London England

So as I sit on the Eurostar train and depart London for Paris France I have to sit here and take it all in. I just spent three days in London England and I have to admit it felt like about two weeks time! We just were always moving, always going, always trying to do more, except sleep more. I'd say the average hours of sleep we got each night was usually around 5 and we just made do. I'm starting to wonder how our bodies will last with how we always grab some drinks and stay up late telling tales and meeting new faces but only time will tell. The problem is you don't want to miss out on anything! Anything and everything, that's what I want to do, that's what I want to see. I've already accumulated 500 pictures/videos in three days in London!! 

Leave no stone unturned.

Let's try and start from the beginning shall we? It's the night before my flight and I'm frantically trying to actually find out what I should take and then after covering my bed in ideas of clothing and backpacks and electronics as well as their accessories, I think I'm set. Well.... If it all fits in my bag.. You see we had this plan that I would only take a small carry on and backpack so I could travel as light as possible, but boy did it pose a problem between want and need. I mean seriously a small carry on and backpack for 30 days?! What the hell were we thinking! Wait... I have everything I need so far and don't need to lug as much around as everyone else is, good look Mom and Dad and Jason! No one on the trip has less luggage than me so I'm kind of amused by that. Anyway next day we set off as a family to go get lunch and send me off to the airport for my first every flight alone, and internationally. I was blessed to have my Godparents Aunt Kathy and Uncle David in town tagging along and it made it even more of a special occasion. As I enter into the airport and use a self service to print out my ticket I head to processing and see a familiar face, Carly from work whose shipping off to Vermont to enjoy the Fourth of July with her college buddies and got to hangout with her for a bit before departing for Charlotte North Carolina. Everything went successful on the first flight, got to North Carolina and immediately as I get off I luckily overhear that my gate to depart from there got switched to the opposite side of the airport! So I sprinted there only to realize I had forty-five minutes to chill before departing for Heathrow and grabbed a beer and tried to keep the nerves calm before departing for this amazingly unknown trip that I had no clue what was coming up before me. So the plan is pass out on the plane and have tons of energy to attack this first full day in London since I'd be arriving at about 8am their time, and it didn't go at all as planned. The guy next to me kept coughing and I couldn't sleep, eventually I decided to watch a movie, and then another movie.... I may have gotten 45min of horrendous sleep in on the entire flight, but I really did enjoy The Red Army (a hockey documentary film) and Chappie (a interesting scifi flick).... But finally, I was in England, the place I wanted to study abroad in and had it fall through. This was the destination I was jonesing for the most and her I was, walking out of the tunnel to find new friends, looking disheveled and taxed more than ever.

Day 1-

 After finding a couple other people that were part of the group at a meeting place we got assigned, we set off for our Hostel and meet our Tour Director Delia. First things first, riding shotgun on the left side in a car driving on the left side of the road surely freaked me the heck out! Heck crossing the streets and looking the wrong way each time was weird and somewhat dangerous. But we made it safe and sound and all sort of ventured into our hostel with puzzled looks on our faces praying we weren't lost. DELIA!! I wish you could meet this energetic amazing tour director of ours, she's always sparking, just lit up with a smile and a story to tell. She surely made us feel more at home and gave us some details on the day's schedule before letting us loose on London! See we couldn't check in till 4 and it was only 10am or so, so George, Talia and I set off to explore and get lost and who knows what. 

