LONDON CALLING

after 5 months of exchange, it was finally time for jo to arrive in holland in order for us to fulfill our high school dream of travelling europe together. it was insane to see her at the airport after so many months apart. less than 24 hours after she landed on the european continent we hopped on another plane for a short jaunt to london, uk. the first stop on a month of adventure.

we bought the london pass which was the best thing we could have done for a week of sightseeing. 60 pounds got us entrance to numerous london attractions within a three day period: Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Bridge experience (which was NOT what we expected. instead of a historical explanation of the bridge, it was a show with actors meant to scare the living daylights out of us...it worked!! we ended up sneaking out not so stealthily before the tour could get anymore frightening), Tate Modern (some of the modern pieces were a bit too modern for my liking - depicting self mutilation and using animal blood as a medium), Britain at War museum.

we also spent a great deal of time walking through the city walking along the river thames examining various statues and monuments dedicated to commonwealth fighters in the world wars. it was very moving. we also climbed the steps of St. Pauls Cathedral as well as the Fire Monument set up in remembrance of the fire which swept across most of the then London. We took a tour through Kensington palace, which actually didn't live up to my expectations, at least inside. Buckingham palace, on the other hand, was incredible!! The changing of the guard was very cool to see and walking along a street lined with the union jack up to the immense palace. my favourite part of the palace was the canada gate (of course). we browsed picadilly square and bought tickets for that night's performance of "the Lion King" which was SPECTACULAR!! an extremely memorable moment.

in addition to london, we also took a day bus tour to a few other of britain's famous sites including windsor castle, bath and stonehenge. stonehenge was my favourite since i had learned so much about it in art history (or not learned since there's little we know about it).

i think my favourite memory of london was the tour of the globe theatre and the performance at night. we bought 5 pound tickets to "as you like it" which allowed us standing room (because we were the penniless proletariat). it was a thrilling show. and to be able to see it in the globe theatre was fantastic (even if it is a recreation).

london is not known for its food. the hostel had bread with butter or jam for breakfast. and for lunch?? subway sandwhiches EVERY DAY!! we had received a coupon book at the beginning of our trip which allowed us to buy a different subway sandwhich every day for 2 pounds. the budget travellers ;).

our last day in london we had exactly 6.50 pounds...between the two of us. with this money we had to take the tube to the airport, visit the fire monument and eat lunch. we were very focused on doing every one of these things. we visited the fire monument for 1 pound each. then split a subway sandwhich between the two of us for 2 pounds. we didn't have enough money to get to our hostel to pick up our bags and then to the airport so we ended up walking across london to our hostel using a tube map (since we never did manage to get a proper map of london). and in the end we had enough cash to get us to the airport for our flight home. THAT is efficient planning :).