London Calling

So I am back from London and for some reason STILL catching up on sleep...I didn't even have late nights like I would normally on the weekend but I guess traveling just exhausted me.  Kind of like how Kira's camera battery was exhausted and just didn't want to work :-P

Anyways, I loved London!  At first it was totally strange to hear English all around me...for the past 6 months I have been in a country where I rarely hear English spoken and I haven't heard a lot of English any places I have traveled either.  This was the first place I have been in 6 months where I could understand all the conversations around me and read all the signs; it was a bit of information overload since Dutch is so easy for me to tune out if I want to.  All of a sudden I found myself not knowing where to look or what to actually listen to but I got used to it.  It was really nice to not have the first thing someone said to me be in another language, to not get nervous when I order something and worry about saying something correctly.

I flew on Easy Jet which is one of the cheapest airlines and I can totally see why...the seats were tiny!  On the way there the man next to me was practically on top of me.  People also seemed to be a bit dumber than on other airlines, for what reason, who knows.  I am not sure what it accomplishes when all 100+ people try to stand up as soon as the plane lands.  I mean really?  The person at the window seat has no reason to stand, there is just not enough room in the aisle.  I even saw people taking bags out of the overhead compartment over other people's heads and just shoving them aside to get their stuff as fast as possible.  It would be much faster if people just stopped and realized the most efficient way to get off a plane is for the people in the aisle to go, then the middle and then the window and then the aisle on the other side has their turn.

I got to London late on Friday night and once I met up with Heather I put my bag down at her place and we went for a walk along the Thames River.  Not a lot to see but it was nice to walk around instead of going to bed...I saw the London Eye and the Big Ben from far away and at night the London Eye is red and really pretty.  The next morning I met up with 2 other au pairs from Holland, Kira and Stephanie.   So first, we went to Camden which was this awesome market area full of vintage shops and TONS of food from all over the world.  I think it was one of my favorite parts of London.  On the outside of a lot of the shops were big converse shoes, a plane, and a bunch of other objects.

After Camden we went towards the Big Ben, the Parliament Houses and Westminster Abbey.   They were all really beautiful.  The architecture in Europe is amazing.  London streets are not kind to your feet!! I don't understand how some women walk around in sky high heels..it is just dumb!  Our feet were killing us so we wanted to stop for a coffee but it seems that there is never any restaurants near the big tourist places so we walked awhile more and on the way stopped for some classic pictures inside telephone booths.

Next we were off to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge and again more walking around with sore feet trying to find somewhere for dinner.  We ended up walking quite far which was alright since a lot of the tube was closed for work or something...we wanted fish and chips for dinner and ended up at an Irish restaurant.  The fish and chips were really good though!  Then finally met back up with Heather (who I was staying with) and we went to Covent Garden.  Covent Garden is full of pubs and clubs to go out and lots of street performers.  We watched one guy for awhile and his big trick was to fit his whole body through a tennis racket.  He dislocated his arm which was disgusting to see and then made it like a helicopter and did a bunch of stuff flailing his arm around.  At one point he was trying to get the audience more lively and told them to stop clapping like a bunch of English people at a cricket match and to clap like Americans with feeling and so of course the 4 of us started whistling and yelling really loud and since we were in the front he said "yes, see what I mean! Just like those Americans."

Sunday we woke up to go see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace.  The Palace wasn't as beautiful as I was expecting it to be.  It was also just insanely crowded so it was kind of annoying after awhile.  The guards are impressive...I don't know how they keep such a straight face.  I spent most of the time looking for them cracking a smile or messing up..I did see one guy fall behind when they were walking and shuffle to catch back up and another one cracked a smile at one point.

After Buckingham Palace we went to King's Crossing to see platform 9 3/4 from Harry Potter.  Sadly, they have apparently moved it from the actual brick wall to just a plastic fake brick wall up against a white one so it didn't look quite as real. :(  I had wanted to go to Abbey Road also but since I had to catch a bus to the airport we didn't have time.  I will have to save that and a few other things for another possible trip to London to visit Heather again! :)  The trip ended with a visit to Chipotle which we were all so excited for!  It was just as satisfying as I was expecting and a good end.  Overall, a great weekend visiting Heather who has left Holland but now I have a reason to visit London and travel the UK with her.