:: handy instructions whenever we crossed a street ::
Confusing and disconcerting driving laws aside, London was GREAT. I haven't posted yet because, again, I've been furiously reading Harry Potter all week. Haha… but boy, London was awesome. We were so spoiled being able to speak English all weekend. Everywhere we went, we kept saying "I can read that sign!" and "I can hear that subway announcement" and "Did you see I just asked for directions IN ENGLISH?!" Oh man… and it was a good thing we all spoke English too, because the Tube was having major engineering work this past weekend and a ton of lines were closed between certain stations or just outright closed. Even with all that work, it was probably the best underground system of any city I've been to!
So our plan for the weekend was to get in on Friday night and leave EARLY in the morning on Monday in order to make it back for our afternoon classes. When we got there Friday night, it was quite a task getting into the city center via bus and then taking the Underground to a zone just outside the center where our first hostel was. We'd had a bit of a problem getting hostels in London because nowhere good was open for three days when we first booked them and we had to get two different hostels - one that was closer to the bus station for Sunday night when we'd have to wake up at 3 to go to the airport. But then a few days before we left, our other hostel emailed me to say that they didn't have beds for us after all, and we had to book a place even more last-minute - landing us in a hostel above a bar that was nice at first glance, until we got up to our room. It was roughly the size of a large closet with triple stacked bunkbeds to hold nine people. I wish I had gotten a picture - it was ridiculous. The first night was rough, but our roommates were really interesting people, so even though I would never go back there again I'm glad we got to meet them there. One of the guys staying in the room was from New Zealand and he was so sweet! He brought up coffee and bread in the morning to the other girls staying there who had hangovers, and walked my friend to the bus station when she had to leave a day earlier than the rest of us.
:: had to hit up the red phone booth ::
Anyways, on Saturday we woke up, ready to get out of the hostel, and set off into the city center. We took pictures with Platform 9 3/4 in Kings Cross, bought tickets for some West End shows at Leicaster Square, and then went on to see Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace. I really liked going inside Westminster Abbey because I recognized so many famous authors in the Poet's Corner. I even sneaked an illegal picture of Shakespeare's grave because… hey, I'm an English Lit major. I wasn't going to pay to go into the Globe Theatre so this was an obligation. After Buckingham Palace (where we didn't get to see the cool guards le sigh), we wandered into Hyde Park and found the statue of Peter Pan. Since that's one of my favorite books and favorite Disney movies, I took a picture with it.
:: had to leave space for my best friend since we both enjoy Peter Pan ::
Then we walked up Oxford street (a shopping street already decorated for Christmas) for awhile, angling for a certain Mexican restaurant I was particularly excited to go to. It ended up we were walking in the opposite direction, but the Tube came to our rescue and we found CHIPOTLE with enough time to eat before we had to catch our shows. I loooovvee Chipotle. Of course, it wasn't as good as in America, but it definitely will tide me over until I get back to the good ole USA.
:: food of the gods ::
After Chipotle, I split off from the rest of the group to see Les Miserables while they went to see Love Never Dies, a new sequel to Phantom of the Opera. I would have liked to see Love Never Dies, but I have been wanting to see Les Miserables ever since I fell in love with the book in high school. Since its no longer playing on Broadway and seeing Les Mis was something of a bucket list, life-goal sort of thing, I couldn't really pass up this chance. And it did not disappoint. They had this great revolving stage that made for some really interesting staging. Jean Valjean and Marius were both understudies, and while Jean Valjean wasn't my favorite, Marius was wonderful! The actors who played Eponine and Javert really stole the show though… I wish I could just watch it over and over again!
We ended up hanging out at the hostel bar that night with our new roommate friends, which actually ended up being pretty fun. In the morning we had to move to our new hostel. And when I got on the internet, I was surprised to find that my best friend's dad had messaged me to tell me that he was in London too! After wandering over the unimpressive London Bridge and taking some pictures of the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London (another English major obligation), we hung out in Starbucks until we met Mr. Pledger for lunch. It was really crazy seeing him there, and it made me miss Jess a lot, but it was great to catch up with him. It was pouring after lunch so we went back to the hostel to dry off. Aunna and I then went off by ourselves to find some second-hand bookstores. She wanted to find British editions of Harry Potter and I wanted to find an old version of Peter Pan, and although neither of us found what we were looking for, we found something even better up at Camden street! Camden is an alternative sort of area, and they were having a market of sorts that night. There was food everywhere and stands of homemade odds and ends. Aunna and I split a bag of candy, I got a headband and some mulled wine, and Aunna gave me a bite of her caramel and chocolate filled churro. It was probably one of my favorite things we did in London because it was completely unplanned and the atmosphere there was just really cool.
:: Harry Potter ads were everywhere and we were ONE weekend too early ::
We turned in early for bed because we had to be up at 3 to catch a bus to the airport. We got to ride a red double-decker bus to the bus station, and after a bus, plane, another bus, and a train, we made it back in time for classes absolutely exhausted. I really loved London because the people were so friendly and it felt very comfortable. I guess it makes sense that it feels a little more like America since we were speaking English all weekend.
In other news, I went on an adventure today to a hair salon and got bangs! I was really scared cause they spoke zero English, but I got across what I wanted with pictures and broken French (cheveux long et frange? sil vous plait? lol). I'm really happy with it, but we'll see how I manage on my own without a decent round brush.
:: new bangs, thankfully not a disaster ::
In other other news, we also had Thanksgiving dinner last night. Not real Thanksgiving dinner - it really just made me sad I'm missing Thanksgiving at home even more - but it was still good. And now I'm breaking my stringent No-Christmas-music-til-December rule because I've already celebrated Thanksgiving and Thanksgiving doesn't technically exist here anyways so I'm not pushing Thanksgiving aside for Christmas. But this is a special case; next year I will go back to confining Christmas music to its proper month.
It's not letting me upload pictures. >:| I'll do it later. I only have Half-Blood Prince left to read. I should probably consider writing a paper today (but I'm leaning heavily towards reading the article I'm supposed to summarize over the weeklong break and then write the paper on Sunday night before class on Monday... hmmm)
Edit: Now they're up!
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