Royal Victoria and Bull Hotel Rochester

... in Dubai. After waiting about an hour and a half to get back in the sky, we were on our way and very soon, I found myself at the familiar and rather disgusting corridors of Terminal 3, Heathrow (compared to elegant opulence of Changi airport, Heathrow is a mere chav). I was home.

82 days I've been away from Britain which in the grand scheme of things is quite small, however it feels so good to be home again. Compared with the Philippines ...

... on the stops. i got to king's cross just after 10am this past monday. after settling in and a substantial lunch of pasta al fourni made by alessandra (my friend, who i know from ulpan last year), her boyfriend ted took me on a bike tour. bicycling in london is not as frightening as i thought it might be...despite nearly being run off the road by a bus. in less that 3 hours i saw parliament, the national theatre, the tate modern, the city, st. paul's, aldwych ...

... and a few coffees to warm myself up. Now christmas in London is pretty quiet. I decide to do a London Xmas Day walk from Trafalgar Square, only problem is that there is no public transport. So I decide to walk all the way. Making my way I walk through Hyde Park, down Constitution Hill, Buckingham Palace, and up towards Trafalgar. I'm pretty overawed by everything. Hyde Park, only a few hours later still has that killer blow for me. Its quiet and ...

... out partying that night we curled up to a cup of tea, set our alarm clock for 9am (to wakeup for breakfast) and went to sleep. Unfortunetly we sleep through our alarm and missed breakfast. We started the day off wrong but were determined to make it right. Our origional plan was to go to stonehenge, but we found out we were about 5 hours late for the tour (oops!) so we decided to wander aimlessly around the city because ...

We had a lovely day yesterday in sunshine and heat. We caught the tube in to Westminster and joined a river cruiser there for a delightful amble down the Thames to Greenwich. The cruise was great value for less than £10 for us both and included a commentary from a funny old Cockney guy. It was a great perspective of London that ...

... speak much English, but they were pretty entertained by us silly Americans (Kevelaer apparently doesn't get too many tourists). We did get to chat it up with our driver Harry who was very nice and shared a lot of touching personal stories about his late wife and really helped us put everything into perspective and be thankful that we are experiencing this great trip even if we have a few stitches in our plan like missed flights or cranky airport workers. After about 3 hours of ...

... hear about her love life - she meets a lot of guys (a lot!!) but in New York (she lives in Brooklyn now, she has lived in Holland, Berlin, Uganda...) she says there are a lot of angry singles always looking for something better than what they get! And I don't think her life style (jetting about the world) helps but it shouldn't hurt her that much either - she's great!! Then I heard all about the projects she has been working on (love her ...

... in another building - were quite lovely and sparkly (Ashley, I was thinking of you the whole time). If any of you are considering a 530 carat rock for any of your gem needs, let me say that they're pretty spectacular, but I think E II's got the only one. After we finished at the Tower, we grabbed lunch and headed north on Bakerloo (now Eric has ridden them all except Jubilee!). We stopped at Picadilly Circus because it's one of those things people ought to see ...

... unless you want tohear about a couple of days at my grannys house in Margate or a week in a Cornish cottage with my folks! So after seven and a half months of mostly glorious weather we touched down in Heathrow to the usual grey skies and sideways rain! Back to earth with a bump...

... Flight to Paris: booked. Bank account: please don't ask! Yes, I've spent more money than I'd like to think about but this is a trip that I'll never be able to do again. It might take me 5 years to pay my dad back, but I'll do it! We're going to figure out our three days in Paris a little later. Once that's done all I have to do is finish up classes and wait for the traveling to begin!