I was waiting for a crosstown train in the London Underground

'ello, chaps and chappettes.

I'm back from London, and after my five hour nap, I'm ready to talk about the excursion of Steve, Zach, Adam, David, and me.

This weekend's trip began with catching a tram from Karlsruhe to Baden-Baden.  All six of us, except Jason who was still in the shower, left the ID to catch our 5:27 p.m. tram at about 5:20 p.m. We were more than a little surprised when we saw our tram pulling into the stop at 5:21 with us being a block and a half away.  One frantic sprint later, we were on the tram to Baden-Baden...or so we thought.  About halfway to Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof, Zach realized that he didn't have his boarding pass.  He got off at the next stop and headed back to the ID.  At least Jason would have someone to go with to Baden-Baden.

Well, we would have went on different trains if the one we were on didn't have to be serviced at the bahnhof.  It turns out that the tram we ran so frantically after wasn't the one we wanted to get on since this one was stopping before Baden-Baden.  Ours was actually running a bit late since Jason and Zach were still able to catch it near the ID at about 5:30 p.m.  The other four of us hopped on at the bahnhof.

Finally arriving in Baden-Baden, we went and got our bus to the Baden Airpark which was a ways away.  The bus took us on a nice little tour of Baden-Baden which seemed like a fairly nice town, though there wasn't anything special about it.  We did like it so much though that we saw it twice.  Disregard the fact that the reason we saw the town twice was because we took the bus in the wrong direction.  Sigh.

We arrived at the airport about two hours before our flight and killed time until we could check-in.  After seeing that Ryanair uses the same people for both the check-in desk and the boarding gate at Karlsruhe-Baden, I kind of see why the flight was so cheap.  I'm kind of surprised the two ladies at the gate didn't fly the plane as well.

The flight went well, though our landing was a bit rougher than one would like.  We went through passport control and made our way to the airport shuttle ticket office.  At the desk, David apparently forgot that we didn't need to speak in German since he paused and thought about what to say at the desk.  After about an eight second pause, he realized that, well, London isn't in Germany and that he could speak English.  The shuttle took us to Liverpool Street Station in Central London.  From there, we had to take two Tube (subway) trains to our hostel.  Thankfully, our shuttle wasn't late because we caught the last two trains that we could have.  We checked-in at the hostel, grabbed some food at McDonalds, some chat with the staff in the common room/pub, and attempted to sleep in the fairly hot room.

Awakened by the burning hot sun coming directly into my bunk from the eastern window of the room, I ate some breakfast and got ready for Saturday's shenanigans.  We started out at Trafalgar Square, which gave some nice pictures.

Jason and I snapping pictures at each other in Trafalgar Square

 Towards Big Ben from Trafalgar Square

We then went to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace.  It's too bad that we, apparently, stood on the wrong side since we could barely see anything.  Oh well.  After some wandering through London, talking to some old English guy about American soldiers, and plenty of picture taking, we headed towards Parliament and Big Ben.

Big Ben isn't really that big

We continued walking around, possibly being followed by the aforementioned old English guy (we saw him everywhere).  Near the London Eye, there were a lot of street performers.  There were two awesome groups.  One was a group of guys that, from their looks and accents, I'll venture to guess were from Africa.  They did everything from juggling to acrobatics to being super flexible.  One guy was able to wrap both legs around the back of his head and walk around on his hands.  After numerous little kids failed at doing so, I got the chance to punt a soccer ball at another one of the performers.  He caught it on a stick he was holding in his mouth.  Very cool.  The other awesome group of performers were break dancers including one guy who could do the robot better than Johnny 5.

After heading back to the hostel for a bit, Jason and I went to a pub, ate, had a couple of nice English brews, and watched the FA Cup.  The pub was just how I hoped it would be with fans from both teams cheering and jeering and the food being great (my giant cheeseburger was absolutely delicious).  In another location, Steve and Zach watched as they lost their 10 pound bets on Portsmouth winning.  Tough luck, guys.

We then attempted to go to a museum which ended up being closed and met up with Adam's fellow Purdue cheerleader, Liz.  Liz and several other Purdue management students are in London right now for Maymester.  We hung out at their flat for a while then walked around looking for a pub.  After walking around for a long time, we finally found one.  Too bad that it closed within fifteen minutes.  We then walked around for a bit longer, took Liz back to her flat, and took a taxi back to the hostel.  I may have peed a little on the taxi ride considering all the weaves, turns, and close calls we had.  A drink at the hostel's pub, a conversation with a lovely Irish girl by the name of Emma, and a poor night of  sleep due to a group of rowdy, punk English teens ended my Saturday in London.

Tomorrow, I'll try to update on the events of Sunday, Monday, and early today.

Until then, Alles Gute.