London

I have been in England for a month now, and although it's 19 days into the month of July, I have only written in here twice. This needs to change and change quickly. But I don't think it'll be a problem. England is indeed inspiring me to write (as I wrote about in my last blog). But today I have no particular thoughts in which I wish to go on about. No, today's post, or perhaps just this one (because I have a feeling I will write more later), is about London. Simply London. Too bad it's not as simple as stating it.

We arrived in London on Friday and while it was a 3 hour bus ride from Worcester, and I barely slept the night before, I could not catch a wink of sleep during the ride for I was just too damn excited to get there. I had a map and a list of sites to see and things to do and they needed to be embarked upon asap. We arrived in London, and after gathering with a few friends, I was off to see the Tower of London. Warning to all of those who might travel to London someday and wish to see the Tower: it is tourist attraction central. I felt a vibe of being more in Disney World than in London because of all the tourists, and all the different activities going on that would draw in a tourist, such as myself. But since my plane touched down in Birmingham a month ago, I have been determined to NOT be a tourist. I am an American, yes, and I am trying to take in as much of England as possible, but I don't want to feel as if I'm on vacation here. I want to feel as the reason I came here; to really get a sense of this country and the people who live here. I want to know what it's like to really be apart of England. And the Tower of London was not the place to find it.

However, don't read too much into that last paragraph, for I did enjoy going to the Tower of London. And the way I rushed about London, big-eyed and in awe of everything there's no doubt that I was being a tourist. But I was in London. LONDON!! My dream city. Life could not get much better than that.



The rest of my day was still pretty eventful...I saw Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. I ate at a lovely little Italian cafe, learned how to ride the Tube (which I'm happy to say I've successfully mastered and no longer fear getting lost on), found Sherlock Holmes' house (which is actually 221 b, not 22 b), attempted to take a photo of my friends posing as the Beatles on Abbey Road, caught a glimpse of Hyde Park (which I will later devote an entire blog post to), and visited Piccadilly Circus, aka, the Times Square of London and what I believe is the only place in England that has everything open past 9pm.



All that on a Friday.

Saturday is my day of disappointment. You see we were all given the London Pass, a pass that gave us free access to many sites and attractions in London, and I discovered on the website that there was something called the British Music Experience. YES! Finally! What I came here for! The music.

Again, this is something that I will later write its own blog post for, so I will make this short and to the point. It was THE biggest waste of time. Traveling there, seeing it, traveling back, getting lost, getting a headache because I was lost, then feeling sick, then not doing really anything else for the rest of the day. In two words? Epic fail.

But again...nothing could really be that bad. Even if I didn't see or do a whole lot on Saturday, I was still in London. In fact that night I went back to Piccadilly Circus and went into a souvenir store and called my Mom to see if there was something she liked. I found out my parents were in Mansfield, OH with my sister; my sister Beth works at a camp up there and it was family weekend, so they were going out to eat. When I heard they were enjoying a lovely meal of Oliver Garden, (something I definitely miss about the states: food) I wasn't jealous. Because as I said to my sister, "Guess what? I'm in London!!" London beats Oliver Garden, any day. London beats a lot of things any day. Nothing could really be that bad, because you know what? I was in London.

And finally came Sunday, my last half day there. I went with my friends Uhleesuh and Dennis to the Wimbledon arena. I am not a big tennis fan, but I do enjoy watching it and attempting to play it, so I was happy to go and see this spot that I don't think many people who come to London would take time to check out. I had plans to venture back and see what else I had missed, like attending a service at St.Paul's, going shopping on Oxford St., and taking a quick glimpse of the globe. None of that happened. My two friends and I got back in town where we ate lunch at a Starbucks (my one and only encounter with Starbucks here AND I didn't buy coffee) and crashed on the lawn in front of Tate Modern. My heart was willing to see and do so much more before our bus was to leave at 4pm...but my body could not handle any more of it.

Needless to say, I must go back. My friend Season and I will be making plans to go one more time during our last weekend here in England. One weekend was not enough. Heck, I think I could spend my entire six weeks here just in London. But I'm glad I didn't. Because if I had, I would've missed out on the other great parts of England. Like the Iffley Road Track in Oxford, or the Beatles tour in Liverpool. And let's not forget the beloved Worcester, which has become my second home.



I have two weeks left here. And I'm now beginning to realize how even six weeks is not enough time.