tubular

wow. it has been a CRAZY weekend. we just got back from london, and it was an awesome trip. let me go back to the beginning and let's work our way to now.

saturday started really early, at 445. having gone to bed less than 3 hours beforehand, it was rather difficult to pull myself out of bed for the 0500 sale at NEXT...but i did it. we trouped down there as the sun was just starting to peek over the horizon. when we turned the corner, we saw a huge queue<----how british! of people storming into the store. when we walked in, we saw that everything was on sale. and i mean everything. curiously enough, though, the stuff they had was all different from the stuff they had when we'd gone earlier in the week, when nothing was on sale. anyway, i ended up getting a bottle of facewash and 2 shirts to spend a respectable 21 pounds (the pound symbol on this computer doesn't work). we were in NEXT for about an hour and then went back to sleep for a couple more hours before heading to london.

waking up at 740 was a lot easier than 445. ate breakfast and then milled around until the buses rolled up. we all slept on the way into the city (about an hour and a half), and then when we got there we were dropped off by the theatre where saturday night fever would be (and where we'd have to meet at 1430). the group of about 15 of us that were staying in the same hostel headed to piccadilly circus to find it, and when we got there we dropped our bags off and were told we couldn't check in until 1300. the place was huge. it was 6 or 7 floors (nothing but a small desk on the first floor), but each floor probably had between 40 and 50 rooms in it, each with 4 or 6 beds. that's a lot of people!

at this point, our group of 15 split up, and 6 of us went to harrod's. due to the bombings on the tube on 7/7, we couldn't take the underground two stops to get to knightsbridge. so we walked...and what a walk it was. we did run across "the modern jesus army" parading through the city with "there's power in the blood" blaring on speakers and people handing out cross necklaces and brochures. when we finally did get to harrods it was after 1200, and we had agreed to meet everyone back at the hostel at 1330. the sheer size of harrod's makes it impossible to cover even one floor in an hour, so our group split up. the store's layout is confusing ... room after room after room of any and everything you could ever want. i didn't even make it off of the lower 2 levels (there are 7 i think), and the only things i ended up buying were food. i got a 1.20 ham and cheese croissant (delicieux!), a piece of exceedingly rich choc. cake for 1.50, and a package of prepackaged chocolate fudge for 2.50. they were having a big sale, so there were tons of people there, but that didn't really make anything affordable, especially when you consider the exchange rate! anyway, i wish we would've had a week to spend just in harrods .. i think you'd still have a hard time seeing everything. when we left, we devised a roundabout way to avoid the closed routes and take the underground back to piccadilly so we didn't have to walk. even though it required us changing trains 2 times, it took less than 15 minutes to get back, as opposed to more than 30 walking.

we met up with our group at the hostel a tad after 1300, and the checkin process took forever with so many people. when we did finally get all checked in, it was about 1445 ... and the play started at 1500! we hopped on the tube and made it to the theatre with about 5 mins. to spare. by this time, i was starting to think i'd rather be out seeing things in london as opposed to sitting in a show for 2 hours. bill said he didn't want to see the show either, so we split with the group, saying we'd meet them at the burger king by the theatre at 1730.

while everyone else watched the musical, bill and i took the tube up to the Arsenal soccer stadium, in the very north of the city (he's a huge fan). it was really cool though, and i guess this is the last year that the team will use the stadium, since they're building a new one. the workers at the stadium saw me looking at my underground map for closures and they commented on how it was good we weren't afraid and they were glad we came to london anyway, even in the wake of the bombings. that made me feel good. so after gawking at the stadium for a while, we walked back to the underground and took it to notting gate hill, the stop for the famed portobello road market. we got there just before 1700, so everyone was beginning to close up shop, but it was still really cool. the mix of stores and street vendors, peddling goods as varied as antiques and scarves, made for an eclectic atmosphere. after walking down the street a bit, we decided we should go meet the group. i got a GLASS bottle of coke (the best kind), and we hopped a train back.

it took us a while getting back due to an earlier "incident" on the central line (the one we were taking) ... (the incident later turned out to be nothing). we eventually made it to burger king at about 1750, but our group (jenna, andi, and collin) was still there waiting for us. after grabbing a quick bite, we headed towards the river, stopping at westminster cathedral, westminster abbey, and big ben and the houses of parliament to take pictures ... it was almost visual overload, all these amazing sights one after the other.

after crossing the river, we went on the london eye ... a huge 430-foot ferris wheel that gives you great bird-eye views of the city. it did cost 12.50 pounds, but it was worth it. the ride took a half an hour, and at the top you could see all of london's main sights from your little capsule. i didn't explain it very well, but if you'd like to find out more about the eye, you can check their website out at http://www.londoneye.com/.

after our eye-rific tour, we traversed the river again and stopped at a tesco express for a quick bite to eat (we were all really hungry). we were sitting literally right across the street from big ben ... and it was just so cool to think that we were casually sitting there, right under big ben, eating a candy bar! it really was awesome.

moving on toward buckingham palace, it was beginning to get dark. by the time we got to the palace it was getting kind of hard to take good pictures, but then it started to rain. we ran to the nearest tube station, which turned out to be quite a ways ... we all ended up soaked. we took the underground back to our hostel and changed into dry clothes, then went to a pub about a block away from there to get some real food since we hadn't eaten substantial food since 1500 (it was now about 2130).

we hung out at the pub until 2300 when they closed, and met up with some other nebraska folks at burger king right around the corner, just to hang out and talk and such. by the time we got back to the hostel, it was about midnight and we checked our email and sat around and chatted until almost 2 before heading off to bed. the hostel was very much like our dorms here: stark and small ... but it served its purpose well, namely, for sleeping. they split our 15 person group up into smaller, 3 person groups in 4-person rooms. when we went to bed, our fourth person wasn't there, but all of the stuff indicating that it would be a girl. only time would tell for sure. anyway, that sums up yesterday in london. i'll finish recounting our trip to the big city in my next installment. thanks for reading!

i (heart) the underground,

grant