 |
| We had left Oxford at 3pm that afternoon and left North Hampton at 10pm, but the night was far from over. |
 |
| We went from North Hampton to London and boarded a bus to our hotel. An hour later it was 1am and we were standing out on a dark street looking for our hotel. Turns out our hotel had double booked our room so we got to stay in a crappy motel down the street. Instead of sneaking four people into a 2 person room we all crammed into a one bed shoe box. What's worse is that we tried to all sleep in the one bed. Failure of the century. Cassie ended up on the floor and none of us slept more than an hour. |
 |
The next day was Saturday, and after checking out of the Hell Hole, we met up with Jaime and Kaitlin and found the hostel we would be staying at that night. We stayed in a 12 bed dorm not much bigger than my 2 person dorm back at UW but I'm not complaining, at least I had my own bed. For the duration of Saturday we bummed around London half asleep and saw as many sights as we had the competency to plan out and the energy to execute. Check out more Saturday pictures below: |
 |
Yes it's real but no, alas, that is not Harry Potter. |
 |
| Saw Margaret Thatcher's house, she has a guard on duty 24/7! |
 |
| We almost went to see a show, I was game for Wicked or Phantom of the Opera but the tickets were too expensive :( |
 |
| Overall Saturday was good, later that night we went to the infamous club Fabric and I spent another night not sleeping. London didn't get amazing until Sunday though. |
 |
| We began the day looking for the Tate Modern museum, where we were meeting the entire class. By this time we were pro at using the Underground. |
 |
On the way we saw some very pretty sights.  |
 |
After leaving the Tate we stayed in the area for lunch and saw Shakespeare's Globe (the new one) and the Millennium Bridge.   The bridge is for walking and straddles the Thames. After lunch we used our free time to go to Harrods, a famous department store for rich people. |
 |
| The only way to describe Harrods would be to call it a wardrobe into the Narnia of consumerism. At first it seems normal, but then you notice the staff wears costumes to reflect their job and that each archway in Harrods leads to a new wonderland of fur coats, candy shops, $4000 dresses and more. I was in shock that each store led to a new part of the store, and that it really never ended. I looked through an archway and could only see more archways until they got too small to make out. A pound of cherries cost 30 pounds (about $50) and all the employees welcomed you like they couldn't tell you couldn't afford anything. The ceilings were painted like cathedrals and there was classical music playing. I saw champagne bars on each floor and women in beautiful evening dresses just standing about. It was the most amazing surreal place I have ever entered. |
 |
| We saw other unreal things too but soon had to meet up the class again st the London Eye. A giant Ferris wheel that seats 22 people per car. |
 |
The Eye! About a 30 minute line and very expensive, but so worth it. We got to see all of London from up there.  |
 |
| We went very high.... don't tell Brian though. |
 |
| After the Eye we stayed in the area of Southbank, basically just the pier next to the Eye. We got ice cream cones and looked for face painters, this picture is of the largest IMAX theater in London. Afterwards we went back to the hostel to get our stuff and made our way back to the Tube to catch a ride back to Oxford. London was marvelous and I really loved that Sunday was sunny and beautiful. For me it was especially odd, but wonderful, to re-experience things that I had already done once before as a small child and see them from a new perspective. For example, walking into Harrods for the second time in my life felt more surreal because I had memories of it from long ago, kind of like deja-vu. I think I will be returning to London some day, perhaps for a longer period of my life. |
No comments:
Post a Comment