London

Time to update the blog again. Can't believe how fast the time is starting to fly by, but my internship is finally all set up for the summer so the only thing I have left to do is kick back and relax (and maybe study a couple of times a month). This week has been absolutely crazy, and I have a little cold as a result but its been worth it.

On Wednesday I finally got to go up to London and visit Stengel. Overall, it was a great time although I could have spent a few more days there. Unfortunately, Bry had to leave to go back to the States on Saturday, but we got a lot of cool stuff in still. My flight touched down around noon, but for some reason my phone wouldn't make calls so it was a nightmare to get hold of Steng and Pete. I spent about 10 bucks just making calls at a pay phone, but I finally got in touch with Pete and hopped on a train. London is crazy expensive. I probably spent about 50 bucks before I even left the airport just between phone calls and my train ticket. I had to go there, though, so I really didn't have a choice. My train got in around 1 PM in the city center, and Pete was waiting for me at the station. We took a really short tour around, and we went to the top of a shopping center for a good view by St. Paul's Church (I believe) in order to save the 12 pounds it would have cost to actually climb to the top. After that, I got a good look at the "River Thames" and most of the famous sites, like the Tower Bridge, the London Bridge which actually isn't very cool, and of course Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. Also, the London Eye was right in the area. I met up with Steng finally around 4 after braving the Tube on my own, and we got right to work. This weekend in London was probably the least aggressive trip I've had in terms of seeing all the tourist spots, but it was good to just kind of relax in an English speaking country for a bit. In fact, the English kind of threw me off- it felt like I was halfway home and it didn't really hit me that I had just seen London until I got on the plane to leave. Bry and I just hung out and caught up a bit in his flat, which is just one floor of a really nice house in the Kensington-Chelsea area, one of the most upscale areas in the whole city. I laughed because the first thing I saw when I got out of the tube station was a KFC. We went to a pub, almost immediately of course. It was good to finally be able to get some good beers, and we went to a kind of chain pub where I had the obligatory fish n' chips. It was good, really, but not unlike anything you can get in America. I was beat, so we just hung out a bit more before going to the same pub to watch a soccer match. I was so tired that I just passed out around 10, and that was my night.

The next day, we decided to save some of the sites for when Bryan's friends came to visit from Penn State on Friday, so we grabbed an English breakfast which was eggs, "bacon", mushrooms, peppers, beans, sausage, and coffee. It was beautiful, the first real breakfast I'd had in a long time. Italians just eat pastries or some crap all the time. We took the tube over to the British Military Museum, and even though we had only planned to spend an hour or so there, we ended up staying for most of the day. There were so many cool exhibits and old military equipment from WWI and WWII, on top of a lot of Nazi memorabilia. I'm pretty fascinated with all that stuff, so it was great. There was also a big section for the Holocaust, which was pretty sobering. Afterward, we went to the Natural History Museum, which was pretty much exactly like the one in DC, so it was ok but we both kind of decided we were a bit to old for it...dinosaurs just don't do it anymore. Before we knew it, 6 hours had passed, so we headed back in order to meet Bryan's friends coming in from the airport. First, though, we stopped at the local market and picked up some cider. They had a good deal where we could get a lot of beer or cider for not much money, which we abused constantly throughout the weekend. We went back to his apartment, had some beers/cider, and watched this hilarious British comic named Eddie Izzard on Bry's computer for a bit...his jokes about WWII went hand-in-hand with our day to that point. The girls finally got in and we went to a pretty good Thai restaurant for dinner. It was liberating to be in London because the food is so notoriously bad outside of the couple of traditional English things that I tried. I didn't feel guilty eating foreign food for once. If I go to a McDonald's in Bologna I always feel like I should go to confession or something. After the restaurant, we went into Chinatown to a pub, where we got to meet up with Kyle Pettigrove, who is studying in London as well. The pub was huge, and there was a big music area upstairs with a band. I made the offhanded comment "Who's up there MGMT or what?" We got upstairs and the band was absolutely drilling "Time to Pretend." They were sick. If I had chosen to study in London I definitely would have gotten into the music scene a bit, since all of my favorite bands are British anyway. We left after a while, took a peak at Trafalgar Square, then headed back to Steng's flat to watch the Flyers. I made it about 10 minutes into the game before falling asleep on top of an exercise ball. I was still exhausted from Napoli, and now I'm still exhausted from London.

