Catching up

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Sorry about the delay in posts, this is the first bit of spare time I've had since I arrived.

My first flight went off pretty well. The clerk at Continental Air was very nice and rearranged the seats so that I could sit by the window after I told him it was my first flight. Thankfully I met up with other American abroad students at the Cleveland Airport, so it wasn't very hard at all to navigate Newark once we got there. British Airways was amazing. The food was actually good, they gave out free bottles of wine, and the movie selection was pretty decent. Another interesting feature included an interactive map that showed the path of the plane as well as outdoor temperatures, altitude, etc. We made it to Heathrow in under 6 hours. We had roughly 4 hours to blow once we got there, so we took our time getting through security and getting our luggage.

Got to our hotel a little after 11. Very very strange place. It was an old townhouse that looked like something out of Faulty Towers. The rooms were pretty nice, but had see through showers within the room. Suffice to say special friends were made during our stay in London. From the time we got to the hotel we were running non stop for three days. London was absolutely amazing and unlike anything I expected it to be. I'm used to American cities that are crowded with skyscrapers and human congestion. London is completely different. It has no rhyme or reason. Some areas are completely new and developed, and others possess buildings dating back to the time of the Romans. Another thing that struck me about London was how immaculately clean it is. There is virtually no litter on the roads, no bad smell, but also very few public rubbish bins. We spent the first day navigating the Tube and getting a few sights in. Unfortunately we were all so jet lagged that most of us fell asleep during the Thames boat tour. Against my better judgement I went out to the pubs with some other Americans later that night. The sun sets around 4 or 5 PM here, so we made an early night of it. The next day was probably my favorite in London. We saw the Tower of London, the houses of Parliment, and Westminster Abbey. We had a really amazing tour guide for Westminster Abbey. I don't think I've ever been in a building so full of history. I saw the tomb of Queen Elizabeth and Chaucer (he was a little person apparently?). My other favorite site was the British Museum. I very well could have spent an entire day in that museum. Spent the rest of that day running around London with Ryan, Arun, Elise, TJ, and Torrey. The Tube is relatively easy to understand and get around on. For some reason the only difficuluty we had was remembering which way to turn to get from the Holborn station back to our hotel. Later that night Ryan, Arun and I explored Chinatown and Picadilly Circus. Couldn't resist the novelty of public drinking, so we bought a bottle of wine and drank it on our way back to the hotel. Also during that night our tour guide took us on the Jack the Ripper tour. This entailed dragging us into what seemed to be the dodigiest end of London. Had some fantastic nightmares after that one.
Day three did not go as smoothly. We checked out and had no place to store our luggage or laptops. After a great deal of arguing we decided it was best to drag our laptops through a rainy London. Wasn't so bad as we were able to check them at the Tate Modern. Got back three hours later and took off for Leicester. Will be posting pictures soon!

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Comments

[Nicky]

There's our girl!
Hi Liz - It's nicky and Matt - well just nicky, matt is at work. I was cleaning the house and came accross your travel blog address you had left for us! I am glad to see you are doing well and they are keeping you very busy. Stay safe and I hope to read up more on your amazing adventure! Peace~Nicky