LONDON! LONDON! LONDON!

Alrighty, heres the long awaited explanation of my London trip, taking place 1 week ago. Sorry it has taken me so long - i have been a very busy bee and i also had a bit of a depressing breakdown yesterday because with 2 weeks left i have no job in sight and all my hopeful ones have fell through. looks like i am returning without a job....more on that in my next post. For now, my happiness adventures in London. Pictures are on facebook and have yet to be labeled. its on my list of things to do :P

We left here last Thursday afternoon when Alex got off of work. We were supposed to take a bus into the train station in Wolverhampton but Alex's dad had a break in his business calls so he offered to drive us. it was very nice. We took the 2 hr train ride into central London and got off right by the Tower Bridge. We spent 4 hrs in London looking at the sights nearby and snapping photos. We even had an ice cream with flake and sat in an outdoor cafe to eat it next to Tower bridge. There was mostly tourists around, of course, but it was still really neat to see some sights the first day.

We then went to his great aunt and uncles house in a nearby town outside of London. They are very wealthy and had a huge house by England standards. It was very beautiful and full of expensive things. I felt like I was staying in a hotel kindof. there was even a shower in our room! His Aunt and uncle were more than nice and very helpful with planning everything for our trip. I also got a chance to meet a few other members of his family that had come over for a meal. The kids were very amusing and they brought their very naughty dog, Murphy, who kept climbing in the bushes, walking through the pond, and hiding his bone all over the place. it was very amusing. I must admit that i was a bit nervous to meet the posh side of the family because i dont exactly speak and behave like a proper brit. but i guess i held my own and they were very friendly so it didnt seem to matter much that i dont eat properly or drink tea/coffee after every meal. but of course i made an idiot of myself trying to properly eat the english way and dropped the pizza i was cutting on my lap then to the white carpet. lovely.

Friday we spent the entire day in London. It was such a blast! we didnt get up quite as early as we would have liked and it took us forever to get ready because the shower had little water pressure so it took a very long time for us to shower...and the hot water ran out on Alex since i took so long. oops! The day flu by but we got to see most of the stuff we wanted to. It was so neat to see all of those historic buildings in the middle of the bustling town. it makes the city beautiful tho, thats for sure. We walked most of the sites so that was fun cuz we got to see more of London and not just the tourist parts. We did ride the underground several times tho....we even got our first ticket paid for! there was a frustrated girl as we approached the machine to buy the tickets and she stormed off swearing at it. we were picking our tickets and halfway through the transaction £10 came out of the machine.... so we reinserted it and paid for our tickets. we even got £2 back. woo hoo for that!

The morning was spent site seeing and walking around. we didnt go into many of the site since (A) we wanted to fit as much in as possible and (B) everything was expensive, from £15-30 a person! we had lunch on the steps of Trafalgar square. we sat with tons of other people and ate the sandwiches we brought with us while watching a man on the empty pith ride a stationary bike. just as we were leaving they put a basket crane up and let him down. we think it might have been a charity thing or some kind of record setting. we arent really sure. we then moved onto the science station. which ended up sucking. lol. it was free and huge but was pretty empty. they had one of the 3 floors closed and the top floor was half empty. there wasnt many hands on activities and a lot of the ones that were there were broke. there was some cool things to see and do, but it was mostly a museum with airplanes, trains, and other old stuff. it was a bit of a disappointment really. We did spend a good 3 hrs there doing things before we moved onto the natural history museum for about 1.5 hrs. it was WAYYYY better than the science museum. we were sad because we didnt get to see everything, but happy we went. there was tons of cool stuff to look at and a dead good souvenir shop. we were very pleased with it. i even got my picture with several dead animals.

we then went back to his aunt and uncles, ate, and went to bed. Saturday his aunt and uncle took us to an antique fair in Greenwich. This is a posh town on the outskirts of London that is beautiful and full of antique and craft fairs. we both spent way to much money on both ourselves and others but it was worth it. however, the walk back to the car through one of the queens parks and up a giant hill was not so much fun with all of our stuff. things i bought for myself in london included a really cool chinese noodle bowl and chopsticks (which i have already used every day since i got back. it might beat the coolness of the ariel cup i made Alex buy me shopping a few weeks ago), a bracelet, 4 england shot glasses, and a set of wine glassed made out of beer bottles....it sounds weird but they are nice. Alex bought a bunch of artwork and 2 shirts. we both bought lots of things for other people. i tell everyone, but then it wont be a suprise for people when i get back.

we then ate a nice meal at this spanish restaurant that specialized in tapas before taking the train back here. it was a most delightful trip. heres all of the places we saw: st pauls cathedral, the dungeon entrance of st pauls cathedral, lots of bits of castle left over from the wars, pudding lane (where the great fire of london started), downing street (which was all blocked off and you couldnt even see #10, only random buildings and #12), buckingham palace (but the queen was at the cricket game and we missed the changing of the guards), big ben, houses of parliment, bank of england, all of the WW2 memorials, we ate lunch in trafalgar square, the national science museum, the museum of natural history, st james park, regents park, whichever park is in greenwich, museum of gilded horses, the london eye (from a distance), westminster abbey, and greenwich....i think thats all the places. it was overall fun and worth the money but exhausting! i would love to visit again but never live there.

Random fun things i did in London- i kicked a pigeon, found a street sign for star alley, saw the horse guards and got him to make eye contact with my photo, asked and armed guard for a picture, climbed some monuments, saw a heard of asian tourists with swineflu masks on...and Alex started coughing in their direction, got on the wrong underground line only once, got offered more free newspapers than i ever thought i would in my life, nearly got hit by a bus, found a black phonebox, took an ANTM phonebox photo-op, got in many random photos of foreign tourists, and got our photo taken by some guy whist on the underground.