First Day, DEC. 16 - Flight and London

Okay, so the astute reader will point out that the flight actually took place on Dec. 15th and then extending into Dec. 16th.

Whatever.

The flight was interesting. I was stuck in a middle seat in the middle row, which means I was sandwiched between two people the whole flight. One of them was an old lady who I swear was about to have a seizure and die....it's not being mean, it's a fact. Her whole body was shaking like a mento in a coke can. When we lifted off, she literally was causing a size 7-earthquake in her chair, which reverberated over me. She went to the bathroom at least six times. I half expected her to not come back after the third.

Okay, that sounded mean. The other seatmate-person was actually really nice. She hit that perfect balance between being talkative and being interested in your life without talking your head off for the whole flight. We probably had four or five 5-minute conversations the whole flight, but that was enough to feel like we had become friends. She was a 51-year old flight attendant who apparently works on private jets for Warren Buffett. I was THAT college student who was just randomly going on a Eurotrip with little/no planning. She gave me a lot of good tips and she was really nice, so that was actually a plus.

I was reminded of the fact that despite language barriers, pretty much all human beings are capable of being very, very weird. Or just silly, whatever you want to call it.

There was the old guy who bent down in the aisle and grunted in the face of the previously mentioned old lady next to me. It sounded like he had growled at her. It was really weird and she almost jumped out of her chair. It turned out that he was picking up his luggage and that, for some weird reason, he felt like he had to make that noise when he picked up luggage and when his face was inches away from that poor old woman's.

There was the family who, as luck would have it, were positioned in the row right in front of me. That could have been disastrous, but the baby was actually really good and only cried for like two minutes at the beginning before going to sleep. The parents seemed really nice too - I think they were from Germany or Austria, just from their accent/looks.

But my favorite was the mom making weird faces at her kid. The mom had gone up to wait in line for the bathroom, which was also right in front of my row. She would hide in the space that can't be seen from the rows and then pop her head out, signalling to her child that was stilling with the dad, and making really, really silly faces. It was funny because she was saying a different language but the expressions were sooo much like my own family's. She did it like seven times, each time getting sillier and sillier.

I landed in London and we waited for like an hour to get htrough security. Got through no problem, paid for a round trip ticket to the Victoria Station in London (the airport is 30 minutes out). I'm going to use the other side of the round trip on my way back 20-something days from now.

Oh and thank you to the guy at the train station who kept on repeating over the loudspeaker, "Do not leave your bags unattended. They may be taken and then possibly...destroyed". The English are so much more blunt than Americans, who would say something like "confiscated".

Also, is it just me, or do English accents just naturally sound sarcastic, as if the language itself was formed that way to belittle you when you're an American tourist asking a silly question.

Okay that's probably just me.

I walked out into the cold and realized I had no map and no clue of where I was or where anything was. I went to a Starbucks, which was amazing because even here they all have free wifi. Hallelujah! I looked something up real quick and realized that I needed to try and find a free map.

However, when I went to buy one, they cost 2.5 pounds a piece! WHAAAT!?!?! So of course, I was like, "I'm Nick Fouriezos, I don't need no map."

Which is funny because most times I do that I end up doing something really stupid, but this time it actually worked really well.

I immediately got to see Westminster Abbey, which was cool because its the biggest Catholic church in London (or possibly in the U.K. I think). I took a quick look around there and got some pictures. I would have gone to confession, but it wasn't until eleven and it was only like nine then.

I went to Parliament and saw Big Ben, and even heard him go off at the hour. A burly, whatcha-ma-call-it fellow informed me that Big Ben was closed to tourists today. Parliament was also closed, the cheeky blonde chick told me at the door. I would call her something else, but she never gave me her name and that was my impression of her (and it gives me an excuse to say cheeky).

Anyway, from there I...well things are getting a little hazy now. See what I said about things going all wack!?!

Oh yeah, almost forgot...

RANDOM GROUP OF HORSE-RIDING ENGLISHMEN!

