London!

  London, England, United Kingdom
Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Yesterday I got back from a 4 night trip to London with two friends from Mid Sweden University. We traveled with Ryanair which is a very cheap airline within Europe. Our Train tickets to get to Stockholm to catch our plane were more money then that ticket to fly. I traveled with an American from Clarskville Tennessee named Brooke Denny, and a Canadian from New Brunswick who is called Sara Ellick. The three of us in our days in London really were pressed to our patience and learned how different of people we are from each other. There was a friend in London that I knew from Green River and her name is Claire Norcross, she said we could probably stay at her place for a couple of nights, which is what we were really excited about. So we cancelled our hostel for the first two nights and kept it for the last two nights. When actually got to London at 2 am, we had no idea how to get to her apartment, so we phoned her from a payphone and luckily the station was near we needed to find. We couldn't get to the correct bus stop, so we just used a cab. Then I learned how much more expensive it was to be in London. 100 American dollars is 51 pounds in the U.K. When we got to the correct station for Claire to meet us at, she walked us to her dorm that was ran by her college. They were not going to let us in because you needed to check in visitors by midnight and you were only allowed to have two guests at one time. We were almost homeless in London for our first night but Claire was nice with her words and he let us stay there.

Claire and her room we slept in

We slept in her one room dorm on the carpet floor with one comforter to share with all three of us. Sara and Brooke slept at one end and I slept at the other end with my feet between them. It was a quite interesting first night in London. The Next Day Claire was so helpful to us and we were so grateful for all that she did for us. We wanted to first take a big bus tour around London to see all the sites first thing.

sara and i infront of westminster abbey

She helped us with buying our Tube cards to take the subway there, and with where we could buy our bus tour tickets. But first thing we had to do was to call the hostel in Russel Square to try an rebook our two night there so we had a place to stay for the next 3 nights. They re booked us but it was a little bit more than before, so that was a learning experience. So on our way through the city of London on our first day we took the tube to Picadilly circus. But first I must tell you that I almost broke one of the tube card machines, because I tried to slide it through and you were not supposed to do that because it was meant for actually tickets, you are just supposed to scan your tube card. So in the middle of tons of moving people the technicians for the machines had to take it apart to get my tube card out of the machine. It was such a graceful start to our busy journey through the unfamiliar city. We got to picadilly circus and got on our double decker bus tour. It took us all around the city, to all the great sites at one time! Our Tour guide was sooo funny! He made the tour very memorable. We got off at St. Pauls Cathedral where we ate lunch on the steps of the church. It was gorgeous weather for us!

having lunh infront of St. Pauls no big deal

All three days there was barely any clouds in the sky! After we mingled around St Pauls for a while, we got back on the tour bus where it took us to the Tower of London, and we got to drive over the Tower Bridge! I did a video of that moment and it is the only video I took the whole time. We tooka cruise boat tour down the river that we got for free with our tour bus ticket. Then we got off at Westminster Abbey, where i took about a million pictures of big ben!

The Next day we were up and outside Madamme Tausadds Wax Museum at 9:30 in the morning. This museum was SOOOO fun!

Madamme Taussad's wax museum

it was amazing getting to pose with so many celebrities. From there we walked down to Oxford Street to check out the shopping, and then we made our way down to buckingham palace. We didn't get to see the changing of the guards, but we did see some visitors of the queen leaving the palace, so that was exciting getting to see some action. It was soooo surreal to imagine that i was just a few feet away from the royal family and where they live. Something i wish i would of done was go see the Princess Diana Memorial. After that we walked down through Hyde Park and sat in some lawn chairs for about an hour, eating our snacks and talking about how crazy it was we were spending the day in London! Sara had the idea to go see Shakespeare's Globe, this was omething i was not as interested in doing, but i am so glad that i ended up doing it with the girls. It was SO interesting getting to see a re make of it. They were having a performance the next night as an opera there.