London Weekend

The great old city of London. Started off Saturday by waiting at the stop for an hour and ten minutes because the first bus that I was trying to catch didn’t show up. The busses around here are kind of shady. They can be late sometimes, early other times, and just not show up sometimes. Oh, and it was raining so it wasn’t looking good for the first few hours. But by the time I got on the train the sun had started to poke out and the rain had lifted. When I stopped in London I walked to the closest park and it had a bunch of gardens and soccer fields with tons of kids running around. I stopped and played hacky sack with a group of college kids for an hour or two. It was pretty fun. They told me a few places to go once the sun went down. I walked through the big park and through a ritzy part of town to get to my hostel. I checked in and dropped off my backpack in my locker so I didn’t have to drag it around town. There was a pub in the hostel and I went down for a pint. I ended up meeting Carlos from Portugal who said he was a regular at the hostel due to doing dental work in the area. We had a few beers together and he was kind of bummed out because he missed his flight earlier that morning. He was out parting too late the night before, so I couldn’t convince him to come back out with me for another night. He did also tell me a few places to go. So then I took the Underground to Piccadilly Circus, a pretty big tourist spot, where London pavilion shopping center is. I hopped a few pubs and found a few places that were alright but the drinks were like 10 pounds and a lot of places had steep cover charges. I did make my way into a basement bar that had reasonable drink prices and didn’t have obnoxious techno music blasting. I ended up starting to have a few drinks with a group of people and went around to a few other places. I did happen to find someone that had studied in Madison and we both couldn’t believe that the world can be so small sometimes. It was funny because her husband was British and kept getting mad because his wife started to use her American accent and he didn’t like that one bit. Overall, it was a great night and I ended up meeting some cool people and did make it home safely into my bed at my hostel.
I woke up fairly early around 9 and started my day off by getting on the Underground and I had an English breakfast about 4 blocks from Big Ben. I wondered around the area for a few hours and took some pictures and soaked up some of the sights, acting like a true tourist. Monday was a Bank Holiday here so there were quite a few tourists around to crowd up the sidewalks. I walked around the south bank for a little bit and watched a few street performers try to beg for money from everyone walking past. I worked my way north again and made it to the British Museum. I think that museum has some of the greatest pieces of history in the world. The Rosetta Stone, a piece of the Great Sphinx, Amenhotep III’s Colossal granite head, and over 130 mummies and tombs, just to name a few. I spent a good 4 hours walking around that place and I still don’t think I got to see it all. I was pretty drained at this time so I had a good meal before I left and jumped the last train I could and still make the last bus home out of Bath. I did have a great time and I will be back to spend more time there.

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