The next day, we were out of the apartment by 10 and got to see some of the really major sites. We started off with the Tower of London. It was 17 pounds to get in (STIFF) but it was still really worth it. There was a great view of the tower bridge, and there was so much history in the castle. We started on a tour with a Yeoman Warder, who was hilariously dressed in periodic clothing and kept calling people in the group out, but we decided to wander around a bit. We saw the crown jewels, which was really, really cool. I can pretty much say with confidence that those crowns are worth more than my life, and I'm pretty sure the British government sees it that way too. I had this weird urge to punch the glass in and try to make a run for it with some of the jewels the whole time, but I kept myself under control. One thing I couldn't understand is how the people of England continue to support their leader spending money so haphazardly. If our President had a crown at this point it would probably be stripped down to one of those Burger King crowns, but I guess the tradition is so strong in England that people don't even think twice about how the royal family spends money. Prince William's wedding is coming up, I think, so all around the city they were getting ready to shut everything down for the big day. I'm really surprised that the whole royalty thing still exists in this day and age. I guess this whole time I had been thinking it was a lot more symbolic. Oh well. Anyway, after the crown jewels, we went up a tower which was set up as an exhibit of all the old armor and stuff, which was really cool. They had the tallest and shortest suits of armor in the world set up right next to each other, along with all these medieval weapons- the good stuff. After the Tower of London, we headed into Westminster, which is where most of the more famous sites are. We took a look at Westminster Abbey, Parliament, the Supreme Court (which for some reason has a statue of Abraham Lincoln outside of it). Big Ben, and almost went on the London Eye, but decided against it. We took a little walk through a park, and finally saw Buckingham Palace. The guards were waiting outside wearing their silly-ass hats. Apparently just this past week one of them finally snapped and slapped a woman across the face, so let that be a warning. After we said hi to the queen, we headed back to Steng's place, and that was pretty much it because Bry had to pack for the next day. Truth be told, we were all exhausted anyway. We did, however, get KFC for lunch- a nice little slice of America pie, and Bry said bye to the owner of the local kebab place, who he had gotten to know pretty well. The dude offered Bryan anything he wanted to eat or drink, and without looking Bry grabbed this weird Turkish drinking yogurt, which was unflavored liquidy yogurt that you're supposed to drink when it's hot out. What the HELL Steng. It was disgusting, so we poured it all out on top of all the shoes and boxes that kids left outside his flat. So yeah, we sent Steng off to America with a showing of Team America:World Police. I had bought a couple of energy drinks because my flight was at 7, and I already knew I wouldn't get to go to sleep. I got destroyed by London transportation, definitely my number one expense. I had to get a bus at 2:30 in the morning to take me to the airport, so I left Bry's apartment at 1, missed the only bus that was coming for a half hour because I was so confused by the street directions, ran back to his flat and was literally throwing rocks against his window and screaming for him to come out. I was just about to try to break into his flat after about 15 minutes of that before he finally came out. I ended up catching a taxi, which blew my mind because they drive on the right (wrong) side of the car and the left side of the road. In fact, the entire weekend, sometimes I would just freak out and literally think cars were going without anyone in the driver's seat before I collected myself and got it together. The taxi ride was like 25 pounds or something outrageous like that, but I finally got to my airport bus, cranked up the Pink Floyd, and said goodbye to London. I got to Stansted around 3:45 AM, and stuck it out in the airport for the next 3 hours, which felt like an eternity. I finally caught my plane at 7. If you don't know already, RyanAir is freaking crazy. It's not for old people or people who enjoy personal space, or just feeling safe in general. It IS extremely cheap, though. I didn't mind it too much because I didn't fit into any of those previously stated categories. I slept for most of the 2 hours on the plane, but I was awake for the Alps, which are absolutely ridiculous. It was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen, and I'm pretty upset that I had stowed my camera in the overhead storage. I finally got back to my apartment at 11 (after taking another bus) and did nothing all day.

I ended up going to a party that started at 8 for a bunch of the Erasmus kids at Gilly's apartment (my Australian friend with the great drinking songs), after getting held up when Gomes and I got lost in Bologna somehow. Our original bus shut down, some of the streets ended up being blocked, and finally when we got off the bus we had no idea where we were going for like 30 minutes. We finally got there and had a nice time, everyone brought food or wine. I ended up going out to a club until an ungodly hour, so I basically pulled 2 all nighters in a row. Yeah Ma, I am sick now- you were right...didn't sleep and now I'm sick. Truth is, I don't really care because I'm having the greatest spring break of my life. Umberto (my Italian buddy) has been staying with us for a bit after his trip with my roommates to Barcelona, and tomorrow I'm going back with him to his place for a couple of days near Pescera. After that, its off to Rome to meet Alex for a couple of hours, and then all the way up to the Cinque Terre for Easter. Going back to class is going to be miserable.

Love you all, HAPPY EASTER, and hopefully I will be able to get a nice update of my trip in next week.

Can't believe its already been a week since I landed in London almost...I'm living in a time warp, except really, really fast.