Our adventures started Thursday afternoon when we all met at the bus station to get to the airport to make our 5:10pm flight. We had no problems getting to Madrid (except for Kami briefly getting lost on her way to the bus station), but once we got to the airport, things got crazy. We didn't realize that the next direct bus was at 2:00pm instead of 1:30pm, so we were already cutting time a bit close. We arrived at the airport around 4:00pm (it takes 2 hours with the bus and Metro to actually get there...) and still needed to get our passports/visas checked and go through security. Fortunately the passport line didn't take too long, but then as we were starting to head to security, we couldn't remember if we had to check in or not. So we stood in line for awhile for no reason, because they just told us to go through security. So we hurried our way through security (which was delayed slightly by my stupid belt... It seems to only set off some metal detectors... And it chose this one. When we were in a hurry. Of course...) and then had to RUN to get to the gate. We got there and the sign on the board said "Gate Change". We panicked that we were at the wrong gate, but decided to stay and wait anyway since there we some people doing the same thing. We were glad we stayed because it turned out to be the right one! :)
The flight was fine and we landed in London. It was a bit of an adventure trying to figure out how to get to the hostel because we had to take a train and then metro and possibly a bus, but we got there eventually. (The first words out of Kami's mouth upon getting out of the airplane were, "I'm Harry Potter!" Oh Kami...) So we got off the train to transfer to the Metro and we pretended that the platform was 9 3/4 (a must when in London!). From there we caught the Metro and realized that our hostel was literally across the street from the Metro stop. That was a very pleasant surprise!
A few minutes later we are checked in and unpacked. We are starving and decide to run downstairs to the restaurant/bar that is the first floor of the building. We sit down, open up a menu and right was we are about to ask a passing waitress for our food, she tells us that the kitchen is closed. What?! Now we are frustrated, but decide to go across the street and wander to see if we can find somewhere that's open. To our surprise, London doesn't work like Spain does; after about 8:30-9:00pm everything closes. Except for a little mini mart type thing. Given that we were starving and would have eaten just about anything at that point, we stopped and bought a bunch of junk food: cheddar chips, Reese's, soda, sliced deli chicken, juice, crackers... You name it. It was definitely a very... interesting (and unhealthy) dinner. We took the bags up to the lounge on our floor and ate there.
While we were eating dinner, one of my 3 friends from Rome called me so we could make plans for "tea time" (they were in London at the same time we were) the next day. I was so excited to see them! I hadn't seen them (other than on Skype once) since the beginning of June. She told me that they had plans to go have tea at the Mint Hotel near the Tower Hill "tube" stop. We agreed to meet there at 2:30pm.
Friday morning rolls around and we got up for our free breakfast downstairs (we had to eat between 8:00am and 10:00am). Afterwards we all took showers and then started wandering in a random direction. We came across Hyde Park, which turned out to be the most beautiful park. The leaves were changing color, so the park was filled with loads of green, red, yellow and orange leaves. It was a relatively clear morning, so the sky was still blue (though the clouds were starting to roll in, so we got really lucky!). We wandered through the park, stopping occasionally to take pictures. In the middle of the park was a lake... or a pond... I'm not sure which. Anyway, in the body of water were birds. Lots of birds. Pidgeons, geese, swans, crows... All different types of birds. At one point, we were wandering by a flock of those birds and we all realized that swans are HUGE. They are like half the size of a little person! I had no idea that they were that big! Here I was thinking that geese are big, but these swans were bigger than them! Hence why I have lots of pictures of them. I was just amazed!
From there we made our way to the nearest tube stop so we could get over to the Mint Hotel. We got there a bit late because we decided last minute that we were going to go (it took a bit of convincing to get Kami and Moriko to agree to running all the way across town). I ran inside to try and find where they were while the other two followed more slowly. I probably looked ridiculous, running everywhere trying to figure out if 3 girls had come in asking about tea time. Eventually I found them... on the 12th floor! It felt soooooo good to see them again :) I hadn't seen them since the beginning of June when we all left school for the summer. We sat and drank tea for a few hours, but then we had to leave because they needed our table for a reservation. But it was a lot of fun to just sit and talk with everyone. Also weird to have two different parts of my life in one room. It was totally worth it, though!
As we left the hotel, it was getting dark. We all hopped on the "tube" (hahaha... I just can't get over that!), but got off at different stops. I said my goodbyes (but only until December when I go to Rome!) and Kami, Moriko and I headed to Oxford Street, where the H&M is located (among other stores). We wandered around for awhile because Kami wanted a jacket and Moriko needed an umbrella. Moriko got her umbrella and I got a jacket, but Kami ended up not seeing anything she wanted. I think I have a problem when I travel... I want to buy too much! I am determined to only buy what is necessary while I'm Paris (and Rome... maybe). But it was just too soft and warm and snuggly to NOT buy! (I know I know... that's not a legitimate reason for most people...) Anyway, we finished shopping and made our way back to the hostel for dinner.
