London

Okay here is the beginning of the details of my trip with pictures. Enjoy!

Newly Arrived in London waiting for the tube in the Underground.


Schlepping our bags to our first hotel through the city. There was a lot of this throughout the trip as we only slept in the same place twice two nights out of the whole trip. Once we got settled we headed out into the city.


The view from the top of St. Paul's Cathedral. The one and only time we climbed lots of stairs. Thank goodness.


Sarah June and Amanda



Me and Amber standing opposite the cathedral about to part ways. Since four of the girls hadn't been to London before and Melanie and I had; we separated after this so they would go see things we already saw and we would see new things.



We hit the tube station at full speed, okay not really. We kind of eased along on this day. It was nice but a part of me regrets that we didn't speed ourselves up more and get more in.


We had lunch at this little outdoor restaurant in Covent Square and I had the most delicious panini. We did a lot of people watching, which was interesting. There were quite a few street performers who when they are done verbally solicit for money. It was like they had scheduled times to perform too, because when one guy finished another one started to set up for his show. It was very interesting.


This guy was really funny and had pulled in quite a crowd. Here he is just about to walk this rope while juggling three large knives and he did very successfully. He was very adamant about getting paid, which kind of turned me off and ruined the novelty of the experience but Mel and I each gave him a pound because he was pretty entertaining. The performer right after him actually called to me as I was walking by and I tried to ignore him, but I had to turn around since the square was virtually empty now. These guys are also set up with microphones and speakers. It was really odd. Anyway some silliness ensued with me being cuddled up next to some guy sitting on the curb and the performer taking my purse and making me chase him for it. It got old pretty quick let me tell you. So we moved on.


To Trafalgar square. It's famous for Nelson's column and the National Gallery. It had a really good vibe. There was a group of mimes all copying one mime on top of a column. It was very silly.


There was also this huge art installation of a chess set as you can see behind me. It was really cool. Then we headed into the National Gallery and saw some amazing portrait work and some Monets which are my favorite. The colors were so vivid in most of them. It was amazing.


Unfortunately, we arrived at Harrods too late. It's the largest store with seven floors. We just did a little window shopping and then headed back to the hotel. The other girls had all returned already. Here is what they had been up to while we were gone.


They took the tour of Tower Castle and Bridge. Sarah Davis, Amanda and Sarah Buttars


Amber and Sarah B.


They took a river tour and passed Big Ben and the London Eye while seeing other major sites in London. They next headed to Picadilly Circus, which is similar to Time Square.


The next morning Melanie and I headed out bright and early to take the train to Salisbury to take the tour to Stonehenge. "The greatest of all the henges!" We were pretty tired due to not a very good nights sleep. Melanie wasn't sleeping well anyway and then about 1:30 am an alarm went off. Everyone thought it was my phone alarm, but no it was more like a smoke alarm or something. It eventually stopped but not too long later it went off again. I decided to unplug some things that were charging and see if that did anything and it never went off again. So we only had a few more hours to sleep.

Our train ride to Salisbury was very interesting. A guy decided to sit down next to us on the train even though there were plenty of seats elsewhere. He was pretty granola. His name was Graham and he just chatted with us for our entire trip about life and his anxiety attacks and how to him the train was like a prison because you have to buy your own water. He was pretty out there but fun to talk to. He made us laugh quite a bit and he was really nice. He did swear quite a bit, but everyone does over there. He made fun of my accent because I pronounced Salisbury wrong and made me repeat it until I got it right which I knew how to say it, it just came out a little too American for him, I guess. Anyway, I could talk a lot more about him, but we'll move on.


After a short bus ride we arrived at Stonehenge, we had an audio guide and took our time going around the circle. We took lots and lots of pictures. And while we were doing this:


The other girls were doing this:

Buckingham Palace

Big Ben

Westminster Abbey

And seeing this:
Buckingham Palace


Kensington Palace


We hopped on the train to go to Windsor. Which confused us quite a bit but we eventually got there after a really long train ride with lots and lots of stops. I had really wanted to tour the castle but we made it too late. A half hour too late.


The door is right there, but dang the cops are there too.


To say the least, I was bummed. Really Really bummed!


But the night wasn't over yet. We had a stressful train ride back to London because I knew we were going to be an hour late meeting up with the girls and I knew that they were going to be buying us tickets to a show. What show, we had no idea so if they weren't where we said to meet we were screwed. As soon as we got out of the tube station at our stop I switched on our walkie talkie. That's right I brought walkie talkies. They came in very handy at this point. We were able to get hold of the girls just as they were walking to the very tube station we were at. We met up with them down the street as a couple of the girls ran back to our hotel to retrieve our tickets that they had left for us. That's when they informed us the show was Wicked and we needed to haul butt to get to the theatre. Oh man, we were running everywhere on this trip. I was so excited though. I've always wanted to see this show.


And it was so wonderful. I loved it! I desperately need the soundtrack.

After the show we got a quick bite to eat at the train station near by and I had my most disgusting bathroom encounter ever. I can't even talk about it. Then back to our first hotel to grab our bags and head to our next hotel which we decided to stay in kind of last minute. It was really sketchy so luckily we only stayed there four hours as we had an early flight out of London. We ordered a cab and drove 45 minutes to the airport and of course we weren't there early enough and we had to run through the airport to our gate because it was final boarding, but the plane didn't even close the gates until ten or fifteen minutes after we boarded. Can I tell you , I am not a fan of the running. Then I slept most of the way to Ireland.

To be continued...