01-02-2009 (Week 3) - London

This past weekend we went out to London, England for London's b-day. In all honesty, one weekend is really only enough to wet your appetite for London. There is so much to see and the city is so large, that if we want to go back, we could spend another week there and not see the same stuff again.

Friday night we arrived in Gatwick (cheaper to fly there) and took a train into town and our hostel. We had the pleasure of Justin's company with us this weekend, as he was in town for to help with a Maturity A review (which we aced, btw). When we arrived at the hostel it was about 12, but most everything was closed, pub-wise that is. So we decided to hit up the hostel bar which apparently is open 24 hours/day.

The night started slow, but turned into a good one by 3am. We played a friendly game of foosball (see video for results), and talked with a girl from Russia for awhile about how much she hated Americans. I tired to enter the conversation with an open mind and told her, "Look, to be honest, I probably fit the bill of what you think about Americans. I don't know much about Europe or its culture. But I'm trying to learn, and you at least have to give me the benefit of the doubt for my honesty, and my desire to learn more."

She didn't.

And by the end of the conversation she was trying to convince us how dumb we were because we didn't know who invented broccoli. I had found her wallet earlier that night and turned it into the bartender. Now I wish I would've turned it into the toilet.

Saturday we woke up and took the tube into town. We hoped on an open top double decker bus, even though is was 2 degrees C at the time, and explored the city. My favorite part of London was Big Ben (which is the name of the bell inside the clock). I probably took too many pictures to attest to that. Saturday night we ventured out again and found 'quite possibly the largest pub in the world.' We just drank a few brews and took the midnight bus home, where we sat up top in the front row and pretended like we were driving...

Sunday we headed out to Buckingham Palace and the changing of the guard. As you can see, one of the guards himself wasn't too impressed with the ceremony (double-click on picture to enlarge). After relatively short Sunday, we headed to the airport to catch our flight, when the snow began to fall. To make a long story short, London got the most snow it had seen in 18 years and our flight was cancelled (after we sat on the plane for 2.5 hours). We were told to re-book new flights online, and we did. We then found a quaint little hostel in Gatwick which we stayed. And believe it or not, they had the superbowl on TV.

Needless to say we arrived late into work on Monday, without repercussion. I think it helped that the snow storm was such a big story. Enjoy the video. I will hopefully have the slideshow posted soon! Right now my apartment doesn't have internet!

Pictures