London!!!

click for London pictures

London was awesome! It is now tie with Boston for my favorite city. I don't know what it was about it, maybe the combination of old and new, or the friendliness, or the fact that they speak English (very nice after being in a Dutch speaking country for a month), or the fact that I'm in love with big Ben. Either way, I loved it.

Our traveling experiences however, were not so great. Casey and I arrived in London at about 11pm Friday night (there was a huge difference in price if we were to travel at convenient, normal times; 30 euro vs. 250 euro approx.) Since we flew into Stansted Airport (apparently a smaller, crappier airport than the others) it took us awhile (and cost about $40 roundtrip on the train) to get into the city. By the time that we got into London the tube (subway) stopped running. Since our hostel was way out in Hendon (central London is in zone 1, hendon was in zone 4, just to give an idea), the cab ride to our hostel was going to be very expensive (about $60). So Casey and I decided to try and take a night bus as close to our hostel as we could (of course no night bus came even close to it). Even after doing that the cab was still about $40. When we finally got to our hostel it was pretty nasty. There were no locks on the doors or lockers. I kept my purse on my bed at night and my money and passport in my money belt.

the next morning Casey and I set out on an ultimate sight- seeing mission. We started off at London bridge, which wasn't what I pictured as "London bridge" but you could see what I pictured from it. What I thought was London bridge is actually called the tower bridge. From there we decided to walk around a little bit. We walked by the Monument. Which is this large monument in the middle of the city. Then we continued walking and came to the tower of London. As far as we could tell, there wasn't a tower at all, but a castle. Castles are cool though, I live in one afterall. haha. From there we saw the tower bridge (getting its name from the tower of London which it is next to, I assume)

after that we hopped on the tube to met up with my roommate Melinda (who also came to London, but by train) near Westminster abbey. We took a little detour on the way though, to see HUNGERFORD bridge!! I didn't think it was actually in London, so I was quite excited. For those that don't know me that well, my last name is hungerford. Apparently hungerford bridge is a train bridge, so I couldn't actually walk on it, but I did walk on the foot bridges next to it, which were also cool.

on our way to Westminster, I had the pleasure of seeing big Ben and the houses of parliament for the first time. I don't know what it is about that big clock, but I love it. Right next to the houses of parliament is Westminster abbey, which is also gorgeous. One thing that I definitely appreciate about Europe is that it has beautiful, beautiful cathedrals. They just aren't the same in the states. We didn't actually go into Westminster because when we were there they were having evening song, and you would have to stay for the whole thing and you couldn't walk around. So we decided to go to buckingham palace instead. buckingham palace was very nice. There are a lot of nice statues and flowers around it. After that we headed to the national gallery to meet melinda's cousin. Casey and I ended up doing a little souvenir shopping and then meeting up with lyndsay (who is studying abroad in London this semester). We went out to dinner at a reasonably priced pizza restaurant. Reasonably priced for London, but since the pound is worth double the dollar, nothing was really reasonably priced for us. After that we went to a bar and had beer out of pints.

the next day Casey and I were pretty tired but we kept on going. We got up early to see the changing of the guards at buckingham palace. We met up with lyndsay again and watched the cool guards in red with big black hats.

after that we wandered down to the national gallery (which was free!) and got to see lots of famous pieces of artwork. It was very cool. After that we went to St. Paul's cathedral. It was actually kind of disappointing because half of it was under construction. I imagine it will be much nicer when it's complete. We were pretty hungry after walking around all day so we decided to go to notting hill and try to find a place to eat. We ended up finding this really cheap (dinner for 3-6 pounds), really good Thai restaurant. Cheap and good is always a good combination.

after dinner Casey and I decided that it was time to head over to the airport, but not before saying good bye to big Ben first. When we came back inside from admiring the Clock, an announcement was made that we had to leave because of an emergency. So Casey and I had to walk to next station. It was a nice walk though. Finally we arrived at the airport, which we had to sleep in because the tube didn't run early enough for us to catch our flight at 6:50 am. Yeah, poor planning on our part, but like I said, the difference in price was why we had such bad flight times. We got to the airport around 12:30am and already it was full of people sleeping. There weren't even any seats for us to sit in, never mind sprawl out on. So, we had to sleep on the cold floors. It's alright though, it built character, I suppose. At about 4 am we started to get in line for our tickets and such. We got back to the castle at about 10 am. Giving us a few hours to sleep and shower before our class at 2:30. Needless to say, class was not very fun on Monday.

this weekend is my required trip to Paris! And next week is one of my extended travel breaks. So I start off in Paris, leave Monday night, then head to Barcelona, then Madrid, and then finally zaragoza. I am so excited!

Also, I forgot my camera this weekend, because I am a moron. So all of my pictures are from Casey's camera.

my hostel (northern European backpackers) rating: D-, it was dirty, there were no locks or lockers, the showers were nasty, but it was cheap, and you definitely get what you pay for

London rating: A+ ::sigh::