So London was a success!

Thursday:

We woke up early and rode the bus to the train station. From there we rode a train to Brussels and then got on the Chunnel. We arrived in London at St. Pancras station (Harry Potter's platform 9  3/4). We then navigated our way through the "tube", London's version of a subway. 

We checked into our hotel which was located near South Kensington, a really nice part of town with easy tube access to pretty much everywhere. The room was quaint and we freshened up and then headed to get a late lunch at a place called "Fish N Chips" across the street from our hotel. Judging from the name, it sounded like a great place to have our first meal in the UK. And it was! 

We then rode the tube to the place where they sold discount theater tickets. We got tickets for "Chicago" for pretty cheap and then went and found the National Gallery. It was really neat to see Van Gogh's sunflowers up close and personal. After that, we walked to the theater area and walked around. The show started at 7:30 and was very good. Believe it or not, I had never seen Chicago, the movie or the musical. It was a fun show with good catchy songs. 

After the musical we had a late dinner at a Portuguese restaurant. A chicken pita type thing. 

We headed to bed early because we were all so exhausted. Story of the trip. 

Friday:

Woke up early to a continental breakfast at the hotel. We (Christina, Claire, Pana, and Katie) rode the subway to Abbey Road where we took the typical Beatles crossing the street imitation picture. It was the 40th anniversary to the date of the Beatles last performance on an Abbey Road rooftop, so there were a lot of tourists. The picture was hard to snap because the cars don't have much intention of stopping at the crosswalk. Silly Brits. Tourist girls just want a fun little photo op. 

We then road to train to Westminister and walked around Parliament, Westminister Abbey, and some other places my brain can't recall right now. Katie, Pana, and Claire went inside Westminister Abbey but Christina and I decided to venture to see the Churchill museum that my mom had reccomended (mainly because it was free, and the Abbey wasn't).  The plan was to meet back up with the other girls at Buckingham palace at 12:15. 

Christina and I walked in pretty much every direction but the right one. We accidently stumbled on Downing Street, which to be honest I didn't even know what it was until we asked someone. We saw all these media people with big cameras waiting outside of an iron gate, so we asked what was going on and they were like "Well this is where the prime minister lives. Were going in to do an interview and some filming."

We never found the Churchill museum, but it was okay because we had some fun experiences anyways. I tripped and had a group of local guys laugh at me. We saw the horse guards. We went to St. James park and walked around and watched people feed squirrels. We laughed so hard we were nearly crying and then accidently watched the changing of the guards.

Christina (a former drumline captain): I hear a marching band.

Me: Hmm weird lets go see what's going on

Marching guys walking down the street filled with thousands of people: dum dum di dum dum

Christina: Cooool! What was that? Some special ceremony?

Taylor (to London Police officer): Excuse me, can you tell us what just happened?

Police officer (looking at us like we have stupid written on our foreheads) : What just happened? Umm..I dont know, the changing of the guards. 

We waited at Buckingham palace until about 12:45, 30 minutes past our planned meeting point. Note to self: Next time said meeting points should be a little less vague than a huge palace filled with thousands of tourises. Christina and I finally decided to leave and try to find a bathroom and a place to eat lunch. We walked in one direction and ended up in a London business district with nothing but office buildings that required keys to enter and a couple very crowded pubs. We used the restroom in one of the pubs but there was no room to eat lunch so we found the nearest tube station and asked a guy where was the best shopping/dining district. 

He sent us to Oxford Circus which is like 16th Street mall on steroids. We had a sandwich and a class of lemonade at a cute little Italian deli. The two of us then walked down the streets and went in several shops and found this amazing department store called Primark. It was very inexpensive and I bought a shirt and an big purse for 11 pounds (like 15 dollars). I needed a bigger bag to carry my books in to my classes, and the shirt was really cute.

