London

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Well, I figured I’d put a bit up about London, since that was sort of the first thing that I really did… Let’s see, so I took an overnight plane from Atlanta on the 14th (which only served to reinforce my dislike of air travel) and arrived at Gatwick around 7:30 local time - which would have been 2:30 Eastern time - and met up with a group there to be transported from the airport. Most of the people in the group were actually staying in London for the entire semester - it was only me and one other girl (who I had actually met before, in Atlanta) who were staying in France. Anyway, I was really tired (I got about an hour of sleep on the plane) and don’t particularly remember much of the trip to the hotel - except that it was a really really really long ride… through lots of winding streets that all looked the same… with people driving on the wrong side of the road…. Yeah…
But, we finally made it to the hotel around 10:00 local time and tried to check in - only to be told that our rooms wouldn’t be ready until 2:00. However, there was a representative from AIFS there and he suggested we just go and walk around. So, we left our luggage and headed out into the unknown and quite waterlogged streets of London - Kensington, to be more precise. The Natural History Museum was only about a mile away so we headed for that (because I’ve always wanted to go to one) and although we ended up going in the wrong direction for a good part of the time, we eventually made it there (aided by the handy signs that reminded one to ‘Look Right’ and then to ‘Look Left.’) Seriously, there were signs for everything….
So the Natural History Museum was in a beautiful building that in itself would have been enjoyable to tour… We didn’t actually make it through much of anything (but thankfully it was free so I didn’t feel bad about leaving before finishing) except for the animal part. I felt like I was in a zoo… except that everything was dead. And staring at me with little glassy eyes… But yeah, it was interesting. And we sort of enjoyed being the American tourists - there was one point where we felt quite interesting as we related stories of rattlesnakes and crocodiles in our loud, Southern, American accents (the other girl’s from Mississippi).
But anyway, we left around 1:45ish and made it back to finally get into our hotel rooms - which were lovely, by the way. And for me, I just sort of sat around and tried not to go to sleep until our next scheduled event at 6:00. It was there that everyone from the France group finally met up, for drinks, actually - I had a Pepsi myself… But yeah, sort of a basic orientation meeting, after which we all headed out to experience the Underground for the first time.
We headed out to Leister Square, which wasn’t that far from the hotel, and there we all sort of split up in an attempt to find food. I ended up in a group that wanted to experience China town, so we ate at a nice Chinese restaurant and discovered that splitting the bill is kind of difficult… Oh and I did try one of the girls’ sake, although I can’t say that I particularly enjoyed it… Anyway, after that my group decided to do something that would become quite commonplace over the next week - go searching for a pub. I really didn’t want to go back to the hotel late at night by myself, so I went along… And left with two of the people who decided they weren’t interested either after we found one. And thus ended day 1 of my London experience.
Day 2 was just as long, but much more enjoyable - for one thing it wasn’t raining, perfectly clear, actually. We started out with a guided tour around some of the popular tourist places in the area. I can’t remember everywhere we went…. We did go around St. Paul’s Cathedral and I was very happy that the guide mentioned that that was the location sung about in the ‘Feed the Birds’ song from Marry Poppins (I hadn’t thought of that fact myself.) And I know we drove down both Fleet Street and Drury Lane, though no mention was made of either demon barbers or muffin men. And then we passed by Big Ben and Westminster Abbey on our way to drive by the river - I saw the Eye, but it was down for maintenance, and I didn’t actually see the Tower or the London Bridge, so I guess that’s one reason to go back - not that I really need one. We ended the tour by spending an hour with various guards at Buckingham Palace - we actually saw three sets go by us, in different locations, and we took the traditional tourist picture with a lonely fellow standing in front of some random palace that no one knows about…
After the tour we all split up again - my group had lovely British pasties for lunch and then headed over to spend a few hours at Westminster Abbey. It was a really interesting place and was definitely one of my favorite things done in London - I had always wanted to see it, in any case. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel and spent about an hour resting until our next big event…
Wicked! Yes, I got to see it again - for a relatively inexpensive price, if you ask me. Though I don’t actually remember how much it was at the moment. Anyway, we had great seats and the show was really good. The special effects were much better than in Chicago (I actually enjoyed No Good Deed) although the British accents kind of threw me off for a bit. I have to admit, Glinda’s voice was really annoying. I think she overdid it a bit. But Elphaba was amazing - on par with Idena, I’d say. Anyway, that was a wonderful way to end the day and so we all headed back to the hotel to get what little sleep we could.
We had to get up at 4:00 the next morning so we could make it to Heathrow in time to catch the plane to Lyon. I slept on the way there, myself. It didn’t take long to go through the whole predeparture process bit, but on an interesting note, I got to have my bag searched - my book bag, that is. It was apparently too crammed full of stuff for them to be able to see it on the x-ray - oops, whatever, I didn’t actually care at the time so it was all ok. What wasn’t ok is that the plane was delayed for around 2 hours. Which meant sitting there, worrying about it for an extra two hours - because that’s what I do before (and during) plane rides - worry. But, we finally got on the way and were in Lyon in an hour, which was very nice. And since I’ve written quite a lot, I do believe I’ll leave off here and continue the rest a bit later - maybe sometime after I get back from Venice…

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