at the same time, which is a phenomenon enhanced by the compact way in which you live with other Londoners, and yet everyone is very private, drawn into their little space of pavement or seat on the Tube.

As I walked home Wednesday evening, I passed this building, and in one of the 3rd floor bay windows was a man practicing on the violin. The room was well lit, and the only other furnishing I could see was an ornate chandelier hanging from the ceiling. It was so elegant, to be on one side of the window, watching him silently play. Strange, to never before nor to ever again see someone or know anything else about them, but to suddenly, intimately know...

"Oh, he plays the violin." 

It's beginning to look a little like Christmas...

Oxford Street

Regent's Street

 Portman Square Gardens

Portman Square 

(trees on the balcony have been strung with Christmas lights)

Early Evening, Hyde Park

Regent's Park + Sunshine

When I got up this morning, it was raining. When I walked to class, when I left school, and when I went grocery shopping tonight, it was raining. But for about an hour in the middle of the day, the sun came out! I think it's the first time I've seen it since I arrived in London. A few classmates and I had an hour before class, so Bianca (from Italy), Dzhulia (from Russia), and I walked around beautiful Regent's Park, which is right outside the front steps of the university.

Catching a ride

This lady and her little daughter, sitting on her shoulders, were walking in front of me yesterday afternoon as I returned to my flat after class. Because business and residential districts sit side by side in Central London, when you turn off the bustle of a busy road like Baker Street, you almost immediately enter a quieter world. The little girl's arms were bouncing up and down with each of her mother's steps: just another walk home.

Eggs

The first difference I noticed between UK and US supermarkets: you find eggs on the shelf, like here, where they sit very nicely next to the flour. No one refrigerates them, even at home. Ours, for example, are kept on top of the microwave.

First drink of the holiday season: honey and almond hot chocolate

perfect for an afternoon at studying, at a Starbucks only a few minutes from my flat on Baker Street

Walking home from All Soul's on Sunday

Saturday run in Hyde Park

This was the first little building I encountered in the park. As I came up to it, I thought about how charming it looked, the perfect thing for an historical English park. Then I read the plaque on the gate: public toilets.

Even London's toilets have elegance and style.