Arriving in London!

I am currently sitting in a McDonalds pretty close to our hostel as it has free wifi. Everyone else is asleep still (it is around 6 am) but I woke up around 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. I'll try to recap the last 48 hours or so.

I arrived home from NCAR pretty early on Friday morning so we could get some last minute packing done before our departure. We got everything done and left with Mike and Tiffany on Saturday morning around 8:30 am. We spend most of the day in St. George as Mike and Tiffany had a wedding they had to attend. So Em and I got to go to the temple, relax at a park, visit with her aunt, etc - it was great. Em's dad was kind enough to let us borrow his GPS for this trip and we are still in the process of using it. It was pretty hilarious though a couple times when the GPS told us to 'Continue forward for 1.8 miles and turn right' when we were on a dirt road with a mountain in front of us. Another time it told us we had arrived at our destination on the right when we were on the freeway with a drop off cliff on our right... Overall though it has actually been pretty helpful and we are really glad we have it.

Danny and Kris let us stay the night and next morning with them, they were really kind and even fed us a couple of meals. It was great seeing them and catching up with the cousins. We made it to the airport in plenty of time and had no troubles getting on our plane. All four of us each have just one backpack which has made it really nice not to have to haul luggage everywhere.

When we made our connecting flight, we noticed Mike and Tiffany were on the other side of the plane so we asked the couple in front of us if they could switch our friends spots and they gladly let us! It turned out that they were both from Salt Lake (pictured above) which was interesting as we were in Minneapolis. We actually got to know them pretty well and they gave us some travel tips and showed us around the airport when we arrived in London. There was a couple of other people around us that we all became friends with - including one lady, Jane, from London who showed us which train to take to get to our hostel.

When we arrived in London we got our money from an ATM and with the help of a couple people (including James, a really nice information guy that helped us get around the tube station - pictured in blue) found our way to the Tube. Fortunately it was a pretty direct shot to Kings Cross Station which is essentially where our hostel was. Fighting jet lag actually wasn't too bad despite the poor sleep we got on the train. We followed Rick Steves guidebook saying to immediately switch your watches, and your minds, to London time. Kings Cross Station (for those that haven't read Harry Potter) is where Harry would take the train to Hogwarts so it is also where platform 9 and 3/4 is - although we haven't found it yet.

After getting off the Tube we were all anxious to get out from the underground and see London! As we were walking up the steps we were talking about how this would be our first real view of London and as we got to the top of the steps there was a construction zone and lots of dumpsters - it was pretty funny. Then the first clock Tiffany saw (as there are a lot here) she said 'Is that Big Ben!' I was dying - it was probably a 20th the size of Big Ben. We were still pretty lost (a constant theme throughout this trip) but found another backpacker with a map and asked him where he was going. It turned out he was a University of Utah graduate from Salt Lake backpacking around by himself. So we walked with him a big and finally found our hostel - the Clink 261. The area around us looks much like New York, just lots of people, kind of dirty, yet exciting. When I walked in the Hostel there was probably 40-50 little french kids (pictured) with their head mistress all talking and laughing really loud - my first thought was 'Please don't put us in a room with all those kids!' We ended up getting a room with 18 beds, it is pretty small and made us feel a little uneasy at first (and a little bit still). I guess you get what you pay for! There is one bathroom per gender, and two showers per gender. Our room has guys and girls in it and so far everyone has been very nice.

We locked up our stuff in some lockers (free with your own lock so we bought some) and took off towards downtown London. It was a great walk. We walked through Garden Park and arrived at Buckingham Palace (pictured), which was neat. It was a huge round about with cars and people buzzing by. Around that area we followed a path that led us to more parliament buildings and got some pictures with the British guards. I am sure eventually the buildings won't impress me so much but so far I have found the architecture pretty amazing. Everything just looks more historic here.

We did Rick Steves walking London tour backwards (not intentionally) but it worked. So we stared near Trafalgar Square where the National Gallery was. There were TONS of people everywhere, stores everywhere, etc. We stood in the middle of it all and just watched everyone for a little while. By this point we were all feeling a little tired but still decided to go to the National Gallery as it was free and we probably wouldn't be back there. I was a little nervous beforehand about how I would handle art museums. I am extremely grateful that I took History of Creativity at BYU last year as most it was about art and it really helped at the National Gallery. I was suprised by how much I enjoyed it. It was huge so we only tackled the popular rooms with Rembrandt, Monet, etc. I thought it was cool seeing 'Water Lilies' by Monet in person as the impressionist paintings were the ones I most looked forward too.

We had dinner at a little cafe near Trafalgar Square where I got fish and chips (we figured I should as we were in London afterall) and everyone else got really good sandwiches (better than my fish and chips).

We finished our walking tour at the Westminster Abbey (pictured) and Big Ben. It was awesome. We walked along London bridge and took pictures. I couldn't believe how big and ornate the Abbey was, and along the Thames river it was a pretty cool site.

We finished the day taking a double decker bus back the hostel and going right to sleep. So overall it has been great, we don't have wi fi and there aren't that many plugs so using the computer and other electronics has been a challenge -oh well.