Touring London

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The first part of my trip was two days in London, and since this was my first time in Europe I was nothing but starstruck the entire time. The first day my plane arrived at 8:00 a.m. and boy was I exhausted to say the least. I had been on a plane the preceding 15 hours and was experiencing a six hour time change. The first day was sort of a blur since we walked the entire day, I was a bit cold and I fell asleep during bathroom breaks and at the dinner table. My group was traveling with some students from Ontario and it was interesting to not only see the cultural differences, but they had a night flight so they were awake and laughed at all the Texans asleep at dinner. Okay, so now I will talk about London. The first day we walked around Picadilly Circus and were given time to shop and eat lunch. I found a nice sub shop and I saw the theater where Harry Potter premiered. It felt like a less flashy Times Square. I also was surprised at all the red phone booths, I really thought they were only in movies. Then we traveled to Trafalgar Square and I briefly went into the Natural History Museum because I am too impatient to look at a lot of art. Then I went outside and stood at the fountain and watched a rally go on but for what I don't know. We then walked to the London Eye and walked along the Thames and watched the street performers break dance and sing and perform magic tricks. We walked a lot more to the Globe Theater and other museums which frankly I lost my memory at this point because there was a lot of dozing off involved. I do however remember the dinner that night. It was in an underground authentic stone walled restaurant resembling a castle. I had great fish and chips and I remember dozing off at the table, waking up to find my friends asleep at the table, and walking another 30,000 leauges under the sea to the London Underground. The second day we took a bus tour to see Buckingham Palace. We saw the changing of the guards which included a group of soldiers parading past us with the trumpets sounding off, it was really cool but crowded so finding a good spot was tough. The bus also took us to see Big Ben and the new millenium bridge and back to Picadilly. I ate at Piizza Hut, which was not really in the spirit of trying new things but oh well. I also did a lot of shopping and bought a replica big ben and other trinkets. Our last stop was the beautiful train station where we boarded to take the chunnel crossing to Paris. My London trip was a great first introduction to Europe though I do hope I can come back to the UK to tour longer and view more of the countryside rather than the city.

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