Around 7:30 we boarded our coach to Preston, which is about 45 minutes away. In Preston we had a 2 hour layover to change coaches, so we decided to explore the town a little. The area we were in was not very nice I must say. We ended up going into a pub for a pint and the beer we got was really skunky. I nearly peed my pants laughing because of the disappointed look on Kyle's face with every sip.
Kyle laughing about the crappy beer
The pub with the bad beer
After we left that pub we headed down the street to what looked like a more popular area. Along the way we stopped off for some dinner. We ended up getting kebabs, which seem to be at every takeaway in England. They were alright, but I still stick by the Gyro Joint in Broad Ripple with my undying allegiance. With a full stomach we headed to another more respectable looking pub to waste the rest of our time until the coach.
Amanda
Kyle trying the scarf look out
hmmm....
Back at the bus station we boarded our coach for the remainder of the trip. It was a double decker coach which was pretty neat. We of course went straight up stairs and claimed some seats. The coach was really empty and there were only 8 people on the top level including us, so we each had 2 seats to ourselves. The bus made several stops along the way so as we got closer to London the bus became more and more full and we were forced to share our double seats with others, but luckily that was only for about the last 2 hours.
Kyle and Urmie on the coach
Kyle passed out
We got to London around 5am Saturday (2/7) morning and met up with Kyle's friend from back home, Lizzie. We hopped on a bus and went to her place, which is in an area called Maida Vale and is near Notting Hill. Her flat was pretty sweet. We only met 2 of her flatmates, but they were a lot of fun. Here are some pics of her place:
Kitchen
Living Room connected to the kitchen
Cool light in the living room
Bathroom
After getting to her place I passed out on the floor in the living room for a 30 minute power nap. I was surprisingly revived by the nap in spite of the fact that I had barely slept at all on the coach ride. Around 11am we decided it was time to hit the streets and see the sights. Our first stop was Picadilly Circus, which is kinda like Time Square. We emerged from the tube station (subway) and in the sea of comers and goers. We worked our way down the street and grab some sandwiches from a placed called Pret, which is a popular chain in London. After eating we walked to Trafalgar Square and from there we walked to Buckingham Palace. I must say, Buckingham Palace was a bit lackluster. I expected something a bit more grand and ornate, but I wasn't really awed by it. The fountain in the roundabout in front of it was more interesting in my opinion. After Buckingham Palace we walked to Big Ben and Parliament. Parliament was pretty neat from the outside and Big Ben was fun to see simply because I've seen it so many times in movies and such. We didn't realize that Westminster Abbey was right next to Parliament so we just kept on walking across a bridge over the Thames River. On the other bank we walked into some sort of gallery where Kyle decided he wanted to go into this movie memorabilia exhibit. We all waited outside and rested our feet for about 20 minutes while he indulged. After that we walked along the river and passed by the London Eye, which is the giant ferris wheel for sightseeing. We didn't go in it, which I kinda regret, but it was neat to see anyways. We continued to walk along the river past a number of street performers doing a number of different routines. Along our walk we saw the rebuilt version of Shakespeare's theatre. We wanted to go on the tour but it was a bit too pricey for us.
After that we walked through this local market which had all sorts of delicious-smelling things for sale. I was dying cause I really wanted to stop and eat something, but the group wanted to press on. After the market Kyle, Urmie, and I split off to walk out on London Bridge and get a view of the Tower Bridge. With our day of sightseeing concluded we headed for the tube again to get back to Lizzie's flat and prepare for an evening out. Here are some pics from the day:
Amanda, Rachel, Lizzie, and I forget the guys name. Rachel and the guy are Lizzie's flatmates.
Kyle on the subway
Back at the flat we took naps and people took turns grabbing a shower. Around 7pm we headed out to grab a quick bite and some drinks for pregaming. With a few drinks down and some food in the stomach we all suited up to hit the Ministry of Sound, which is a really popular club in London.
Ministry of Sound was awesome. It was really expensive to get in, but it was worth it. The place was packed so it took us a bit to work our way up to the bar. Drinks in hand we hit the dance floor. Saturday nights at MoS are dance, house, techno nights. The girls decided to make it a mission to get at least one free drink during the evening, which is so unfair. After a few songs I went exploring, cause the club has a number of different rooms as well as a balcony overlooking the bar room dance floor. I made a stop in the bathroom where I saw a flyer advertising guest appearances for the year. After seeing the flyer I made my way to the information desk near the door to ask if anyone was gonna be in the house that night. To my delight there was a guest DJ coming on at 2am, and it was one of the few I'm actually familiar with. The DJ is named Sasha and he is world famous. I rushed back to the dance floor to rejoin the group and spread the good news. We killed the time until Sasha's set over several rounds of drinks and plenty of dancing.
