London

(reading in hyde park)

(tower of London)

(tower bridge)

(big ben, parliament, london eye)

(windsor castle)

So after almost a month away from home--which I can't believe--I'm finally sitting down to write my first entry and catch everyone up. Get comfortable though cos these first few entries (especially this first one) are going to be pretty long.

So, September 13 I set off for my adventure. My flight was scheduled to leave portland at like 11:30 am but we didn't take off for about an hour after that due to bad weather in chicago (surprise surprise--o'hare sucks). Although i knew that i was going to have to switch planes in Chicago (only finding that out while in line to check my bag however) i didn't think anything of it because the flight was the same so i didn't think it would be possible to miss it. The pilot kept talking about how all of the flights were being delayed so most people wouldn't miss their connections and blah blah blah. We get to chicago and i check the monitor to make sure my flight hadn't left and what do you know...it had. Luckily i saw that there was another flight to Heathrow that left like 4 hours later so i went up to the desk to see if i could get on it. They told me that i was guaranteed a seat on the flight that left the following day at 5:30 pm. Trying not to jump over the counter and strangle the smug woman behind the counter, i asked if there was anyway to get on the 9:30 flight (just later that same evening) and she said i would have to wait until 8:30 to stand in line and try and get on stand by and then wait for the plane to be fully boarded to see if i could get on. 4 hours, a phone call home and a corned beef sandwich later i found myself boarding the plane and finally on my way to london!

Ten hours later i'm watching the luggage belt go around and around hoping that the one freaking bag i packed will somehow magically appear. I see everyone else who is waiting in my same position head over to the delta airline desk to find out where in the world their luggage ended up and decide it's hopeless and follow. Thanks to the handy-dandy notebook full of paperwork put together by mom, i was able to fill out a luggage claim form with my hotel on it and left for my hotel bagless and damn near ready to pass out. I got there at around 1 and although check in wasn't till 2 my room was ready and i didn't have to try and find something to do to occupy my time. Originally the plan was for me to do some site seeing around windsor that first day but without ANY of my stuff (except my computer, plane entertainment and wallet) i decided the best choice was just to sleep... did i ever....i slept right on through from like 2 pm to 6:30 am only waking up to grab a side of "chips" from the hotel bar.

The next day, still no luggage, i headed for windsor. This was the day that i found out that my public transportation skills weren't so hot. I missed my stop and ended up just getting off at the place where everyone else on the bus was getting off which was a big shopping center. Figuring i was in no hurry and had no idea where the hell i was going i thought i would just look around for a little while and grab some coffee. After asking someone where the main bus station was (the place where i was supposed to be) i found out i was actually really close which was nice. Got on what i hoped was the right bus and decided that i would just get off at whatever stop the asian tourists got off at--let's be honest, everyone knows they know whats up when it comes to tourist sites. It ended up being a good decision cos, as i had expected, that's exactly where they were headed. Point one for racial stereotypes working in my favor. Windsor castle was absolutely beautiful and I took the audio tour and stuff and got some good pictures. It was weird to think that royal events still take place regularly there and i found myself glad i didn't have to be a part of it all. The town wasn't as big as i had thought it would be (although later i found out that there is a lot more just a little outside town) but I spent all day there wandering the streets and picking up things i had forgotten to bring (i decided it wasn't so cute to lug around a travel alarm clock as my only sense of time so i broke down and bought a watch at claire's for the equivalent of too-stinking-expensive...the price you pay for diginity).

I got back to the hotel thinking that my bag would have been delivered (considering the guy at the counter told me that there was a good chance my bag would be delivered around 11 pm the night i got in) and i could finally change out of my gross clothes and put some make-up on but alas, life is never so easy and i headed up to my room with a bottle of wine and drank my sorrows away to cheesy british music videos.

Day 3, same clothes, same naked face, no bag still. I was meeting Jackie at the airport at 3:30 in the afternoon so when i went down to check out at noon and found that my bag still hadn't made it, you can imagine my frustration. I called delta and they said that it was going to be delivered in about an hour and for me just to wait around until it did. awesome. I went to try and get on the computer in the lobby--side note: i tried to plug in my laptop to the power converter in my room but found out that it didn't work so i had no lap top either--and when i went to pay for the internet it said my card wouldn't work. Thinking that it was just the computer i just sat and waited for my bag which finally came at like 2:30. I went to go get cash out to pay for the shuttle to get to the airport and again my card wouldn't work. So here i was, finally with my stuff but with no way to get to the airport to meet jackie and no way to get a hold of her to tell her i would be late. The stupid bank operator put me on hold for like 15 minutes and then i had to tell my story to two different people before finally getting it all settled and my card fixed. It took me WAY longer to get to the terminal to meet jackie than i thought it would and with all of the craziness that took place that morning, i was a half hour late meeting her which i knew was bad considering we were just crossing our fingers that we would even be able to find each other. The happy ending to those 3 miserable days is that i met up with jackie and we headed to the hostel with all of our luggage and the thought that it can only get better from here!

