The lovely walk to and the not so lovely walk back from Holland Park- Sam Steichen

Peacocks at a park- what could be better? Well, that's what we thought which is why we got off of the tube in Kensington in search of Holland Park. This part of London is literally one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The houses and trees were beautiful and everything had so much character. Even the people carried themselves in a certain way. The little boys riding their scooters home from school were so unaware that they were in such a wealthy place.
Anyway, when we finally reached the park, we found the peacocks. They were beautiful so naturally everybody was surrounding them taking pictures. Then, all of a sudden a small dog came running by and jumped through the fence. The peacock let out a big squawk and flew into a tree- I truthfully didn't even know peacocks could fly. We were all sort of freaking out, trying to capture this moment, and I was secretly more afraid of the peacock attacking the dog than the dog attacking the peacock.
After getting our peacock fill we just walked around because the park was so beautiful. We people-watched (aka Abbey taking videos of cute little boys) and took a lot of artsy pictures. Then we ventured over to a zen garden. It took a lot for us not to be loud but we somewhat managed.
After taking in the zen garden we realized it was starting to get late and pretty dark. As we looked up at the sky we saw that there was a huge storm cloud coming our way. We finally left and as soon as we got out of the park it started not raining-but hailing. So, a group of about 8 UT students were running down the streets of Kensington trying to dodge as much hail and we could.
We finally made it to the tube station, soaking wet, and completely out of breath. As miserable as this may sound, it was actually one of the best parts of this trip so far. Going to a place we've never been, exploring, getting caught in some terrible weather- it's all part of this adventure we're experiencing together. As cliche as this sound, it's really true. The experiences that turn into memories often do so because of unexpected event that make the experience that much more fun. I'm so lucky to be able to run through hail storms with this group of people.