London is expensive, but the internet is cheap!

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I was going to call this entry, "chilling with Antonio", but then I thought a) he is sitting right beside me and this may seem creepy and b) this would give the impression that there is some sort of foreign love affair going on between this boy and I. My dad reads this thing, if I'm going to imply I'm having an affair with a foreigner I"ll probably just say so. So that he doesn't get the wrong idea. Like that I'm chaste.

Being with the Brits has sure made me witty, no? No.

Anyway, the internet is the only thing that is cheap in this city, and because the two museums I planned on seeing this evening both closed at 5 (i realized this when I was having a snack at 4:15) and because even the cheap theatre tickets aren't cheap (and i refuse to pay to see Dirty Dancing) I've come here. With Antonio. Where the keyboards are sucky, but the internet is only 1 pound for two hours. Antonio doesn't speak very good English. I can't say I mind. Dad.

Also, before I got into my day and such... today I was sitting outside of a park.. that I forget the name of already... because I'm old... and there was this girl sitting on a bench across from me. I noticed her because she had bought a sweater, and i liked the sweater. Anyway--now, like 5 hours later, she is sitting next to me in this internet cafe. An internet cafe with two floors... Weird, no? Yes.
I'm all about answering my own questions. Isn't this the best travel blog you've ever read? This is what happens when I don't have an actual conversation for 1.5 days I suppose.
Then again.. there is always Antonio..

In addition to acknowledging the fact that I will never read this over to fix grammar/spelling errors, I would also like to mention that Bristish keyboards are different from ours.. so again, pardon les mistakes.

And now for the travel. Last night was interesting because I managed to stay awake until 8:30. Which means I was awake for almost 30 hours. I slept off an on until about 7:30am. One roomate was out by 5am, which seemed really harsh... then two more were up and loudly packing by 7:30.. i just pretended to sleep through it. Eventually, the French girl and I gave yup and pretty much got up at the same time. The showers in this hostel make NO sense. There is NO where to put your clothes/towel to keep them dry, except for this hallway (right under the "steal my expensive travel towel" sign). But there is one shower, that sort of shares a room with a toilet. In that one you can pile all your stuff on the toilet, or smaller things on the window sil. It's very strange.

The first thing I did this morning was visit Brompton Cemetary. The guy on the plane had told me it was by the hostel, so I thought I would check it out. He told me that Beatrix Potter had sat there and watched animals play and that's where she got her inspiration. So as a little writer, I thought I would check it out. Actually, and weirdly, it was my favorite thing that i've seen here so far. It was beautiful, and creepy and just.. wonderful. I know my pictures won't really get across the feeling of it (they never do). I just really loved something about it. It was a cold foggy windy day here, and it was creepy at times. There are also these insane squires that seriously run AT you, and stop about a foot from you when they realize you're not going to feed them. Perhaps they are possessed.. i'm not sure.. either way, it's a little frightening. The cemetary was also huge, I think I was walking around it for about 1.5 hours. It was misty. And foggy. And somehow completely awesome. I currently don't have the right word to describe how it felt to be there.

London has more pigeons than any other place I"ve been. Good call with that one person who wrote Mary Poppins. I'm waiting to see the tupins lady. Maybe I will buy a bag. Mary told me to. I actually didn't get a chance to see St. Paul's Cathedral, so Ill save that for when I return on Monday I guess.

After that I got on the tube, which i now find extremely easy to use, and just decided to head in the general direction of Piccadilly Circus. So that's what I did. From there I ran into Trafallgar Square, all the theatres, the canadian embassy.. and eventually made my way to Big Ben and Parliament. I know I shouldn't have, but I may or may not have called a certain cousin at 6:30am her time to tell her where I was standing. I thought it was funny. She just wanted to sleep.

Besides Pigeons, English people also love cakes. I bought some sort of packaged thing .. it was actually pretty good. It was called a flapjack, i bought it just because it was called that, I'm not gonna lie.

Then i decided to splurge on a ticket for the London Eye. It costs 15.50 pounds.. so roughly 32 dollars. It was pretty neat though. I managed to figure out where a few things were from being up there, instead of looking at a map.

Then I walked to Buckingham Palace, and made my way down the Princess of Whales Memorial Walk, then to Hyde Park. It was cold here today, I was wearing three sweaters and was far from warm. But I think it helped to keep me awake, when the jet lag started to set in (sort of like it's doing right now or it could be the walking I did.. or both..) From there I made a trip to Victoria Station because I wanted to figure out how to get my train ticket to Lewes, as i'm leaving for there tomorrow. There was some sort of discount, so that was nice, but it still cost me 26 pounds, return----which realistically is still cheaper than two nights in a hostel! The problem with these tickets is that they don't tell you WHICH train to get on, or WHICH plateform to go to... just here's a ticket, use it after 9:30am. Have fun! We'll do.

People are right, even though I'm being cheap, British food--so far--is far from exciting. I've eating what feels like a bazillion sandwhiches.

After that my feet were (are) le tired, so i got on the tube. My plan was to have coffee/snack and then go to a museum. By they all close at 5pm... and it was 4:15. Add that to my list of things to do when I get back. I also want to see more of old London.

That's pretty much it. I went back to the hostel and met a girl from Australia who just finished a call back from a theatre school (now I"m forgetting which maybe AMDA? do they have one of those here? it's not RADA).

Antonio and I are off for a drink... which will probably cost me like $10. Fun. First i have to try and figure out the train schedule...

xoxo,
Lana

PS
I saw a man with a weed eatter today at the cemetary, this made me think of home, and dad.... lawn equipment will forever make me thing of my father. You would be pround of their weed eatting skillz.

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Comments

[Stacey]

It's so bizarre to me that I was there, on the other side of the world, a couple weeks ago, and now you are there... at the London Eye, in P.Circ, etc. Imagine I'm there with you giving you big hugs and someone to chat to. Wishing I were. <3

[Tanya]

Look kids
I loved the big ben parliment call!! ha ha.