I crossed the river Thames and walked around on the other side and even sat in on a choir's practice for a choral performance.

I crossed back over the river because I felt like I wouldn't have enough time to go and see St. Paul's if I didn't. It was a long walk, probably a good half an hour and I was already exhausted, falling asleep because it would have been around 7-in-the-morning back home, so it was as if I had stayed up that long, though it was now 12 in London.

I decided it was time to test some British cuisine. While English food has gotten some bad appraisals as of late, I was very satisfied with my "English Breakfast" which was basically an assortment of everything one could ever ask for in a breakfast. There was sausage, Canadian bacon, beans, mushrooms ( real mushrooms, still perfectly formed, unlike American mushrooms that are usually sliced or whatever) and...something else that I forget. Oh, toast and the best part...COFFEE!

I drink my coffee black because it makes me feel like a writer. I used to hate the taste of coffee, now I'm used to it/like it. Anyway, how am I ever going to be the next Dickens if I don't drink black coffee on the river Thames?

I got to St. Paul's and it was simply breathtaking - just the coolest church I've ever seen (which isn't that impressive considering how I haven't seen any of the great cathedrals of Europe, or even really the U.S.) The outer architecture and sculptures were just breathtaking. Amazing. Of course, when I got inside I realized that it was 14 pounds ( a little under 20 dollars) to tour the place. The Abbey had been free...so of course, I jumped ship. The inside wasn't nearly as cool as the outside anyway, from what I saw.

Just from my humble observations, I feel like London is just a giant city full of layers. Layers of building floors bulit on top of other building floors, like some weird vanilla cake, except everything's smushy. London definitely has its skyscrapers, but more of the buildings seem to be just like giant American banks, except that people work in them, or shop in them, or whatever they do in them. Sometimes you'll look to the side of the main street and you can look down and see rooms below you, and each of these rooms has windows and their all businesses - so you can see everything that a businessman is doing while he does his work in his "private" office. All you have to do is look.

Got this picture of the whole "layers" thing I was talking about when I walked into a random back-alley way that I didn't realize was an alley way. Good thing it wasn't dark!

Of course, just typing up a bunch of stuff isn't really that interesting. But I still thought it was strange to not have that privacy in one's own office.

The layers probably have a lot to do with the WWII bombings, in an attempt to mitigate the damage from such an attack. I mean, that's why London really went underground in the first place (I think).

I coasted through the British Museum (which was alright, just not that fascinating to me). It was now about 3 o'clock and I wanted to return to Victoria train station so I could make sure to be on time for my bus ride. Also, my legs were aching like crazy and I think I might have also pulled my shoulder from carrying that bag all day long (all this on basically no sleep, might I add).

Of course, after being able to find everything without a map to this point - I had been using the maps on the streets and random signs that pointed to tourist attractions - I suddenly wasn't able to find how to get back at all. It took me two-and-a-half hours, with me finally giving up on finding it on my own (it was a really hard thing, swallowing my pride like that ;). Instead, I paid four pounds to take a shuttle back to the train station.

Now I'm waiting for Paris. I took the ten-hour bus ride, which means I'll be driving through the night and will get there around 6 in the morning. This could be really good or really bad. If I sleep well, then I basicalyl saved money on the ticket (at least 90 bucks, cuz train tickets were going for 150) and I also didn't have to pay for a room somewhere ( saving at least 20-30 bucks).

However, it could backfire because it is a really long time (the train only takes 2.5 hours, compared to the bus' five hours) and if I don't sleep then it will be miserable tomorrow in Paris.

So hopefully I"ll sleep!

Anyway, I'm going to have pictures posted on this as soon as I can figure out how to get my pictures off my camera.

Talk to you guys tomorrow and God bless!

Nicky

P.S. Does anyone else thing this is funny?

Their t-shirts/brand names say "Super Dry". I'm confused - are they just really chill teenagers who bask in the sun a lot and don't take showers, or is the clothing line done by an alcohol-awareness group who wants it to be "cool" to be "dry". Food for thought my friends, food for thought.