Dinner was actually pretty good, now that we made it back before the kitchen closed. I had pasta with veggies and the other two got fish and chips. Theirs was HUGE. I don't think they were expecting it to be that big... But everything was delicious, even if it was too big! We sat there and ate and talked for a bit, and then we decided to head back upstairs. I wanted to shower so I wouldn't have to compete with all the morning showerers (like I had to that morning), and not to mention we were all exhausted from running around all day (because it was literally ALL day). I got out of the shower and we all just sat around in our room. At one point one of us looked at the time and realized we'd just wasted at least a couple of hours. By then, most things had closed, so we decided to just stay in our room. Running out of ideas, Kami suggested we revert to our childhood and play MASH. For those of you who don't remember or don't know what MASH is, it's a game where you pick 4 husbands, careers, number of children, salaries, etc. etc. (really whatever categories you want) and 1 number. Using the number (let's say 3), one person goes and crosses off every 3rd one. For example, it would look something like this...:
M(ansion) A(partment)
Husband: # of Children:
Justin Timberlake
Johnny Depp 0
Jude Law
... Anyway, you do this until there is only 1 left in each category and at the end, that is your life. We had SO much fun doing this. I'm not sure if it's because it really was funny or if we were just really tired while doing this. Either way, we were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. Some of the best jokes from this trip come from playing MASH. It was a really good idea :)
Saturday Saturday Saturday.... What did we do on Saturday? I don't remember.... Wait! Yes I do. We went and saw the touristy things: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye... It doesn't sound like that much, but when you have to take the "tube" (hahaha...) everywhere, it takes a bit. We also got a later start after breakfast, so things took longer. We first went to go see Buckingham Palace. We walked the whole way there, back through Hyde Park. Before going up to the palace, we stopped for lunch (yes, lunch already...). We got hotdogs and tea. How British, right? :P The hotdogs were actually really good! The most American-y food I've had since September! We sat and watched people in the park while we ate. I'm sooo happy to find other people who think people watching is as fun as I do! We finished eating and then made our way to the Palace.
Unfortunately we missed the changing of the guard. By like 2 hours. :( But we did get to see the guards outside the palace. I think we were all a bit disappointed they weren't in red, but they still were wearing the funny hats! (P.S. Mommy - it made me miss our DSW outings trying on silly hats!) From there we managed to see every other touristy thing. Seeing Big Ben was really cool since (for me) it's the first thing I think of when I imagine London. Near Big Ben was Westminster Abbey (which cost too much to go in, so we just looked from the outside) and the London Eye (the big Ferris wheel). We wanted to go up the London Eye, but it was 18 pounds for the ticket. That's a lot. So we just took pictures instead. Right near the Ferris wheel there was a really scary looking haunted house. Kami tried so hard to get us to go, but we wouldn't. I considered it, but she wouldn't go without Moriko, who wouldn't budge. We skipped it instead and headed towards Madame Tussauds (the wax museum). We figured it would be less expensive, but it turned out to be even more expensive than the Eye. We should have just gone for the 18 pound tickets for the Ferris wheel. Oh well. At least I have pictures!
After we saw all the touristy attractions, we headed back to the hostel for dinner. Kami wasn't feeling great, so we had already decided we were going to stay in. We knew we didn't want to be stuck in our room, so we decided instead to hang out in the bar downstairs. We ate dinner and then just hung out there. While eating dinner, I received an email from one of the DU (Denver) Spanish professors saying that I would be able to get into the Spanish class I need (the last one to complete my major). Even though I knew it wasn't personal, it felt that way at first. So I was upset and decided that it would be a good night to push my alcohol limits (something I had never done until then). I didn't want to push them too far, just enough to feel like I had. Lets just say that I was successful (but not TOO successful, don't worry) because I definitely woke up Sunday morning with a headache. :(
So, yes, Sunday morning I woke up with my first alcohol related headache. There are definitely some people out there (you know who you are) who would be proud of me. We went down and ate breakfast, and while we were eating, we realized that we didn't have anything else to do... Even though we still had a full day left. So we ended up walking from Paddignton (where we were staying) all the way to Notting Hill. It was a really pretty walk. We found a street where artists hang their work on a fence and let people see it that way. Some of them were pretty amazing. We got there and found a coffee shop and then made our way to Soho to find the first international Chipotle (yeah yeah yeah). I wasn't hungry by then, but they were so we stopped in to get food. After Chipotle, we wandered some more and then wanted to find the Sherlock Holmes bar. Lucky to us (or so it seemed), we passed by a huge group of men dressed as Holmes and Watson. We not-so-sneakily followed them, hoping they would lead us there. I'm pretty sure they noticed us, but I'm not sure if they didn't say anything because they weren't positive (though that would be hard to not realize because I was in a bright pink sweater) or if it was for our sake... Either way it was hysterical. The funniest part was that they definitely weren't going where we hoped they were. Definitely wound up at a random bar. We didn't go in because then they would REALLY know we were following them...
After ungracefully escaping our awkward situation, we made our way back towards the hostel. We ate dinner there and then made our way to the airport. We weren't leaving until Monday morning, but we had two problems: our flight was early in the morning and no buses ran that early and 2) we didn't know how long it was going to take to get there. We were there 11 hours early. That's a really long time. We did our best to sleep, but it didn't work very well. We hung out until 4:00am when we could get through security and then waited until 7:50am to board. None of us remember taking off because we all sat down and immediately fell asleep.
The worst part about coming back to Toledo is the Metro ride from the airport to the bus station and the bus ride from Madrid back to Toledo. One or the other would be tolerable, but together it takes about 2 hours (assuming we can catch a direct bus not long after we get to the bus station in Madrid). But at least, we made it back to Toledo. Walking in the door felt almost as good as it did after Barcelona. I walked in, ate, took a shower and then a nap.
I am excited to see what adventures Paris has in store for me this weekend! :) Though I'll admit, I'm definitely ready for a travel break! I've got two weeks or something between Paris and Rome, so I'll get a chance to rest then.
Until next week! :)
... Wow. That is a very Spanish phrase; the English equivalent of "¡Hasta la semana que viene!" Oops.
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