london: part 2

check out time was 10am at our hostel, so we all got up at about 9 to collect our belongings and such. what should greet us when we awoke but our mysterious lady friend. no one knew when she had come in, but she was sound asleep on the bed below mine. in true london fashion, the weather outside was wet -- while it wasn't raining very hard, it was a steady shower.

we walked down to the fourth floor and the breakfast room, where we were treated to an amazing breakfast of orange juice and 2 pieces of toast. high quality meal, no? so basically it took about 5 minutes to eat and then we went to check out and continue on our journey. we stored our luggage at the hostel for one pound so we didn't have to carry it all over the city with us, especially in the rain.

we got on the tube and went as far east as we could go and still be in central london ... to the tower hill stop. when we emerged from the underground, we were directly in front of the tower of london. talk about cool! due ot the inclement weather, the guided tours of the tower were cancelled for the day, which was very sad, so we had to walk around and check everything out ourselves. the place is huge, but since there was a lot we wanted to do in london we tried to move it along the best we could. we did go walk all the way through the white tower (middle one) and we saw the crown jewels ... seeing so much gold and so many gemstones one after the other and trying to mentally process that they're all real is quite a task!

the tower of london is amazingly close to tower bridge, and so we were able to get some great photographs of the bridge from inside the tower. we probably would have walked over there had it not been cold and rainy.

by this time it was almost 1300 so we decided to hop back on the tube and go one stop until we reached london bridge. i don't know what we were expecting, but it wasn't very exciting at all! we pretty much walked out onto it and took a picture of the sign and of tower bridge (because you could see it from there). then, according to the map, st. paul's cathedral was just a short distance, so we set off in it's direction.

the cathedral may not have been very far, but in the cold, wind, and rain, everything seems further than it is. it took what seemed like an eternity until we turned a corner and were greeted with the dome of st. pauls. we walked around the back, snapping pictures all the while, and reached the front steps. now all this time i had "feed the birds" from mary poppins stuck in my head, and i really did want to feed the birds, but alas. due to the rain, etc. it was not to be.

on sundays you can't tour st. pauls, but you can walk inside and look at it, so we did just that. it was so gorgeous, and i really wish we had been allowed to take pictures! the cathedral provided a good reprieve from the rain, so after we were done gawking at it's magnificence, we got back on the subway to head for piccadilly and the hostel.

when we got back to our hostel we stopped at a baguette and donut shop right on piccadilly circus. it was good, but like everything in london, expensive! we ate baguettes and retrieved our stuff from the hotel, hopped on the underground one more time and got on the bus to head for home.

when we got back, we ate dinner, and then at 8 there was a quiz competition for all the nebraska students. i wasn't planning on doing it, but then i ran into andi and josh and they convinced me to be on their team. so we had a handicap (3 instead of 4 members). there were 6 rounds: geography, history, oxford, pop culture, current events, and sports. each round had 10 questions. at the end, when they announced the winners ... it was us! hooray. we got these cool mugs with the crests of all the colleges at oxford on them, so it was awesome. after that i pretty much went back to the room and crashed, since we were all exhausted from our whirlwind trip to london. w00t.

quizically,

grant