May 27th

Home 5:20pm

London 10:20pm

We woke up earlyish and headed out to Kensington Palace. We got there around 9:45, a little before they opened at 10 which was good because we just beat a lot of school groups, though we did get stuck with another hoard of wild French school kids. UGH. I hate french school kids. There's always 50 or more and no teacher visible. They literally shoved Ryan out of the way while he was reading something and flipped it from the English to the French page. Anyway... the palace was fabulous!!!! They've taken the rooms that the princesses throughout history have lived in and turned them into an "enchanted palace" and had all sorts of whimsical art and fairytale sort of things set up that any little girl would have truly been enchanted by. It was fairly interactive - you basically are hunting for each of the 7 princesses' names in certain rooms as you learn (in a poetic/artistic way) about their lives. Very very neat - everyone should go (minus rude French kids). They had a fabulous key necklace in the jewelry in the gift shop that was amazing and I wanted it bad but it's 90 pounds - EEP! We continued on to Kensington Gardens to pick up where we left off and found Peter Pan. Definitely a great ending to our morning of whimsical children's tales :)

We walked down to Wellington Arch after grabbing lunch to go. The views are not really worth paying for, but it was on the pass, so why not :) After learning that the arch didn't have a bathroom, we went across the street to the Apsley House (Duke of Wellington's residence) and found one. This was also on our pass and it was pretty awesome. The house itself is gorgeous, and there are amazing chandeliers and other décor as well as all of the Duke's medals of honor (which is a lot). The china room is super cool too - lots of amazing stuff in there to decorate tables with. HUGE nude statue of napoleon - though I thought he was short :P hehehe. We hopped onto the tube and after a major train delay, eventually got down to Shakespeare's Globe Theater, but tours were closed already. We'll hit that up tomorrow morning :)

We walked across the river and back to the monument. There are 331 stairs in a tiny winding staircase and I got pretty freaked out. I made it to the top and Ryan laughed at my cautiousness. Great views from up there and probably a lot less crowded than the Eye (hardly anyone there). After a grueling trip down, we made it over to All Hallows, the oldest church in England, and got our own private tour because there was close to no one there. REALLY NEAT old church with a lot of history. They have some awesome crypts underneath that have large sections of original roman tile flooring left from the origins of the city of London that were cool, and there's a separate section of it that we got to walk on!! They had a lot of roman artifacts and other noteworthy things. All Hallows is definitely worth seeing.

Again, we jumped on a train and headed over to St. Martin in the Fields church for a 4.50 pound brass rubbing that was included in our London pass. Basically they have brass plates of medieval designs from around London that you can do a rubbing of - so we spent quite a while making some. Making art always makes me hungry, so we grabbed some salads on the way back to the hostel. On our way, we were at a tube station ready to get on a train, and some other train pulled up and some guy was waving out of one of the cars for assistance. Basically the doors opened up right in front of us and some older looking guy was laying in the floor with his eyes closed and I thought I was going to have to do some CPR or something. EW. Turns out he was just really drunk and had passed out on the floor in the middle of the train. They woke him up and got him off. Hilarious experience though. Everyone was laughing on the train.

Back at the hostel now, we're trying to see how many cycles it takes the dryer to actually dry things and listening to the four bands of live music playing all my favorite songs downstairs while we're stuck upstairs in our PJ's. :( Soon we'll be down there though! We're not sure what the plans are for tomorrow, but it's the last day of our pass so we'll probably stop by the zoo and see the penguins :)

**later update:

We went downstairs to the bar (which closes at 12 to everyone except people staying in the hostel) and played poker with fellow hostelers. I won 5 pounds because I am the poker queen :) We made a TON of new friends and had a great time!

- Sara

May 28

Home 4:03pm

London 9:03pm

This morning, we headed out early to beat any crowds. It was the last day of our London passes so we decided to hit up the Globe Theater and the London Zoo. The Globe only had tours between 10 and 12 so we got there at 10. It was kinda neat, but of course it's not the original thing. They have gone to great lengths to make everything as true as possible though, even holding all building beams together with wooden dowels! Our tour got cut short because the actors needed to rehearse, but it was ok.

