London

So I spent the weekend of my Toussaint break in London with Matt, Sally, her friend Helen, and MEGAN, who also goes to Doane and is in my sorority!  She's studying in Wales, where I am currently staying with her. London was super fun. Exhausting. But fun.

Matt, Sally, and I left Rennes at 5pm Friday afternoon for Paris.  We arrived around 7:30 and left to find something to eat.  We returned to the train station to find that we had missed our train to London. Panic ensued.  For one, I had no way of telling Megan we would be late to the hostel. For two, if there were no seats left on the last train out, we'd have to stay overnight.  Luckily, we were able to get on the next train.  Quite an adventure that was....

Me and Sally on the train to London.  Our car was full of loud, drunk French students.

 

Thankfully, the hostel was easy to find, and I found Megan!!  After a long wait to check in (at midnight, go figure), we were able to get into bed and try to sleep.  Keyword being try.  We slept in a tiny, tiny room with 20 beds all crammed and stacked together (which I forgot to take a picture of, unfortunately), and it was kind of loud all night.  People coming and going and trying to find their stuff, etc...  I probably slept two hours or less.  Oh well.  That's a hostel for you.  I've decided I'm not cut out to be a world traveller since I'm so paranoid about having clean sheets...  but I didn't contract any diseases so we're all good.

 

Saturday we all took a bike tour of London which was really fun.  Our tour guide was great and I got to ride a Fat Tire bike named Alexander Graham Bell!  We saw all sorts of things, including Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Westminster Abbey (where I'm still convinced I saw the Queen), and the Houses of Parliament.  Our tour guide told us about a guy who succeeded in breaking into Buckingham Palace, and made it all the way to the Queen's sleeping chambers, where it had a conversation with her at four in the morning.  He also gave us a delicious description of being hung, drawn, and quartered (because of Guy Fawkes, who tried to blow up Parliament once. V for Vendetta).

 

Will and Kate weren't home.

 

After all that, we tried to find an Indian restaraunt down in Chelsea but decided not to eat there since it was take out only.  After four hours of walking in the cold, rain, and even a little random hail, we found a place to sit down and eat basically right by our hostel, where an American couple bought the five of us beer and extra rice to go with our meal.  How crazy is that!  It was all very good.  Then Sally and her friend left and Matt, Megan and I went back to the hostel and watched the Adjustment Bureau before bed.  Thankfully I slept a lot better.

 

Sunday was a random day of walking and taking the tube.  We saw the changing of the guards and walked across Tower Bridge.  We also saw Big Ben and Parliament, and went to the humungous British Museum. (I tried really hard not to geek out.)

 

I'm wearing that hat because I hadn't showered in three days... no way was I getting in the shower at that hostel after I forgot a pair of flip-flops.

 

MUMMIES

 

Then we left Matt to catch his train and Megan and I tried to do a Harry Potter walking tour I found.  We ended up spending more time lost than actually seeing things, but it was a good try nonetheless.

Supposed to be Honeyduke's. =)

 



See ya at Hogwarts!

 

Then Megan and I decided it was cold and we were tired and it wasn't going to be very much fun wandering around London aimlesslessly in the dark.  So we spent the next four hours in the train station waiting for our 11:30pm train to Wolverhampton, where we would spend another four hours in the waiting room there, trying to sleep until our train to Bangor came at 6am.  Except there was a little kid there too, who spent the whole night shouting about wanting to go home and/or wanting an apple.  What a typical college world travelling experience, haha.  It was the cheapest train, so of course we took it.

 

Finally we made it to Bangor around 8:30am, where I took immediate advantage of Megan's shower, which RUNS CONTINUOUSLY and has a CONSISTENTLY WARM TEMPERATURE.  I was so happy.  Won't have that again for another two months when I leave here... sigh.

 

I'll write more about my Wales adventure this weekend when I get home and have a chance to upload the pictures from my iPod. =) I'm so happy I'm here with my friend!  I was needing something from home to help me get through the last two months.  I think it will go a lot faster now.