Now onto London. I've been sick for these past 2 weeks on and off so blogging hasn't been my primary concern. But I'm recovering now so its a good time to catch up since I'm slightly losing my voice anyways. After we took the Chunnel from Paris we arrived at London at King's Cross/ St. Pancras Station. Sadly, I didn't run through the wall between platform 9 and platform 10. It was kinda late and I was hungry so I ventured outside and had some KFC. It's expensive but good. It was such a relief to speak English finally! English English English!!! My roommates were in the train station taking a nap so I just ventured out. Immediately I met some people studying abroad in London just hanging out. Then while waiting in line I met this man with a thick North London accent I think. At first I didn't even know he was talking in English, but he wanted to know where he could buy a 5 piece chicken piece. I told him to ask the cashier. Soon after he got into an argument with the cashier and he was obviously drunk, and everyone at the place knew it. After it was my turn I went to the cashier and gave him a nod of recognition knowing he just had to deal with the guy before he, and he returned the nod back. After that I ordered my KFC, ate it, walked around a bit, and returned to St. Pancras. We had to sleep there until we checked into our hostel tomorrow, and it was cold but I made it. The next morning as I was going to the ATM I got "randomly" checked by a police officer. He explained that the 7/7 train bombings were in Waterloo station not too far from St. Pancras and its their policy to perform random checks. It also might have to do with the fact that I hadn't shaved in a while, was wearing a black hood, was carrying a backpack, and I look like I do. I'm pretty sure it wasn't random but after the cop saw me carrying my American passport he became a lot more relaxed. Then the next morning we took the Tube, as the Londoners like to call it, to the Kennington stop and made a short walk to our hostel. I still have trouble seeing how the cars drive on the wrong side of the street and using the Great British Pound, which is almost double of a dollar. That killed me.
Anyways we eventually got to sightseeing. Due to some technical problems with my camera memory, I didn't take any pictures while I was in London but I'm sure there are some pictures floating around somewhere. The first thing I remember seeing is the biggest Cathedral in London, St. John's Church, which was nice. However once you've seen one church, you've seen them all so its no big deal. But right in the view we could see the Tate Modern Museum with a sign that said "Free Entrance". I liked the museum. It had a lot of modern art even with some Picasso and some impressionist art, but some of the modern art is just newspaper clippings and I doubt if its really art. There were also a lot of interactive games and things and a lot of schools were there on field trips with their uniforms. It's also weird to see people who are asian, black, etc. all speaking in British accents. I like the British accent though. Its quite proper.
Then to make a long story short, I saw the London Bridge (at least the part of it that remains. Apparently a lot of it is in Arizona), Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Green Park right next to Buckingham Palace, another park which I forget the name of, the Tower of London tour Royal Jewels with their huge diamonds, and chatted with some locals. I also went along the street where all the well-known shops are and I visited the London Burberry store and tried on their clothes. One jacket cost 1000 GBP. I also visited the famous 3-story toy store Hamley's, which was fun. They have a lot of toys so it was fun to check them out. There was also the Ferrari Store, the Hugo Boss store, and other nice stores. I also had fish and chips multiple times. I felt like a true London bloke. Eventually the vacation ended and after some fiasco with the flight home I finally made my way back to Roma from my one week vacation break. Next up... travels around Roma and my next travel break to Spain. Stay tuned...
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