Oi London

Friday morning our little group loaded onto a coach and we headed to London. Now I've always wanted to live in London since I was younger. The city seemed like the perfect thing for me. Well I don't so much think that anymore. Don't get me wrong I loved the city and my shins are stronger for it but it's a bit too big for my taste. I'd honestly live in Edinburgh, Scotland instead of London. I fell in love with Scotland and the sights surrounding it.

We arrived in London after a 3 hour drive. I slept and listened to my Ipod. It was great. We ended up having to walk a block to get to our hostel and so we arrived we started the process of checking into the hostel. Some of our rooms weren't ready to move into and of course mine and Natasha's wasn't ready. Go figure. We placed our bags in Mark's room so we didn't have to carry them around everywhere.

For London they gave us 50 pounds and an oyster card. An oyster card is a card that we can use in London for the tube instead of buying a ticket every time. It was wonderful to not have to worry about that one thing. After the hostel, Emert decided to take us to Westminster by way of using the tube. At first I was nervous but eventually the tube came naturally to me. Once we arrived in Westminster the first thing we saw was the London Eye and we first heard Big Ben chime for 11 o'clock. It was wonderful.

We split up after this and a few of us decided to take a boat tour that traveled up and down the Thames River. We saw almost every major landmark in London on that trip. We disembarked at Greenwich which we went our separate ways. Natasha, Nikki, and I went to a Mexican restaurant where I had my first margarita. I thought the restaurant wouldn't be authentic, but everything was, even my drink. Very strong.

After the wonderful meal we decided to jump on the tube and head north to Kings Cross Station. Home of platform 9 and 3/4. Maneuvering the tube was a bit difficult at first but we figured in out in time. When we arrived at King's Cross...it was a mess. It seems everywhere in London there was construction. Apparently they were remodeling the whole entire tube and train station in King's Cross. So of course we had a difficult time of location 9 and 3/4. We asked a gentleman and he told us that they moved it outside the main entrance of the train station. As you can see from my pictures that it wasn't worth the trip to the station seeing as how it's fake. The brick and everything. It was disappointing but at least I can say that I've been to King's Cross.

We decided to head back to where our hostel was located and before we decided to grab dinner we took a walk through Kensington Gardens. The place was beautiful. One of our main goals was to find the Princess Diana fountain. And let me tell you it was hard! Eventually we found it and there were many people surrounding it. The fountain was beautiful and had only been open for a handful of years. After this we met a man who was celebrating her birthday which happened to be that day. We talked to him for a while and got a picture with him which I found slightly funny.

We headed back to the hostel and tried to find a small restaurant or cafe where we could get something to eat. We found the nice little cafe/deli where the owner was so nice. We ate there and the food was delicious. Afterwards we went back to the hostel and passed out.

On Saturday we woke up early and headed out to the London Eye where we all had tickets. Being in the Ferris wheel was really scary, with the whole being up so high thing, but eventually I got over that and took pictures. After the eye we were allowed to split apart again and The three Musks (Nikki, me and Natasha) headed to Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, and the Tate Britain, which was a museum. After this we tried finding a tube but the two we went to were closed for maintenance. Which sucked. We finally found one that was open and headed towards Buckingham Palace.

At Buckingham Palace the gates were closed and we missed the time when the Changing of the Guards took place, so really there was nothing to see there besides the Palace. After Buckingham we decided to head back to the hostel and we stopped to get food at that Deli and headed back to the hostel to eat and wait for one of Natasha's friends to come over. When she left we decided to head to bed.