Mind the Gap (and the Door)

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Greeting from London!

I finally made it after removing 12lbs of clothes from my luggage, 16 hours of traveling, a 2 hour bus ride from hell and being attacked by an Irishman at a pub!

I love London, I truly do. I’ve been holding back from proposing to every Englishman in a suiton the Tube, but then they start to talk and I melt away. A few men have caught me staring-oops!

We are staying at the Queen Mary University,k Which is pretty cool. I have my own room, which is a luxury ( I know I can’t get used to)! I’m starting to get to know the people better, It’s hard though, there are about 87 of us total, but we’re seperated between two groups. Most of the people I’m friends with are of course in the other group. But at least we do a lot together.

This trip so far is different than what I expected. But great none-the-less. The Tour guide sucks. He’s not nice and if the guy thinks I’m tipping him he’s crazy. He has made no effort to get to know anyones name, he is very unaccommodating and tells us stuff like “there is absolutley NO way you can get yourself to Stonehenge”= well DAVEEED we did and I have pictures to Prove it!

Anyway When I got to Chicago I meet Kellie from Florida State and we got dinner, she will be graduating in December. and then I meet Amy, My little soon-to-be University of Oregon Freshman(I’m so excited for her- I also may be dirty rushing her a little)!!! We Landed in London to find about 4 different EF Tour Guides and they pretty much threw us in a holding pen. After standing in the humid airport for  an hour we got on a chartered but. This just about gave me a heart attack. The driver was pissed off because it was his day off. This was the scarriest car ride of my life. I sat with Amy, and First of all getting used to driving on the left side of the road was hard, but driving in the small narrow roads in an oversized bus with an angry driver is not a recipe for success. Every truck made me have a slight panic attack, we were so close to hitting things on the side of the road Amy started laughing at me jumping because I started Ducking. But weird, we ended up hitting a sign, twice. Our side mirror fell off and we got stuck! After 2 and a half hour bus ridewe arrived at the Queen mary University. It’s a gated area with 5 story tall wooden buildings on the West end of London.

Wednesday evening after we settled in and found our own dinner ( a bottle of wine, cheese and some bread) we walked down to a pub about a mile away and David (pronounced DAVEEED), our tour guide trated us to our “welcome” drink. Now our tour is mostly high school graduates (way annoyng) This means their first time away from home and the ability to drink and go to club legally. This is not so fun for us “seasoned” drinkers! I turned a bunch of girls onto Strongbow, and I’m not a huge beer fan, but I seem to be the only person who knows anything about beer! Then we took the tube to London Bridge, walked across the bridge, past London eye and to Covent Garden. After that a bunch of us jumped back on the tube and headed hom to catch up on sleep.

Sleeping was AMAZING. especially after being awak for 48 hours. On Thursday we got up and left at 9:30am. We had an all day pass on the Double decker sightseeing buses. We all went to Buckingham palace to watch the Changing of the Guards- and of course I couldn’t see a thing. Then walked to Westminster Abbey. we had met a group of girls and a brandon there.One of the girls, Mallory had already been in like i had and we didn’t want to pay 9pounds so we stayed outside and waited. While waiting we figured out she and John Robinson went to high school together!! such a small world! we’re still laughing about it.

After waiting for an hour and a half for the rest of the group to come out we walked over to Big Ben took a quick picture and jumped on the Tube to Tower Hill and found the Bourgh market where we had the BEST Fish & Chips ever!!!  mmmm sooo good. Then the group split and Kellie Mallory and I jumped back on a Double Decker bus, and pretty much sat on it for an hour because we were all SOOOO tired. well then we figured out we were on the wrong bus. So we got off and headed toward Trafalager Square.

we arrived at Trafalager at 4:45pm and were supposed to meet the huge group at an Indian resturant on 21st and dean St. We walked through the square and thought we’d go to an ATM and grab a drink at a pub before dinner. Well when we couldn’t find and ATM we thought we should start looking for the resturant as well. It took us an hour and fourty five minuts to do find this resturant- which was horriable might i add. Our tour guides gave us NO direction whatsoever!!! so frustrating. I understand that is part of traveling, but they gave us the impression they were going to help out a lot!

After Dinner a large group of us headed back to the Queen mary campus. we were traveling pretty close to Rush hour on the Tube, well I got STuCk in the doors! Half of the group was on, and half was off. I was pushing toward this lady and well she pushed back on her way out, but I was on a mission. The doors closed on me scatched my arm and I have a bruise the side of a grapfruit on my left leg!! Everyone couldn’t stop laughing. when the second group met us at the next stop they were laughing soooo hard! i guess it was a great ice breaker-I’m always glad to be the brunt of  a joke!

We ended up going to a pub near by, the new Globe and we met Gary and irishman, and Bruce,  an English-Turk. Gary was your typical CRAZY irishman drinking and being crazy, we called him the bar hospitality though! Anyway so he came over and I kept trying to talk to him, and he was telling me he was intimidated by me. Anyway he tries to shake my hand, licks it instead and when I refuse my hand at him since he licked it, he STANDS ON THE TABLE GRABS MY NECK AND KISSES ME! oh my god i was so red but ahh it was sooo funny. It really helped our large group start to bond, everyone was laughing at me. loved it. Probably one of the best nights yet!

Okay so Friday we were told that our trip to stonehenge was cancled. but We didn’t buy it. mallory, brandon, lauren and I got on the Tube to waterlook bought a ticket to Salsibury, and then a bus ticket to stonehenge. IT WAS AMAZING. unless you’ve been there i can’t even describe it! All I can say is I’m soo glad we decided to try to find a way there! On the way home Lauren and I decided to go to London eye and we took a spin on the famous Ferris Wheel!

In planning my trip to London I had received some Great advice from Friend and fellow twitter and Pr Geek, Ben Matthews, a true Londoner. So I gave him a call to see if we could grab a drink. Friday turned out to be the best night. So on the way to Stonehenge I called (got to love your accent Ben you should have seen the smile on my face!) we found a place to meet and set a time!

So after a long day of traveling, walking Lauren and I ran home jumped in the shower and headed to Liverpool St. to meet Ben for a drink. Well who  knows what happend but we couldn’t find be, and ben couldn’t find us! I was sad, I was so excited to meet him, and grab a beer afte that Long day!  I couldn’t get a hold of him, and I would have stuck around longer to see if I could spot him, but poor lauren came with me had to pay like ten dollars to ride the tube since she left her day pass at home and was tired. I felt really bad having her wait. So after 45 min of calling we left!

we had to get up at 5 am to head to Paris in the morning. Sad day. Thanks for trynig Ben- I promise I’ll be back soon since I’m planning on finding and English guy to marry! We’ll meet up then!

Now that I’ve written the LONGEST blog post known to man I’ll Leave you be. Rest your eyes and get ready PARIS is next!

Cheers!

Stringer

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