We started off with a walk up the street to Hyde Park that was such a awesome place, all of the parks we saw while in London were pretty awesome for the fact that they were superbly clean despite not having trash cans throughout and just were so spacious and inviting it was really cool. After making our way out the other side of the park we decided there's no time to waste let's find some fish and chips and get acquainted with a local favorite. We ended up at a place called Geales, well, pronounced more like Jill's. Here we got some awesome Harrod Fish and chips as well as tried some Fried Squid and Tampura Crab. I actually ordered the squid because the heck with it I'm trying new things! It was actually really great, it itself was decent with light seasoning from being fried but the somewhat sweet and sour sauce they served it with, that also had a little heat to it, made it exquisite! The crab on the other had wasn't bad what so every but I just didn't see anything special about it really, I'd prefer my crab a more traditional way. After this we took our first stab at catching the tube with our Oyster Cards. Haha this is Delias term for our train/tube cards atleast, not sure if everyone calls the, that but boy she's a colorful character I love it! I call her Deals as a nickname which apparently her friends do as well and she's come to call me Ali which wouldn't be my first choice but it's fun haha. Well our first tube adventure was a success and we got back to the hotel to wash up and get ready to meet the whole group and head out for a small bus tour to downtown and off to a pub that we were set up to get some free drinks at. We didn't see too much of the town on the way to the bar but enough to get a small taste of the town and all the stuff we were going to be doing or have the opportunity to do. Once we arrived at the pub we were allowed to get at least two drinks for free and go from there. Most of us ended up getting around five and some people actually needed up getting a bit sloshed. A fun new word we learned meant getting a bit drunk, but in a positive way apparently. Well we decided to head back to the hostel around 10 and try and get some Cards Against Humanity going and surprisingly I took charge and tried to round people up and make sure the group that was coming with didn't get split up or lost. I had a bit of help from this girl Ashley that's pretty cool though, it took two of us to get one of the more sloshed fellows to come with back to the hostel safe and sound. Once we got back though everyone pretty much said they were too tired and wanted to sleep, which is understandable since we had all been awake for pretty much twenty four hours straight if we couldn't sleep on our planes... So what did I decide to do? Go down two blocks and check out the local pub all along and try to meet some English people! Did I mention our hostel was in a very very rich neighborhood and super safe? Hahah I still was a tad worried but the sense of adventure and experiencing the culture on my own was enticing but I surely was on edge and keeping my head on a swivel. I posted up in the bar and grabbed a 1664 beer that wasn't bad and watched England's Women's National Futbol team beat Germany in two extra time periods on a penalty kick as the bar erupted! It was a pretty cool thing to witness I have to say, and the experience was all mine that no one else got to experience! I thought I would maybe get s second beer but was on the fence sine I wanted to be safe when all of a sudden Sarah, Rocky and Tyler stumble in and find me all alone, let's get a table!! I was stuck, and I didn't get to study the culture while in the wild anymore this first night. So we stuck around till midnight when the bars close down in London usually, bummer, and made our way back to the hostel to pass out and prepare for our next big day.

Day 2-

7:30 came fast but I popped up, showered and got ready for breakfast in the kitchen area at the bottom of our hostel. The shower helped but I was surely still a walking mess, mentally. But everyone was to an extent. We met up in the basement of our hostel that had a kitchen and enjoyed a light breakfast of cereal and coffee. When I arrived down in the kitchen there wasn't any brewed coffee though so I decided to be a tad adventurous and make some instant coffee. I asked a woman how much to use and she said around a spoonful so I scooped up that and a tad more and ran it under hot water. Ten minutes later when it cooled I found out that my coffee to water ratio was completely off and boy was this coffee bitter as heck! 

From there it was time to jump on a bus and get a bit of a tour around London and drive by all the big tourist attractions like Big Ben, The London Eye, St. Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace. We heard a little bit about each place and then they let us off at Buckingham Palace after seeing the changing of the guard, or at least the tail end of it, to wander and gave us some ideas of what we might be interested in doing but it was all up to us. So what did four of us guys decide to do? Rent city bikes and ride around town seeing everything we could before having to be back before our London Pub crawl. Our strategy pretty much was to stay close to the river and use it as a guide to eventually lead us to London Bridge and check that out since we had only stopped at Tower Bridge since London Bridge isn't quite exquisite or flashy like Tower Bridge. We started off riding down the main road that leads up to Buckingham Palace and is surrounded by a park on most sides, it was surreal how chill and relaxing it was and to just try and realize we were in London baby! It was still crazy to just think about it. So we got to the river and started following it towards London bridge which we found out was a couple miles or it at least felt like possibly 1-2 miles. All the while I have my camera strapped around my neck taking pictures and video looking like a idiot  since it was pretty risky. But I'm so doing the same thing in Amsterdam when we have our bike tour because it was pretty sick. After having to cross bridges from the sidewalk or river walk ending, which we realized we weren't supposed to be riding on in the first place, we made it to London Bridge! It's literally your everyday bridge  but we got some pics and were pm our way, but like I said we weren't supposed to be on the sidewalk with these bikes and started riding on the road a good bit. Now I said before I'm not used to it but I'm also not used to doubLe decker buses flying past me about a foot or two to the right of me to pass me. The first time it freaked me the heck out. But the most exhilarating part was when we had no idea where to go other than through a tunnel, and this tunnel had a bend in it so we couldn't even see the end! But we could see some light coming from around the bend and the traffic was about to Let up so we went for it. We were hauling ass through this thing and about half way through a guy on a sport motorcycle came flying up on us! His exhaust was amplified from being in the tunnel and heck is was a bit scary! After that encounter we made our way back to the National Gallery and ran in to check out some art we knew nothing about. We got some pictures and the art was pretty neat but we surely didn't know enough, even when we got up to the Van Gough Sunflower painting one of the guys George in our group goes "Oh that's not even that good! Look at how crappy it was painted" while a older woman beside us scoffs hahaha. We were out of our element to say the least. But it was time to catch the tube and head back to the hostel to freshen up for our Pub Crawl! 

