Last week and LONDON

I left y'all last time about to watch the Wofford game...well in case you live in a cave, WOFFORD WON!!  They beat College of Charleston and we just found out last night that the Terriers will travel to Denver on Thursday to play BYU, which is probably our best matchup compared to the other teams we would have possibly been matched up with.  So we will wait and see how it goes!!  The game is at 7:00 Eastern time and since we haven't had daylight savings time in Spain yet it will only be midnight here when it starts so hopefully we can find a sports bar playing the game!!
 GO TERRIERS!


Last Wednesday, my friend David from camp (who I visited in Brussels a few weeks ago) came to Barcelona with his mom and sister for his Spring Break.  It was so good to see him again and to meet his family!  Unfortunately I had class a lot of the time they were here but we met up for lunch both days and did a little bit of walking around together.  They did a lot of exploring on their own, too.

Then, on Friday morning I left for London!!  I made sure to get to the airport very early to make sure there were no problems with my new passport and I'm glad I did!  This airline, Easy Jet, flew out of a different terminal but within this terminal there were three (A, B, and C) and I had nothing to clarify which of the three I was flying out of!  The bus dropped me off at B and I walked into B, to A, and finally to C before I found it.  When I got in line to check in there were about 50 British 8th graders  waiting to check their bags.  After waiting in line forever and listening to middle school drama I finally made it to the counter and the lady assured me that all was well with the passport...phew... and I made it through security and finally on the plane where I had to sit next to two of these British 8th grade girls.  One of their friends came crying to them because she couldn't find her seat and her friend was being mean... so many hormones... I thought I was going to be miserable the whole flight but I actually made friends with the two girls sitting with me when we both disclosed our love for Justin Bieber and we played a few games of Hangman.  The airline was British so everything was said and written in English, which was AMAZING.  But it only got better.

When I got to the airport in London I had to buy a bus ticket to get to Central London.  The bus didn't leave for 45 more minutes so I found a DIET Coke (Not a Coke Light which doesn't taste the same that every other European country drinks...) and Ben & Jerrys Ice Cream and waited for the bus to come.  It was the best wait I've had in a while :)
When the bus finally came, our bus driver who looked just like Bob Marley popped off, helped us load our bags and we were on our way listening to Bob Marley CDs the whole ride into town.
I made it into Central London and tried to find Martha, Ellis, and their friend Marissa who is also in Rome with them because after they checked into the hostel they said that there was no way we were sleeping in there.  Everything from the bathrooms to the sheets were filthy and while they were inside someone found a key to the hostel laying on the ground outside and walked in without a problem.  It seemed really unsanitary and unsafe so we got one night's payment back and were on the hunt for a new hotel.  We walked around London searching and finally we found one and it was great!

We found a cute little English pub near our hotel after we freshened up and had some beers while we waited for Elizabeth to get into town.  When we met up with her we went out to eat dinner at this delicious burger place near our hotel.  We called it a pretty early night because we had big plans to see London the next day!

We woke up at 8:00 and were outside by 9:00 (wow!) and headed to our red double decker bus tour!  The tour took around 2 and a half hours and we saw absolutely everything!  We had a great tour guide, Peetuhh (Peter) and we learned so much!  After the tour we grabbed some lunch, some Fish and Chips!  We weren't really expecting them to be too good, but we just felt like we had to eat some while we were in London!  We were VERY pleasantly surprised when they were delicious.  I'm saying it's one of my favorite foods now.  It's just fried fish and french fries but the fried part of the fish was kind of sweet and amazing.  I want some more!!

After lunch we went to the Tower of London!  We all thought it was like one tower with the Crowned Jewels but it was so much more.
Here is the whole group in front of it (again, still camera-less so I stole some pictures from Martha, Ellis, and Marissa!)

We went inside and were able to see everything from torture techniques to the Royal Armor to our favorite, the Crowned Jewels!! We couldn't take pictures of the Jewels but we saw all of the crowns and jewelry and coronation pieces and it was all amazing!  We saw diamonds bigger than our hands.  I want one!! :)

Besides the Crowned Jewels, this little area was my favorite part of the Tower.  I LOVE the blue doors!

After we left the Tower of London we took a boat cruise through the Thames River which was included on our bus tour!  We rode from the Tower to Westminster Abby which was so pretty!  While we were standing there taking pictures we got goosebumps thinking that we were standing where William and Kate are getting married, where Princess Diana's funeral was, and where so many important historical events took place!  It was so surreal.

We also saw Parliament, Big Ben, and the London Eye:

Everything was so pretty!!

And eventually we made it to Buckingham Palace!  We asked two different people to take our picture in front of it and both people got only our bodies- no Palace.... Some people just don't understand.  Since there isn't a good one of us in front of it, here's just the palace:

It was kind of disappointing though because the guards weren't outside!!  Apparently from September-April there is only a Changing of the Guards every other day.  Although that was kind of a letdown the palace itself was so cool!  750 rooms, so much history, Prince William, all of that inside!  Sooo incredible.  

We had dinner at a restaurant called Garfunkel's and it was delicious!  We really took advantage of all of the English speaking there since we all live in countries where we have to speak a different language to get around.  And we loved that the waiters came and checked on us during our meals!  We haven't had that for a while.  It was such a comforting trip.  I think we all really needed it.  It was so easy to communicate and there were so many American things there... I already mentioned Diet Coke but they also had REESES!!!  We found them and all bought two packs of three Reeses Cups...and ate them within the hour.  I've missed Reeses.  

After dinner we decided to find Abbey Road and take a Beatles picture!  It was night time but we got a decent picture after trying for about 20 minutes and dodging traffic

So, in conclusion I am moving to London after college.  OK OK maybe not but I am definitely going back to London and soon!!  

Now I am back in Barcelona and we didn't have class today!  I have gotten so much done today which is great because I'm usually so unproductive here!  

I don't have any travel plans until our Spring Break at the end of April when we're going to Greece so I will be enjoying Barcelona for the next four weekends and I'm really excited!  There are still so many things that I want to do and see here and now's my time.  I'm going to try to get a new camera soon so hopefully by my next post I will use my own pictures.  

I hope everyone is doing well! I miss all of y'all!  It's Greek Week at Wofford so on top of all of the NCAA madness, there's so many greek activities going on, so I have to say 

GO KD!!!

Off to study now!

Adios!