Around 1:45 we worked our way into the main room, which is called The Box. The room was shoulder to shoulder, but we were able to work our way up towards the front by hugging the wall. We found a bit of space near the front next to some huge speakers. The girls got up on the speakers and danced which was good for some laughs. After about 20 minutes we decided to try and get closer so we started weaving our way closer. We managed to make it all the way to the front next to another stack of speakers. The music was great and we partied the rest of the night in there listening to Sasha's set. Sadly we ended up leaving around 3, after only 1 hour of his 4 hour set.
After leaving the club we hopped on a bus and headed back to the flat to crash. On the bus we went up to the top level and grabbed some open seats. There was a really funny bunch of guys from Canada sitting by us so we talked to them the whole ride back. Back at the flat I snagged a blanket and picked a spot on the wooden living room floor to sleep. Not the most comfortable night sleep, but it was free so I can't complain.
The next morning Lizzy and her flatmates went on to campus to get some work done so Urmie, Kyle, Amanda, and I packed up our stuff and headed back into town. This time we got off the tube near Notting Hill. We walked a few blocks and arrived at Hyde Park. It was a beautiful park, but things were a bit dead due to it being winter. Right next to Hyde Park is Kensington Gardens, which I think is better than Hyde Park, but again most things were dead. We walked through Kensington Gardens and saw the Peter Pan statue, which was something Kyle said he had to do while he was in London. We left the park on the south end on our way to Harrods, which is a ginormous famous department store. We went into Harrods but it was so overwhelming and our time was short so we didn't stay very long. It would certainly be a cool place to go and spend some time looking around, but you kinda have to be rich to really shop there.
After Harrods it was lunch time and I was craving fish 'n' chips. We scoured the area around Harrods for any place advertising fish 'n' chips, but things looked scarce. Just when we were about ready to give up we spotted a little pub on a small street that had a fish 'n' chips lunch special for takeaway. We went in and sat down to relax for a bit while they made our order. When our order was up we grabbed the food and hit the road, eating as we walked towards the subway stop. The fish 'n' chips was the best I've had since I've been in England, although I will admit that it didn't strike me as the traditional kind.
We hopped on the train and headed for the Tower of London, which has a tour of the building as well as a torture exhibit. The train lines were all messed up for the weekend so we had to do a lot of switching to get near our destination. The closest we could get was about 10 blocks away, but that was close enough. We made the trek from the train stop to the Tower of London, which is right along the river and right next to Tower Bridge. We ended up getting there too late to do a tour so we just walked around along the water and looked at Tower Bridge, which was pretty neat. It had started to get dark and the time for us to leave was nearing so we hoofed it back to the subway stop to catch a train to the bus station.
We got to the bus station with about 2 minutes to spare and headed for the gate for our coach. There were a bunch of people sitting around at our gate so we figured they hadn't boarded yet. In reality it had boarded and we watched it drive away. There was another coach leaving 30 minutes later going to the same destination so we pleaded our case to the next bus driver and he let us get on. The whole ride to our first destination we were sweating, cause when we got there we needed to change to a different coach and we were already 30 minutes behind on what was supposed to be a 40 minute layover. To our pleasant surprise we ended up getting there with 20 minutes to spare and we made our connection just fine. The coach going back to Lancaster was pretty full and not a double decker which made me sad, but it got us there. When we got back into Lancaster at 3am we grabbed our stuff and got off. There was a taxi sitting there so we went over and asked if he could give us a lift back to the university. He gave us the nod and in we went. Right as we closed the doors to the taxi I realized that I had left my camera bag on the coach. It had my nice Nikon D40 camera and my video camera in it. My Nikon had all of my pictures of the trip except for the ones I took in the Ministry of Sound, hence the reason this post is so barren. I was pissed as you can expect. I called the coach company, but it has been 2 weeks and I haven't heard anything back which tells me its gone. Anyways, that was my trip to London. With the exception of losing my camera it was a good trip. The link below is to a photo album that has all the pictures I took with my other camera.
London Photos
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