Sunday, November 30, 2008

London




London was the next step on my journey, and what an awesome stop it was. Unfortunately we didn't have as much time here as I would have liked but we still got to see pretty much all I wanted, and see this amazing city. Once again, it was really cool being in an English speaking country, it just felt normal, yet also a little weird cause i still wasn't used to it, and would even still say "Scusa" (excuse me in Italian) because it was just so natural to me now. Anyway, we arrived at the airport late at night and took a bus into the city. When we got in we had to walk forever to find our hostel. It was a lot of fun just walking through the city it just took soooo long. We finally got to our hostel, a pretty nice one, and got into our room and got all settled. That night we were all pretty tired and it was late so we just hung out and watched some election coverage because it was the day of voting back in America! So it was good that we got to see some coverage because previously all the news was from a computer or something. We got up early the next day and began walking around the city. We first came to Trafalgar square which was a huge square that had really cool monuments and giant lions. We continued walking into a park and came up to Buckingham Palace. That was pretty incredible, although we didn't get to stay for too long because we were doing a free walking tour of London that was going to take us to all the big sights of this city. We met up with our tour guide, Craig, who was a very enthusiastic Australian, and began our tour. We started off by seeing what we already saw that morning, Trafalgar Square and Buckingham Palace, he gave us a quick rundown of the history and some funny stories and then we kept on going. We then stopped to take our pictures with the guards, and it was cool to actually stand next to the guards you always see and be really close to their fuzzy hats. We kept on walking and stopping at all the big sights, saw Churchill's war cabinet bunker, the square where the 2012 Summer Olympic Beach Volleyball would take place, along with other really cool things. After a while we came to some of the most recognizable structures of London, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Those were amazing, we got some really cool pictures (Like O-H-I-O) and got the history once again which all was really interesting. The best part about it was that I got to be used as a captive who was being executed and Craig gave a demonstration on how they killed their prisoners to prevent anyone from ever rebelling again, and I got to be that prisoner! I was so lucky =) ha-ha. That was pretty much the end of the tour, and we were starving so we went to Mr. Wu's Chinese restaurant! It was only the second time I’ve had Chinese food since I’ve been in Europe and it was awesome. After lunch we walked around a little more, went into a really cool museum that had amazing paintings including Da Vinci's "Virgin of the Rocks". We then headed over to Hyde Park, and walked around and it was beautiful. After, we had to hurry back because Marica, Emily and me were about to go see The Lion King at the London Theater! We were so excited, we walked down the street that had all the theaters and saw hundreds of people waiting to get into all different kinds of shows, and then we saw our building and pretty much ran to it, haha. We got in and had really good seats, we were on the top, but in the first row, so we could see everything. The show was so incredible, the sets and the costumes/puppets and music and everything was so great. After that amazing show we met up with everyone else at a pub and hung out there for a while then came back home. The next day we went to the British Museum which was unbelievable, they had so many artifacts from Egypt, Greece and Rome, including the Rosetta Stone, and it was really amazing. After the museum we headed over to the other side of town to see the London Bridge. Before that, however, we made a stop at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater. That was really cool, even though it was recreated and not the actually theater, it was really set up nicely and the history was very intriguing. We then went to the London Bridge which of course was awesome, and after we all went to dinner and I tried Fish and Chips for the first time! It was actually really good! We then went to another pub and watched a futbol match and it was just a lot of fun being with everyone and having a blast. That night Marica and I had to leave for the airport because we had really early flights, and had to head over to the airport at around 2 in the morning. It was fun! We walked around the city late at night, got a little lost, but found the right bus, went to the airport and since my flight was earlier I had to say bye, because she was on her way to Copenhagen and I was on my way to Rome!!! So we said our goodbyes and I went on my way, and began the last stage of my 18 day adventure, Rome!

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