London, Day 1

---

This is my first real blog entry, can't wait to start filling out all the other days so that everyone can see what I'm doing! The day started out pretty rough, Joon and I woke up in Dublin frantically because we were afraid we were going to miss the free bus shuttle to the airport, which is exactly what happened. It left at 7, and we though it left at 7:30.... anyway we waited for the 9am shuttle, tired (on 3 hours asleep), but excited for what many people call one of the greatest cities in the world!



We arrived at the airport around 10 am, but to add to our dismay we couldn't check in to our flight because the crappy airline (ryanair) we were flying on made all of its passengers check in online at least 2 hours before the flight. If you don't abide by this, you get fined a hefty and ludicrous fee of 70 euros.... I don't even want to know what this translates to in US dollars, but I'll just say that I was extremely frustrated. If only we had made our 7 am shuttle....



Regardless, we got on the plane on time and flew for less than hour, which was nice. I was fatigued and frustrated when we landed, thinking about the ridiculous fee we could have avoided but also because I had a massive headache and all I wanted to do was sleep it off.... but when you travel you have to put these needs aside for the greater adventure, which is what we did. I bought a cup of coffee and a sandwich at the airport (about 4 pounds, not so bad I guess), and started off on the efficient train system that London has set up. To ride on the buses however, one needs something called an oyster card to ride on them, which is a pre-loaded pass that allows you to hop on one of the many buses in Europe for 2 pounds each scan. Joon found this out beforehand, and I swear I don't know how I would have gotten to our hostel so quickly without him, he's been amazing in terms of his research. We arrived at our hostel in shoreditch (some hipster region that Joon was raving about) about an hour and a half later, mostly because we got a little lost trying to find our location, which is natural when you're in a different place.



My first impression of the hostel wasn't as great as the others we had stayed in... for 114 pounds a week we were allowed to stay in a 10 person room, and for 1 pound a day we could enjoy wifi in our rooms as well. I didn't really appreciate the free wifi in the hostels in Dublin and Copenhagen but I sure do now. The room was as expected, small but sufficient. Obviously more spacious than the other rooms we had stayed in, but because the staff had to stuff in 5 bunk beds in here and leave some room for us to walk around.

My impression of Shoreditch (place where the hostel is located): Very cool. incredibly hipster, edgy. Joon and I both agree that it reminds us of San Francisco, with its city like qualities and its laid back people. We walked around for a bit to take in the views, and I took some awesome pictures from one of the bridges that overlooks a river that marks the boundary for two sides of the city (so far there has been a river splitting the city in every place we have stayed in, but London's had the most picturesque view in my opinion). Joon and I went to this meat market downtown and had a 3 patty burger for 8 pounds.... Pretty unbelievable for the price, and so juicy and thick. The area was kind of like a farmer's market, but it included fine artisan cheeses from Italy and France, and meat and seafood from everywhere in Europe. We munched on our burgers and empanadas, savoring each bite and wanting more as it was all gone. If I continue talking about all the food I ate that day, I am going to feel extremely guilty (and hungry :P), so I'm just going to list the places we ate in or bought food from: Coffee shop near the farmer's market (excellent macchiato there); Place called Porky's BBQ (I had a cup of chili) in an area called the BOX which can only be described with the pictures I took, I've never seen anything like it before, it was literally an artistic display of different restaurants nicely packed in together with a chill, vibrant seen of people; Arab coffee shop (had a cake, sweet bread, and muffin there), and the supermarket (bought a pack of cookies for 80 pence, had to for the price). This list isn't a realistic representation of what we WANTED to eat, because if we had it our way (more money) we would have bought everything we saw. In fact, there is some pretty cheap places near the Arabian region we were traveling through that we are definitely going to try.

Yes, there was an Arabian region... It was pretty interesting and different. We were looking for affordable gyms to go to, and they were all located in this region, so we went on a night walk to try and burn off everything we had eaten (with no avail) and to check out what this place was like. It had an intimidating vibe at first, because we felt like outsiders looking into a culture that spoke and acted differently. When we got closer to the gyms however, we saw people of every ethnicity walking around, which was comforting especially at 9 pm at night. We checked out the price for a day pass (the most cost-effective method to workout for our week in London) and 8 pounds seem to be the best we could get at a place called Fit4Less. We walked back to our hostel back happily, obviously getting lost on the way, but it didn't matter because we had a great time and we were ready to sleep and enjoy the next day.

---