Blokes in London.

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June 25
Travel day! We took 3 trains to Calais, France and a ferry to Dover, England. Our next move was to take a train or bus to London, but we got into the port at 9:30 pm, and apparently, everything stops working at that time. We couldn’t get anything out and realized that we were fucked. Thankfully, we weren’t the only ones. We met two girls from Finland who were backpacking as well. And a boy named Brendan from Ireland who has been travelling, couchsurfing and hitchhiking since last August. He has been doing something called WWOOFing, where he worked on organic farms in exchange for food and a place to stay. Which is awesome and exactly what my next trip is going to be. We all decided to sleep in the port together (which was very similar in appearance to an airport). We made a circle of chairs, shared food, listened to music, and talked with each other. It turned into a very good night.

June 26
Caught the 5:30 am bus to London with Brendan. As soon as we got in, we ate a good English breakfast. We then walked around and saw all the main tourist sites: Westminster Abbey, the Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and the London Eye. We met up with our host, Lucie, and walked to a pub two minutes down the street, the Coborn Arms. We had some good food and drinks (Strongbow, hard apple cider, and Shanti, lemonade mixed with Fosters beer) and watched the semi-final football game. The atmosphere wasn’t as intense as the Holland game because England is not in the tournament, but it was still exciting. Spain beat Italy, if you care. Her friend, Ben, met up with us at the pub and we got to know them a little bit better. Lucie was a French writer from Paris and Ben was a French porn marketer. They were fun to talk to, if you can imagine.

June 27
Today was amazing. We went to a market on Portobello Road. It was basically streets and streets lined with markets selling anything and everything. Food, fruit, veggies, clothes, toys, odds and ends. My favorites were the antique shops. I could have spent so much time and money in that place! I ended up only buying some old, rusty antique keys and a clock necklace. Which made me very happy. We stopped by the Holland park, next to the market, and found it to be really interesting. There were peacocks just hanging out in the park. It was very strange. I can’t remember what happened at night, but I’m sure it was something fabulous.

June 28
Today was a very busy day. We went to the Tate Modern, which was a very popular (and free) modern art museum. It had a lot of great art in it and was a great experience. We also went to go see St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London. After that, we met up with Lucie and went to the Natural History Musuem (also free) and saw some cool dinosaur bones and other exhibits. Then Lucie took us to an area with a lot of Indian resturaunts and I tried my first Indian food. And my thoughts? Eh, I’ll stick to the good stuff.

June 29
Today we went to the Shakespeare’s Globe, an open air theater, and saw the Shakespeare play The Merry Wives of Windsor. It was only 5 pounds, and although we had to stand, we had an amazing view. It was a great play all around; good actors, very funny, and fun. After that, we went to a pub down a London street and watched the final football game, Spain vs Germany. We bought Strongbow at the local store for 1 pound each and drank that, then went to the pub. Haha. It was a very good match and fun to hang out at the pub. There was a lot of people and it was very crowded, but it all added to the atmosphere, so I enjoyed it. Afterwards, I met a couple interesting characters. An Australian man, his French friend, a Canadian and his dad. It was a strange group, but they had some good stories.

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