Friday, March 5, 2010

Londontown!

London, England Feb. 25-28th

Rubbish, Rubbish, Rubbish… London was bloody Rubbish….. haha Just Kidding… London was pretty sweet! The group consisted of me, Ben, Maggie, Steph and Caitlin. The trip started with me and Ben leaving Wednesday night (24th) at 7 pm on a 5 hour bus ride to Madrid. We slept on the ‘ol Airport floor again haha nothin’ like it… We then caught a 6:30 am flight to London Stansted. There was about a two hour delay on our flight because the French thought it would be a good idea to go on strike, therefore, not allowing us to fly over France. SO conveniently we got to sit on the plane for two hours before we moved anywhere haha exciting stuff let me tell you! Eventually the plane left, and we made it to London around noon where we took an hour bus ride from Stansted Airport to the Center of London. Victoria bus station was only like a five minute walk from Vandon House (the place we stayed at in London). Vandon house is actually where all the Central people who study abroad stay at in London. It was pretty cool getting to see all of the different Central College people again! Joey and Joel were at class so Ben and I just stayed in there room for about an hour until Joey came to take us and show us around. We were starving, and there were SO many American restaurants that we hadn’t seen for a month. We decided on the Pizza Hut buffet haha It was good stuff! It rains constantly in London, so after we ate we went and grabbed some umbrellas and took a quick tour of the city with Joey “the tour guide” Toale. We went and saw Parliament, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, and the London Eye..(The biggest Ferris Wheel in the World) After the tour, Ben and I were beat, so we decided to take a solid nap! Later we got ready, and we went out to eat with Joel and Joey at another pizza place haha After dinner we played different games (with pop of course) with some people who are studying in London and waited for Maggie Caitlin and Steph to come because they took a later flight than Ben and I. That night we all went out to a bar called Tiger Tiger which was a lot of fun! We got back around 3 am and were ready for our next day in London.

The next day we woke up around ten and Kiley gave us another tour of the different near-by monuments such as Big-Ben, Parliament, Buckingham Palace (which we waited to see the changing of the guards for over an hour only to figure out that it was the next day J haha) Winchester Abbey or something like that haha andd some other stuff that I don’t remember the names of!... We did the touristy thing and climbed onto the big black lions to get our picture taken… getting 5 people on the lion was quite the struggle haha. During that day we had gone to some theatre in London and the Broadway show “Wicked” was in soo naturally the girls wanted to see it really bad… I was a little skeptical about the situation butttt I got a ticket anyways haha it was only like 25 lbs or something like that. Well that night we made dinner (spaghetti of course cuz its cheap) and got all dressed up to go to this show at 7:30. It ended up being a really good show and afterwards we planned on going out but ended up hanging out in Vandon House because we were all so tired!

The next day we woke up around 9, ate, and then wanted to see the changing of the guards. We went to see Notting Hill first.. (where the movie was filmed) I have never seen the movie or heard of it until we went to London haha but yeah we went there… THEN we went to the changing of the guards! We were a little late but I am pretty sure we didn’t miss too much because I thought it was kind of overrated but it was cool to see it at least! The queen wasn’t at the palace either because there are certain flags that hang when she is in… and they were not hanging the weekend we were there. After the changing of the guards our marathon to see all of London started… we walked EVERYWHERE in London… first we went to the tower bridge and the tower building (I forgot the name) but they were both really cool, We walked by the London eye a bunch. We saw “London Bridge” which wasn’t as cool as the tower bridge haha but we saw it anyways! Caitlin (who is in love with Harry Potter) had to see some Harry Potter bridge haha and thenn of course 9 ¾ platform. We saw St. James (or Peters) I don’t remember cathedral where Princess Diana was married… and then we went to a British art Museum.. at this point I was dead tired soo when Ben was checkin out all that he wanted to see I decided to lay on a bench and accidentally fell asleep in the middle of the museum.. Next thing I know Ben is waking me up telling me he’s ready to leave haha After the museum it was time to find Abbey Road where the Beetles took the picture on there album cover and where they recorded that album. It took us so long to find because we were in the south east corner and had to get to the northwest corner of London. It was dark by the time we found it and it was pouring rain BUT we found it! … and of course took a picture similar to the beetles album cover picture! After all of that we were pretty exhausted haha Maggie kept falling asleep on the Metro. That night we were all going to go out knowing that we had to be up at 430 am to catch our flight. WELL Ben and I weren’t really feelin’ the whole 2 hours of sleep soo we went to bed at like 1030 and the girls went out until 230 am haha Ben and I felt great in the morning… Caitlin said she got 20 minutes of sleep.. not too bad! That morning we took an hour bus back to the airport.. Got on our 730 plane and returned straight to Granada on a 2 hour plane ride! We got back around 1 pm and slept the rest of the day.

The trip was a lot of fun! I forgot to mention we did eat the local fish and chips (fries) which was really good!... London was a cool city and it felt good to be in a place that spoke all English instead of Spanish French Arabic or German. I think a person needs more than 3 days to fully take in London because it is SUCH a big city! It is ridiculous… and expensive.. but a lot of fun! I go to Madrid two weekends after this trip, Paris again a week after the Madrid trip, and the Gran Canarias a week after the Paris trip for spring break! It should be another fun month!

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