Almost Ready to Leave London

Remember, I will mention pounds (£) and that means roughly twice as much in dollars ($).

Wednesday

Well me and Greg actually have started getting pretty good at navigating through this mess. On our first night we just stayed at a place called Hostel 639. We met four people from Canada (Josephine, Andrea, Caroline, Gen) and a girl from Poland (Eva). We mainly played drinking games with the Canadians like Egyptian Ratscrew and Bullshit. Then we played some hackey in the lounge til like 3am. We realized this was a bad idea if we wanted to get up early and not get charged £5 for checking out late. We went to bed after writing in the journals... completely exhausted.



Thursday

Thursday we made our way to another hostel called the London Globetrotters Inn because Hostel 639 was booked up. After waking up at noon (still adjusting to the time and going to bed at 3am :/) it took us about three hours or so to get 6 miles down the road to the new hostel. We checked in and it was a pretty nice place but the social atmosphere was 'meh'. Me and Greg were starving so we went to Tesco, a grocery store, and got some bread and cheese and orangina. Great dinner! We also picked up some pasta, rice, sauce, chili dip, beans, and soup. Around this time we decided to head to "Hyde Park" cause it was on the map, it was huge, a park sounded fun, we had plans to play some Hackey and Frisbee with the Canadian girls. We also had to teach ourselves to use a payphone and call one of their cellphones... not as easy as one would imagine ya know... It took both of us many tries to use. But we did it eventually and met up with them. We played hackey and frisbee til around 8 and ate some grapes and drank some wine (amazingly it was still semi-light out). The park was real nice. A really large park with free chairs stacked all around for use. Lots of people playing football and like games. As it darkened me and Greg realized we had to go back to the hostel in the dark with one set of lights. We had a hard enough time getting there. Well everything went without a problem and amazingly we got home real quick. We also got some cool night shots of a memorial and the Hammersmith bridge. My stupid ass, in excitement, saw the hostel and ran into a curb, resulting in my first flat of the trip. Patched it up, booted the tire... s'all good. The night ended with me and Greg making some pasta, meeting some guy from Montana, drinking some beer, and going to bed.

Friday

Surprisingly yesterday I did good and woke up at 630am (kind of like back home before the trip, eh?). We got our free breakfast, got our bike stuff together, and rode back to Hostel 639. We got there real quick (getting better at navigating through city!) and arrived before 11am. We checked in, checked our bags, and departed to touristy stuff on our bikes. We really got to see a lot, and seeing the city by bike is real cool. I have heard its a nightmare to bike here... but it isnt too bad if you know where to go. The left lane is usually a "Bus/Taxi/Bike" lane... and the right lane is for cars. If the bus lane isn't there a small bike lane usually exists. If neither exist well just like any other city the cars know you are there and yield to you. I haven't really felt in danger at all other than when a 18 meter bus starts merging into the lane cause they can't see me from 50 miles ahead :p Greg is also getting more comfortable with city riding. We took a lot of pictures and I hope to get them up. The day was really nice. We found a park right next to the Tower Bridge and got some sandwiches and just chilled there. I took a little nap. I do like the citys feel... there are tons of parks to just relax everywhere you go. We pretty much crossed over every bridge in London, took pictures of the famous buildings, etc. As a tourist I suck cause I am cheap. £30 to see inside the building? Pft... I will take a picture of the outside cause it looks awesome as it is... and just have more fun looking at the city itself. I think I enjoy that stuff a lot more. When we got back Eva, Caroline, and Gen invited us to a Polish meat and cheese meal. We went and got 4 bottles of wine and some beer. It was good times. Also in the middle of it some girl from the University of Maryland who knows Gregs sister came in (it was a staff room) and is apparently working there for free accomodations. Small world eh? Oh yeah... after midnight it is impossible to find a store open that sells alcohol, though. So I wound up going into a bar to quench the thirst... one drink was £3. Man... went to bed eventually. Or passed out shall I say... was a real fun night, though!

Today

Woke up in the morning with plans to leave today to Sheffield. We went and got breakfast where we met three guys who just graduated from the University of Maryland. Small world... again. Well my idiot ass misplaced my wallet. Worried for like 4 hours and then the lady at the front desk said the cleaner "turned it in." I guess what this means is he swiped all my cash and gave me back the credit card and ID. Cause she couldn't remember which cleaner it was, when he turned it in, or where he found it. Hmmmm? Well... at least I don't need to get a new credit card. Thoughtful of him/her. So I guess the only problems thus far are money ones. Oh well, I can always grow more. I mean earn more. Well, don't know what we are doing today... but there is my update. Like I said, pictures to come soon (Greg is uploading as we speak).


Frank

OK I put a few pics up but Greg didnt add any of the cooler ones... We will get them all on the Flickr account linked to the right and I will add more to the blog. There are much much cooler ones (with us actually in them :P)