Our hostel was super nice and jackie and i shared a room meant for 3 people so it was really big (and mom...it was blue). Jack and i were champs and never once used public transportation to get around and instead walked everywhere (which probably ended up being like 8 miles a day at least). We saw all the big sites and the weather was absolutely gorgeous the whole time! One night we bought tickets and went and saw the musical Billy Elliot which was amazing! We bought food at grocery stores and just basically picnic-ed it for our meals and saved our money for things like a tour of the tower of london (which was super cool) and stuff like that....and drinks at night, come on.

One of the nights we went out we went to this pub called London Pub--full of study abroad kids at the local university--but the place closed at like 12. We asked the bartender where another cool place would be for us to go that stayed open later and he told us this other place which when we got there was closed too so someone told us to go to the spanish bars because the spanish stay up late. Out of pure luck we found ourselves walking behind a group of three spanish women and seeing as how much luck i had with the asian tourists we decided to follow them. All of a sudden, here we were near Oxford street and the bars seemed to be open. Two points for racial stereotypes working in my favor. We met this group of people (Alex, max and Amanda) in this bar and they took us to this really fun dance club type thing called Metro. They played really good music (all rock) and the drinks were cheap and we all had a lot of fun. Jackie and i were so proud to have made friends on our own and the three of them were so nice. They left and we met an other group of people who we hung out with for a while until they left and then we met ANOTHER group. I think we talked about it from there on out about how awesome we were for meeting three sets of friends. On our way back to the hostel we ran in to two guys from iceland who were asking for directions. They taught us how to sing "she's a lady" in icelandic (hoon-a cone-a) and were seriously crazy. We talked to them for waaaay to long about the stupidest stuff and they didn't really even speak english (they wouldn't believe us that we weren't from london) and finally we made our escape back to the hostel. We refer to that night as the night we made 3 sets of friends and 1 set of not friends.

Another night, the night before jackie left for spain actually, we decided we would go out again and found ourselves at this tiny little spanish bar down a side street. We met a really cool guy named Tom there who worked for the BBC and he and his friend invited us to another bar with them for their friend's birthday. They paid for the taxi and when we got to the club it was some swanky place that had a guest list and stuff. We stayed for a little while and everyone was really great. When the club was closing they invited us to this lebanese restaurant (it's like a gyro/kabab place) and Jackie decided that she should head back considering she had to leave for the airport at 5:30 am. --brace yourselves family--I decided i would be adventurous though and that i only lived once and that i would go with them. Again, they paid for the taxi and we went to this place that everyone called "Helen's." It was in a heavily lebanese populated part of london and the food was amazing. I think we were the only white people there and two of the people we were with knew helen by name who was this small firey woman at the cash register who seemed like quite the character. Everyone was outside smoking out of hooka pipes so we sat down and ordered some mint tea and smoked mint sheesha and i almost felt like i was in lebanon ha. They kept talking about how random of a night it must be for me and i couldn't agree more. I was really proud of myself though because i normally wouldn't do something like that by myself and i really felt like i was experiencing london life and not just being a tourist.

I got home safe and sound and the next two days i spent exploring hyde park and kensington gardens. The weather couldn't have been better and it was absolutely amazing to just lie around reading in the middle of it all. In Hyde park there was this area where all of the roller bladers got together and they showed off all their tricks and played old school music like michael jackson and danced/ skated around. It was pretty funny to watch and i felt like i was an extra in some corny movie made in the early nineties.

My plane left for Dublin a little before nine and it took an hour to get from the city to heathrow so i had to hop on the tube at like 6 am and luckily (although time got tight there for a while) i made it up to my gate on time and had an hour flight to dublin where i was greeted by my bag (thank god) and then by Don, one of my program directors and a few other kids in my program who had just arrived.

So i really loved London and i was glad that my hostel was right in the city and everything was accessible by foot. The people were friendly and i was soooooooooo glad to have Jackie there with me for most of the time. Probably my favorite thing i saw there was the tower of london, the tour was super interesting and it was really beautiful despite it's dark history. Although my first few days were a little rough, the week i spent in london was amazing and i learned and saw a lot of great things. It left me so excited that it was all only the beginning of this 3 month adventure.