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August 5th 2009

Published: August 5th 2009

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jeffhunt

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We arrived in London in the morning and had the challenge of finding our hostel. Even though they speak English here, we still struggled understanding a word that the first few people that we spoke with were saying. Finally we found someone who spoke a form of English that we could undsertand and we made our way into town. The first person that we met on the whole trip was about 5 minutes into our train ride, and she was from St. Catharines and lives in Toronto.

The first day was tough to overcome the jet lag so we wondered around the area that our hostel was in, Camden, and quickly realized another cultural difference...driving. Getting used to crossing the street when the cars are on the other side of the road seemed to be something that we never got used to. We had a few people a bit angry with us the first few times we crossed smaller streets, with a few close calls. Eventually we got used to looking down first before left or right, as every main street has painted on the ground, 'LOOK LEFT' or 'LOOK RIGHT'. This seemed to mean cars have the

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right of way over pedestrians, and you are being warned.

Our second day started off with a traditional English breakfast, thick bacon (much worse than back home), beans, sauage, and eggs. We took the tube down to Picadilly Circus, the main downtown area of London. We hooked up with a tour and saw the main sites, including Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the River Thames, and a ride up the London Eye. We also went to the National Gallery and saw paintings from Monet, Picasso, and Van Gogh. After pretending we knew anything about art, we headed back to the hostel and went to the bar, where we met our Scottish friend. He convincly told us to follow him downtown to the best pubs in town, which we did, and went to a rock pub where there was a band playing mostly American music. The lead singer was wearing a Billy Talent shirt (a band from Ontario), and the Brits were dancing around singing all night.

Our final day consisted of finding our way to the ferry station, where we wait to take an overnight ferry to Holland, and a train to a city on the beach