Then we ran off to the zoo. It was surprisingly small - they don't even have elephants - but it was one of the best zoos I've ever been to because of how things were laid out and how interactive everything was. There were many walk through things (birds, monkeys/rainforest, butterflies) where the animals were VERY VERY close! They had a big butterfly enclosure which was amazing! We spent a lot of time in there so I could take a lot of pictures. :) The bird enclosures were neat too because the beautifully colored birds were within arms reach. They had an outdoor monkey walk-through and a little monkey sat about an inch from Ryan's foot and a mom monkey with a baby on her back was maybe a foot away from me for about 2 minutes. Then we went into the bug house and they had a leaf cutter ant exhibit where (if you were ok with them biting you) you could have picked up the ants! It was really neat to see them cutting apart the flowers in a vase in one plexiglass box and climbing the rope trail up and out and taking the leaves to their nest on the other end of the rope. The zoo was so quiet and calming I forgot I was in a HUGE city!

After the zoo, we explored Regent's Park more and found Queen Mary's Garden which had a huge rose section (not in bloom yet) and then a beautiful walking path along a creek and waterfall and wonderful gardens and weeping willow trees everywhere. So with the walking through the zoo and gardens, we had a very relaxing day and headed to bed early when we got back.

- Sara

May 29

Today was the first day that it was a little cold and rainy. We took the tube down to Portobello road to the market. What a massive and fantastic place! Ryan didn't like all the people, so we more or less just cruised it soaking in the experience rather than trying hard to buy something. Lots of vintage and antique silver, jewelry and other things - really neat.

Then we decided to go to the British Museum since the rain was a little worse. The museum is free, and if you are ok with crowds, it's a BIG museum with lots to see. It was pretty busy in there, but I got a little peak at the Rosetta stone, a big Easter Island statue, lots of Egyptian mummies, and tons of pieces of the Parthenon (is there anything left in Athens? I think I saw it all already!) We moved at a decent clip through it, mostly just because after a while, everything looked the same and got boring. They had a cool history of money exhibit and a collection of different clocks and those were interesting. Lots of stupid people in there, and annoying out of control kids. I lost my patience on a group of girls (they were older so they should have known better than to cut in front of me in the line to read the freaking sign about the Parthenon stuff and put their little books covering the words so they could fill in their homework and so no one could read the sign).

After the museum, we ran back over to Westminster, but it was 12 pounds to get in so we didn't do that. We went out to a nice dinner at a great Italian place by our hostel and then relaxed in the bar, listening to a migit who is 27 but sounds like a tone deaf 6 year old sing EVERY OTHER karaoke song. It was really painful, but playing cards with our hostel buddies was awesome. We started playing a great game and Ryan and I made up a rule that whenever all 4 cards of a kind cleared, everyone had to stand up, flail their arms in the air and shout "Greenman Greenman!" (name of our hostel) and the last person to do so had to run through the busy bar to the front door flailing their arms and yelling "Hemang Hemang" (said "he-man", the name of our Indian friend here at the hostel). It was a TON of fun and lots of good belly laughing. It was a bittersweet night since it was our last night in this hostel that we really love.

- Sara

May 30

Home 10:00am

London 3:00pm

This morning we slept in some, though I still got up for breakfast, and then headed out into the gorgeous day to do a little shopping. Our friend Johanna from Austrailia said she found a big department store where shoes were 4 pounds, and I wanted a pair of jeans and a new t-shirt so we went. WHAT A MADHOUSE! The place is called Primark and yes, it is a wonderful place - thus there are mobs and mobs of people and a huge line for the dressing rooms. It was really hard shopping because all the sizes are different, but I eventually bought a pair of jeans for 6, two tee shirts at 2 each, white sunglasses and a pair of black flip flops at 1 pound each!!! CRAZY. I spent only 12 pounds and got literally everything I had wanted to get before we head to Amsterdam. The sink washing thing works, but it's hard to get everything dry (well more difficult when we were moving places rapidly) and I was tired of wearing the same pair of khakis everyday because it's been cold. Our hostel here has a washer and dryer and the next place we're going to does as well, so we're thinking it might not be too difficult to find some elsewhere.

We grabbed some lunch and are now just relaxing in the hostel bar watching England vs Japan's friendly game. Our train departs from Liverpool Street station at 8pm tonight and we're just resting for the rest of the day. The train will take us to the ferry port where the Stena line ferry will take us to the Hook of Holland ferry port and then we'll take a train to Amsterdam. We'll be couch surfing with a guy in Amsterdam who is a group moderator for lots of the Amsterdam CS groups and knows a lot about the city. We're pretty excited because it will save us a lot of money and we'll have clean bathrooms, no roommates, a washer and dryer and a kitchen to cook in! GREAT! :)

Next update should be when we're at Ramon's house in Amsterdam!

- Sara