Long Time, No Blog...

Tower Bridge outside the Tower of London

london eye and parliament and big ben in the background...standing on charingcross bridge

me outside buckingham palace gates

pretty skyline

typical london pic!

Captains Log: It is Currently 11:15PM and I am relaxing in the Library alone. Its finals week and some people went to Newcastle tonight for some relief.

A lot has happend and and many things have been experienced since the last entry. We had our week long trip in London, I went to Italy, and this past weekend a group of us went on a Paddywaggon Tour in Ireland!
London:

Sunday: London was amazing. I had a very good time and enjoyed it. It was pretty much everything I expected it to be. A litle dissapointed at how not elegant it was. But a city is a city...

We started out our trip right away after we got into our hotel (St. Giles in Soho). We took a walking tour around the city to get our bearings. We traveled through Leicester Squar up to Trafalgar Square, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace and walked around Parliament and Big Ben and then finally our excursion onto the London Eye. (I was expecting the Eye to be a lot bigger, but it was still impressive). That night we went to Bar Soho, where drinks were really expensive...so we only had one, and walked around Soho a bit.

Monday: We started our day out early wit ha tour of Parliament which was actually really interesting. (Im also counting it as a Professional Event for DSP). We went to the Tower of London and saw the Crown Jewels, which were spectacular, and the scaffold site of many historically famous beheadings. We crossed Tower bridge ( the one that everyone confuses with London Bridge...London Bridge is nothing special). And we ended at teh Britain at War Museum. That night we went to the theater and saw Avenue Q. Avenue Q was hillarious and we ended up getting good seats for cheap with a student discount. It was basically Sesame St. but with aduly humor. After that everyone kinda split up we ended up just hangin out jammin to music in one room.

Tuesday: On Tuesday we walked around the financial district in London...which was something different than we all thought it was going to be. We just walked around buildings outside. We walked past Lloyd's which was the coolest office building Ive ever seen. We all thought we were going to tour the Bank of England, but we just went into the museum...Later that day we had lunch in what part of Diagon Alley (Harry Potter) was filmed in and then a small group went to St. Pauls Cathedral. 540 steps later we were at the observation deck taking in teh skyline of London. Afterwards I went to the Tate Modern with Wade and Laura....wish I would have had more time there, but I didnt want to keep people waiting. I also went to a concert at a small venue with Becky and Laura for only 6 pounds. It was so good. We then went to a place that Erica (sister) had told me about, the Sports Cafe. It happened to be student night there so drinks were cheap.

Wednesday: We started out our long day of Henry VIII by visiting Hampton Court ( one of his favorite palaces). After Hampton Court we went to Kew Gardens and I was let down. I was expecting there to be loads of flowerbeds everywhere but it was just open field grassy stuff. The water lily place was cool, and I was able to take some cool photos. We went to the Globe Theater that night and saw Shakespear's King Henry VII....it was dry and dull, but cool to see a Shakespearean play in the Globe. I was pleasantly able to meet up with a girl who I had met in Prague on a pub crawl that night. She was ending her europe trip in london and it was our last night there and we went out to a club where it was again student night so I was able todrink for cheap again!! which is rare to find in London.

Thursday: We went to Canary Wharf (the second financial district sort of) and we toured Waitrose...its a company similar to our Woodmans, but on a much much MUCH larger scale. After our tour we had a little bit for lunch, and then I was on the metro again on my way to London Gatwick Airport to catch my flight to Venice!

London Bound

Captains Log: It is currently 5:14AM and I have not yet gone to bed.

Today (Sunday July 4th) at 6:00AM we are departing for London. We will be there for 5 days and then on Thursday evening I am heading to Venice, Italy and the surrounding areas. I am going to meet up with a guy I met when I was in Mykonos who is backpacking through Europe for 4 months. I have been bit by the travel bug and cannot wait to see more of the world. I will be traveling to Venice alone...but am more comfortable now because I have done it once already...and I am going to be meeting up and staying with someone I know.

I am excited for London. I plan on visiting the zoo and attending a live music concert for only £6 in our evening times we have for free time. I am also excited to walk throught the financial district and have a couple business tours. I will have my laptop in London with me, but am having someone take my small suitcase and send it back to the castle with a couple girls who are coming back right after our trip to London. I will be an actuall backpacker (as I am only taking a backpack with me to Italy) and am stoked for a new adventure and some great pictures and memories.

Ill keep posted every couple days whilst in London.