We ran back into Pana, Claire and Katie at Primark which was like finding a needle in a haystack honestly because the store, along with the rest of the city is soooo crowded. After that we came back to the hotel and hung out in Christina's room watching weird European music videos.

We got ready and then headed to Picidilly Circus, (the "going out" type of area in London). It almost has a times square type of feel to it with lots of neon lights and people. The five of us (same girls from earlier in the day) navigated our way to an Italian restaurant where we met my friend Julia, who lives in London but went to high school with me, and one of her friends. After dinner we went next door to the Absolut Ice Bar which is a bar made of ice. Its made by the same people who own the Ice Hotel in Sweden. You wear these ridiculous huge parkas and get one drink with admission. We stayed in their for 45 minutes and then tried to find our way back to the hotel. Someone had told us that even though the tube stops running at midnight, the buses which are free, run all night. However, we could not find the right bus and eventually just got a taxi back. The nicest man flagged the cab down for us because we weren't having any luck. Then the taxi had to turn back around and turned down a bunch of customers so we could run up to where he could park. 

We went to bed when we got back to the hotel. Go figure.

Saturday: 

We boarded our private bus at 8 am. It was kinda cool because we were seperated onto two different busses, so we got a chance to get to know some people that we hadn't spent a lot of time with. We road about an hour to Salisbury, and most everyone was rocked to sleep by the movement of the bus. We toured the Salisbury Cathedral which was absolutely breathtaking. Their were graves in the floors and tombstones dating back to the 1200's. Our tour guide, an English woman in her 40's, was very nice and very informative.

After Salisbury we drove/slept our way to Stonehenge. It was neat to see, but freezing outside and there are only so many pictures you can take so most of us headed back to the bus earlier than the guide had told us. 

Next was the town of Bath, which was aside from Maastricht, my favorite place we have visited so far. The town dates back to Roman times, and boomed again in the Georgian era as a "Hollywood" of England for the rich and famous of the 1700's. It is famous for its hot springs (how the town got it's name) and for being home to Jane Austen and the setting for several of her books. 

The buildings are all made from a type of Limstone and they were gorgeous. Two girls (Kristin and Amber) and I had lunch at a pub in Bath and then walked around and watched a crazy street performer ride a unicycle and juggle flames. Neato.

We then reluctantly hopped on the train back and surprise, I slept the whole way back to the hotel!

When we got back Brisa, Christina, and I asked the front desk lady for the name of a good Indian food restaurant. When in Rome, right? Or in this case, London.  We walked down the road to a place called Memories of India. There was a young group of students, about half were Indian nationality. We saw them drinking a big bottle (like 3x the size of a normal beer bottle) of an Indian beer called Cobra something something. I asked them what it was and they said it was really good and asked if we wanted a taste. We laughed and politely said oh no we didn't mean we wanted to try it.  But they insisted. So we ordered one to split between the 3 of us and the waiter was so nice. He offered to take a picture of us and then gave us another bottle of beer "on the house." After dinner, we stopped at a convenience store and got some Skittles (and a jelly donut..Brisa was having a weird craving). We hung out in their hotel room for the rest of the night and just talked and had fun :) It was probably the best day yet.

Today we slept in a little, which meant tile 8:15, not exactly my definition of sleeping in, but still nice. We rode the train back and met two nice groups of Belgium people (Beligiumese?).

When we got back to Maastricht we dropped off our bags and then had dinner at a weird Mediterranean "frittur" meaning grill I think. If anyone actually knows, let me know. The guys working there kept talking about Obama and Bush to us in broken English, and my rule of thumb has been to not talk politics with Europeans while I'm here because well, it's just not a good idea.

It was fun skyping with my family and friends (and even my puppy) when I got back tonight. 

Classes start tomorrow. Not til 3:30 in the afternoon so were probably gonna get some errands done in the morning. I'm so excited to be back in Maastricht. It felt like coming home tonight :)

Well that's all for now. 

With love (and tea and scones),

Tay