When it struck me that I've been waiting since birth to find a love that would look and sound like a movie...

I hope you all know that I am posting this with the legitimate threat of death if I wake Dev (my roommate) up.  It's not my fault that my hands type with the speed of the Road Runner and the loud thunder of Thor.  But anyway, you're welcome.

So, London part two.

I left my tale of London with failing asleep on Saturday.  Sunday morning, I awoke around 8:45 a.m., hurriedly put on pants for breakfast, and just beat the end of continental breakfast.  I'd be lying if I said that I didn't eat my cereal (corn flakes) slowly in hopes that Emma, the aforementioned Irish girl, would come down and chat.  Sadly, I think she had already checked out.  Drat.  It was pretty interesting to hear the Australians that ran our hostel rant about the English kids that have stayed there.  I'm just glad it hasn't been Americans giving them trouble.

Around 11ish, I think, Jason, David, Zach, Steve, and I headed out towards London Bridge.  We crossed the bridge (not much to write home about), took a few pictures, and then headed towards the Tower of London.  We stopped by "The Monument", a Wren era monolith, as well as the original Roman trail towards the original London Bridge over the Thames.  We then grabbed a bite to eat at a Wetherspoon pub near the Tower of London.  My roast was absolutely delicious as well as the ale that I had.

After the pub, we walked around the outside of London Tower, a merchant sailor monument, and finally London Bridge.  Luckily, we grabbed a few pics before it started to rain.  Booooooo.  Set in my ways, I was determined to go to the Prime Meridian in Greenwich, so I convinced the others to head out there.  Sadly, we once again had no idea where we were going (maybe Brittney was right with me having a hobby of getting lost).  It did provide some good as we saw the former Royal Navy Academy that we otherwise wouldn't have seen.  Of course, it started to pour down rain as we walked up the large hill to the Meridian, and of course, I wasn't wearing my jacket and had only a t-shirt on.  Needless to say, I was freezing.  I did get to hop between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres, though, as I had hoped.  Whheeeeeee!!!

 No, I'm not jigging, just hopping from one half of the globe to the other.

We walked back to the DLR station to head back to our hostel.  I took a shower and then Zach, Steve, and I headed to Piccadilly Circus.  We saw the lights of the Circus, and I attempted to take pictures.  Too bad that none really turned out that well.  Having never been to Times Square in NYC, I will still compare Piccadilly to it and say that Piccadilly was a miniature Times Square.  The three of us, from here on out referred to as the Three Musketeers, walked around, got asked by bums for money numerous times, walked through Chinatown, and ended up at O'Neil's Irish Pub.  The pub had a live band playing and was quite awesome, indeed.  Perhaps even better than 9 Irish Brothers in West Lafayette, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go that far.  The Three Musketeers (ok, this is stupid.  I recant calling us the Three Musketeers.) headed to another club, Sound, after being offered free admission to the typical seven pound cover bar.  Nevermind the fact that we followed a guy that worked there down a semi-sketchy alleyway to get there.  The place was lame, so we left and caught a bus back to the hostel and slept.

Monday morning, we checked out of the hostel.  David and Adam headed to the Tower of London to tour the inside.  Zach, Steve, Jason, and I went to go up the London Eye.  All of us grabbed lunch at McDonald's which had the most amazing hand dryers invented by the human race.  The Dyson Airblade, check it out.

We then walked along much of the same path as Saturday past Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Parliament.  I got my picture with the Abraham Lincoln statue near Westminster Abbey.  It was neat considering that I am (distantly) related to Abe and because my father (miss you, Dad) was really big into our genealogy and our relationship with the sixteenth President.

We then headed to the Eye.  The wait for tickets was longer than the wait for the Eye, a dramatic turn from the approximately two hour wait for the Eye on Saturday.  Going up on the Eye provided a great view of the city.  It was so high, in fact, that I got a bit nervous being on it.  I have a very slight fear of heights, so I didn't walk around our pod a ton.  The only problem with our "flight" on the Eye was that my camera began to die half way up the Eye.  I had to ration my battery space the rest of the day, snapping pictures as soon as my camera would turn on.

The rest of the day we did a little more walking around i.e. past Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and Millennium Bridge, took a short nap by Bank Station, saw the Bank of England Museum, tried to see Robin Hood at the cinema, didn't go because it was expensive, and watched the sunset by Parliament.  Eventually, we headed to the airport and attempted to sleep there.

We were awoken around 4 a.m. by the shopkeeper of the store that we were sleeping in front of.  Grumpy and tired, we stood in line and checked in to our 7 a.m. flight.  After waiting around for seemingly the same time as the next Haley's Comet, we boarded the plane and came back to Karlsruhe.  I had a more than a slight scare when I couldn't find my passport after boarding the bus.  After looking through the airport and my bag (it was stuck in a book), I found my passport and got back on the bus  This was, of course, after me freaking out about having to do a ton of paperwork and going to the Munich U.S. Consulate to get another passport.  Luckily, I was spared that ordeal.

The rest of Tuesday I slept.  Today, I worked on my design project again then went to a restaurant with German GEARE students that just got back and ones that will go to Purdue this coming spring.  It was a good time, though I apologize if it hampered my typing. ;)

Anywho, until next time, Alles Gute.