Here's where things got a little hazy as you can imagine... It was five bars that we were going to and at each they gave you a free shot and a reduced price on Stella Artois. The first one we got to a little late from catching a bite to eat but we got our shot and were on our way to the next one. It was pretty cool because we weren't the only people in the pub crawl and had some people from New Zealand and I think Wales with us as well so it was kind of cool to hangout with those people and get drinks with them. The second bar was a bit fancier and more relaxed so we had time to get a beer as well and talk, which we couldn't do so much in the ones to come! The third was "Zoo Too" and was the first place we started dancing... It was a mess, the girls were getting so much attention but it was a really fun time. The fourth bar we walked to was great because it was upstairs in a building and they had a balcony that we could drink on and look down over a square at people and shops. After this we headed off to a bar connected to Zoo Too that we went to before Nd made our way downstairs to the dance floor in the basement. In all reality it was just a bar space but a large portion of our whole pub crawl was down there pretending like we knew how to dance. We were dancing with locals even, they were eating it up from how different we were, even the New Zealanders felt a bit out of place. At about 1am they shut the place down and we found a cab ride home to our hostel to prepare for tomorrow.

Day 3-

Day three started off pretty rocky with everyone just trying to function and get someone in their systems before either departing for Oxford and Stonehenge like myself, or go out and about and take in more of London setting their own course. I jumped on a bus and headed way out of town to Oxford to start the day. Luckily for us it took about two hours to get there so we all zoned out and slept on the way there. Once we made it into Oxford we started learning about the history of Oxford and how it's progressed to have many schools of Oxford around the UK that are pretty much what we would consider branch campuses. And how back in the day you could graduate and either continue to learn to earn a masters  or wait long enough, around five years; and Oxford would offer you the chance to buy your masters for about 50 euro. So every time you met someone with a masters you would have to ask if they truly earned it or bought it. The school itself was a pretty grandiose and had a lot of character. We took a slightly dumbed down tour of it I feel since we didn't get to see some of the coolest rooms, I'll come back to how I know that in a second. But our tour director knew his stuff and ended up taking us to a tree which was a scene from one of the Harry Potter movies that I knew very well. After taking some pictures and taking in the scene, right before we left I asked the tour director of we were allowed to climb the tree.... He looked a little caught off guard and said that no one had ever asked him that before... And that he could probably look the other way but make it quick!!! I'm not sure how I actually pulled it off since there's nothing to grab down low but I was determined and found a way! I then got so,e pictures of myself standing up on one of the branches about 15 feet off the ground. It was pretty sweet that I just took a chance and got to do something not too many people probably have. So back to how we were missing out on some stuff, our tour director I guess just gave us the quick walk through and Tyler and I were craving a little more and ducked into a open room off to the left and ditched our group for a couple minutes. It was a wise decision because we got to see an amazing room that had hundreds of statues lining the back wall and desks of so,e sort in rows that looked like they would be used in delegation of some sort. We turned around to see the largest most beautiful organ I've ever seen! Well I'm a church at least... I think Tampa Bay Lightenings arena had a pretty huge one but I've never seen that one close up. Anyway we ran back to our group and they actually were leaving without us just expecting we'd catch up haha. Off to Stonehenge I guess! 

Sadly this was another two hour ride just to get there, and then once we were there we only had a hour to take pictures and enjoy Stonehenge and its gift shop! I feel like we're always in a hurry on this trip but it's all good since it's keeping me on my toes. So we arrive out in the middle of nowhere and hear all about the known history and the fables of how this piece of art was made. Apparently some of the stone used to make it is only found on one quarry that's 150 miles north of Stonehenge's actual location. Somehow prehistoric man moved them here and sculpted them without even having the invention of the wheel. Another somewhat surreal realization was that the process of building this it took around 5 lifetimes to complete. So your great great great grandfather or so started the construction and you still might not get it done or see the results of lifetimes of work. And why did they even want to make this in the first place? No one knows. Maybe ALIENS!!! But probably not, who knows...

After another two and a half hour ride back to town we got ready to go ride the London Eye! This was something I wanted to do for so so many years after my study abroad plans fell through by Rmu in England. It was finally time and I was pumped! It was a good time with a crew of around 8. There's nothing crazy exciting about it since it's a Ferris wheel and moves extremely slow but it's the largest one in the world! We got to see some great views as the sun set and got some great pictures. After we left there we went to The Shard, which is a pretty cool looking glass building that come to the top at multiple points. The thing though was instead of paying around 30 pounds we went to the bar a couple flows below and grabbed a beer since it was free entrance. It was a great way to take in London for the last time before shoving off for Paris in the morning on the Eurostar train that goes beneath the English Channel, in the Chunnel.