Quaint and Friendly London (Thu-Sat)

With all of the rave reviews I had going into London, I had high expectations. I'm a huge fan of European history and Monty Python (funny how the two go together) and I also have a handful of friends who have studied abroad and visited London, all of whom returned back to the US completely infatuated.

That being said, after only two and a half days in the city, you can count me in as another convert. Cecily and I arrived with an open mind, and left with about 300 pictures and countless stories of new friends and a series of very unconventional adventures.

The Hostel Experience

For starters, we stayed in a hostel entitled "Journey's London Eye" which in reality was about a 15-20 minute walk from the actual landmark. It was funky and cute, with free breakfast, (FINALLY some cereal instead of the usual 2 pieces of white bread!!) all for only 10 pounds a night. The drawbacks of course, were the fact that we were in a room with 15 other people (co-ed, we realized when an Austrian supermodel made his entrance at 10pm wearing only tighty whiteys) and of course the showers didn't have hot water past 6am, so Cecily and I had to take ice water showers in a tiny shower stall with push button water. (Alot like the ones at the beach, except colder and half the water pressure.)

Here's a little tour of our hostel room when we first arrived: [notice, wearing the same clothes for two days in a row]

Beautiful Thursday

Our first day in London, we majorly lucked out. It was sunny, and absolutely gorgeous - not a bit dreary as we expected. We spent most of the day just exploring the city, and all of my pictures turned out great, with the dramatic clouds and beautiful lighting - especially from atop the London Eye. (See the facebook link for the best of pictures.)

Cecily had been to London before, so she showed me alot of the major sites: the London Eye, Westminister Abbey, Big Ben, Picadilly Circus, and of course Oxford Street where I've never seen so many incredable shopping opportunities in my life. (We caved in and bought 2 pound scarfs, and a matching pair of jeans for 25 pounds that look way better than anything I've ever worn in the US.) For dinner, we stopped by an indian food place that I found on eurocheapo.com, and I was VERY impressed. A huge plate of incredable, delicious indian food (with vegetables!!! I can't tell you how happy I was to finally see veggies again!!) and fresh squeezed orange juice for only 6 pounds each :) ...And of course, we also had english tea, and the famous "Ben's Cookies" for dessert, so by the end of the night the combination of tiredness and food coma was enough to make even hostel beds seem appealing.

Here´s a video I took of Big Ben chiming at sunset: (I didn´t realize that there was such a big pause between the intro chime and the ¨BONG, BONG, BONG¨s)

Bicycling, New Friends & Billy Jean

Arguably the best day of our weekend, on Saturday we took a five hour bicycle tour all through the city, and covered way more ground than we ever could have just on foot. For pictures of all the highlights, check out my facebook album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2464733&id=3227554&l=4338f7a861

While on the tour, we met Laurence and Fred - an engineering student studying abroad in Valencia, and his good friend who just graduated and is a French tutor in a London prep school. The two grew up together in Quebec (which makes them ¨French Canadians¨) and we all hit it off, and ended up hanging out in a chocolate themed pub for a few hours after we finnished bicycling. :) After admitting how embarrassingly little Cecily and I knew about Canada, we had a fun discussion about comparative cost of living, life after college, and the overall differences in university life between our countries. (In Quebec they do 2 years of ¨college¨ for general ed, then four years of ¨university¨ to specialize, so a degree takes 6 years instead of 4. Also, there isn´t much school spirit like we have in the US, but people do ralley around hockey, which is by far the most important sport in Canada.)

After our fun afternoon and evening bicycling and drinking chocolate, we headed to the tube to meet up with a group of new Dutch friends we met in our hostel, who invited us to join them at an international Christian conference happening right outside the city. Cecily and I had absolutley no idea what to expect - all we knew was that ten adorable Dutch people invited us to some conference, and why not? It would be adventure at the very least. So after a 45 minute tube ride, we arrived at a huge convention center with thousands of beaming people wearing I heart church shirts, and welcoming us back to the ¨Hillsong International Conference - London 2009.¨ Reservations put aside, we ran into the giant auditorium to get seats, and were immediately surrounded with singing, smiling and clapping people, happy to welcome us to the event. The lights dimmed, and a bonafied rock concert began, with singalong words scrolling across the top screen. Having gone to a Christian middle school and a fair share of church services back in the US, the general format of the conference wasn´t completely foreign to me. ...But 3,000 plus people, from 47 different countries, all rocking out to guitar solos and reggae compilations of worship songs? That was definitally a new experience.

After the conference ended, we headed back toward our hostel with all of our new friends, and just watched, laughing in disbelief as they sang, danced, and goofed around in the metro station like happy little kids. We passed by an english pub, and they invited us in for a drink - clarifying that just because you love the lord, doesn´t mean you can´t also love a good pint of english beer.

We all squeezed into a row of booths in the pub, and the more we got to know these crazy dutch people, the more interesting they became. Of the 4 girls and 6 guys, most were in their early to mid 20s, and all had real, interesting jobs like a chemical engineers, a pilots, and an account manager for a major international company. We all talked about our homes - contrasting windmills and little stone houses with the warm beaches of San Diego, and Colorado´s Rocky Mountains. Since none of them had ever visited California or Colorado before, we ended up drawing rough maps of the US and our respective states on a napkin, and giving them general landmarks such as Disneyland, Yosemite, and San Fransisco for California, and both Denver and Colorado Springs in Colorado.

After about an hour of explaining American culture and the beautiful places we live, (they all want to visit now) one of the guys started beat boxing, which turned into an all-out karaoke session and dance-off between the American and dutch members of our table. Cecily and I taught them the electric slide, and then in three part harmony, we all belted ¨Billy Jean,¨ (this was only after one glass of wine, mind you) and we talked one of the guys into showing us his freestyle dance skills, which I think Michael Jackson would have been very impressed by. Sadly, my camera died so I didn´t record any of this (they promised me they´d email me their videos, so I´ll put them up as soon as I get them!) but it was by far, the most spontaneous, rediculous, and fun night we could have possibly spent in London.