London

Wed, Dec 2nd: Sean, Chris and I had decided to go to London a while ago, because it was our last long weekend and the round-trip flight was really cheap. So – after only 1.5 days back in Granada for classes, we did a complete turn around and left the country a second time. We caught a shuttle bus to the Granada airport Wednesday afternoon (so I missed my last class), with only one backpack for each of us. We were quite surprised upon entering the Granada airport though, because it is TINY. You walk in the front doors, turn right and go through security. Then there are only 4 boarding gates, and they all share a common waiting room about the size of an elementary school cafeteria. And that is the entire airport. We waited for our flight, and didn’t realize until we were standing in line to board that we had needed to ‘check in’ before security because we are extranjeros (foreigners)... so Sean and Chris ran back and checked in while I watched the stuff, and then we switched – managing to get all of us checked in and back in line before we got to the front (boarding was first come, first serve, and we wanted to sit together). Small world – turns out three other girls on our program were flying out on the same flight, but with a transfer to Dublin, Ireland. :)

Poor Sean hates flying, so even with Zanex he was very uncomfortable – just after takeoff Chris and I switched seats so I could sit next to and comfort him. We flew Ryan Air – the funny thing about them is that the flights are really cheap, but then they try and sell things to you the ENTIRE FLIGHT. There was never a moment’s peace from the stewardesses walking up and down the aisle, offering things.

We had a transfer in Barcelona, with Atlee, Sarah and Melina. Then the flight to London. Got into the airport fairly late, and then tried to take a train to the center station – which, for everyone speaking English, was remarkably difficult to find! Got on the train and waited for it to start – I was so tired at this point (France was catching up to me) that I was nodding off in my seat, only to start awake when my face hit the backpack in my lap. Got to the main station, and had to take a bus to Russel Square. So we ask the first bus if they go there – no. So we try the next bus (20 min later). He DOESN’T KNOW (How in the world can you NOT KNOW if you stop somewhere?!). So we wait for the next (another 20 min). I am so tired at this point... THIS bus driver listens while Sean explains our problem, then cuts in disgustedly with “If you would stop talking, I will tell you. See this street here [he points to the next one]? Turn right, and start walking.” Then he pulls off. How RUDE!! We knew that Russel Square was NOT within walking distance, and it was about 1am! We finally just walked over and took an unmarked Taxi (which you are NOT supposed to do) to where we had to go (which was about a 10-15 min FAST drive... walk – what a jerk). At the hostel we checked in, [went to our door but couldn’t get in because our keys were wrong, so went back to reception...] finally got into our room (which had 24 people in it – big even for a hostel), claimed beds and went to sleep.

Thurs, Dec 3rd: The cool thing about this hostel, which I personally had never seen, was that the beds were stacked three high – but very secure, and very quiet to be in. Each had a little closing curtain so people could go to sleep (regardless of the light) whenever they wanted – also included a little privacy. We had each thrown our things on the bed with us because we didn’t want to deal with the lockers under the beds. Sean and I slept fine, but Chris didn’t. He had never stayed in a hostal before, and this was NOT what he had been expecting, so he really hated it, which was too bad. In all reality, there were a LOT of people staying there, but it was cheap, and it was pretty clean. I would stay there again.

Got up for a shower and for breakfast before needing to check out... we were staying in the same hostel the next night, but in a smaller room (only 16 people or so...) so we had to go through the entire checkout process and not be back in the rooms for an hour... so we hung out in the waiting room with our stuff until we could check back in (ridiculous system...). Got a locker too in the new room, to share. Put all the valuables in there, and the rest of our stuff in the beds with the curtains closed, and left to go adventuring.

First, we went to the London Historical Museum, which is huge and FREE. They have one of/THE (I’m not sure which...) largest ancient Egypt collections in the world. Huge museum – we spent a few hours in there before deciding we needed to eat something (Chris was bored – Sean and I could have stayed there lots longer. :) ). As we walked back, I got a ginger soda and a bagel with peanut butter (which is WAY expensive in Spain, so you need to get it elsewhere). Chris and Sean got Chinese take-out, but lots of it, and we walked back to the hostel to eat in the communal area and check out travel for the second half of our trip on the wifi (Sean had his computer). When we had tried to open the locker to get his computer out, though, the guys broke it. We had tried to stuff too much into it, and it was jammed shut – so when we went to open it, I had to flash the key while they pulled from either side of the drawer... and they broke the latch. So we took everything out and closed the drawer inconspicuously. Oops...

We went out again later that afternoon to see the big London landmarks... took the Metro to a park along the river, where we could see the London Eye across the river (a REALLY big Ferris wheel – I believe the largest in the world...). Walked down to Big Ben and took pictures there half-way across the bridge. Went back and walked all the way around it to the Parliament buildings and Westminster Abbey in the back. Didn’t go into any of the monuments, but we did swing into the Westminster gift shop to warm up. It was getting dark at this point – this far north, it gets dark by about 4:30 in the afternoon, which was a weird concept. The British are also on a much more regulated evening schedule than the Spaniards, so food and businesses started closing between 6-8pm. Couldn’t find hardly anything open after that... We took the metro to find Saint Paul’s Cathedral, walked around that and took pictures (it was REALLY expensive to get into, and late) then swung into a Starbucks where Chris and I pretended to be really interested in the food at the front counter so Sean could use the bathroom. *Side note: there are Starbucks shops EVERYWHERE here!! Every few street corners you can find one!) From there we grabbed a Metro to the Tower Bridge (everyone thinks the TOWER Bridge is the London Bridge... when it turns out that not only is the actual London Bridge much less grand, but it is not the original. Apparently the ORIGINAL London Bridge was relocated to Arizona...), then walked to the current London Bridge [in London], which has red running lights all along the outside. Went to dinner at a cute little fish and chips place right on the river, which was reasonably priced (although too much for MY budget), and a great environment. Downstairs was a bar, upstairs was a nice restaurant – I would compare it to a mixture of Block 15 and Big River at home... We finally rode back to our hostel so we could get a decent night’s sleep in our smaller room.

Fri, Dec 4th: Showered, packed and ate again before needing to check out. We were supposed to be meeting Alex and Kelsey at 2pm in another hostel for the night, in a different part of town, so we had to travel with our backpacks today. Took the Metro to a part of town Shannon had recommended to Sean from when they went, that had a great local outdoor market with things for great prices. We spent the entire morning there – all got pastries, and then just wandered up and down looking at clothes, food and trinkets. Sean got a shirt for 2 pounds, which is a GREAT price!! About 3.5 dollars! (Everything here runs more expensive anyways...) We caught the train out to Deptford, where our new hostal was. We didn’t find the hostal right away because the directions said it was a PURPLE building, when in reality it was blue, so we were looking for it forever... so we got there about half an hour after we were supposed to meet the girls, but they weren’t there anyways, so it didn’t matter. Checked in (the main office was in the bar downstairs), dropped off our stuff, chatted with our roommate named Felix – who had been traveling since January – and left again. We went back to main London for the rest of the day. Decided to split pizzas at a little restaurant we had seen near the market, so we went there for lunch. We tried to find Buckingham Palace, but got distracted by the Winter Wonderland market/fair going on in Hyde Park. We spent quite a bit of time there, wandering around trying not to spend all our money. Then we headed towards the other palace through the park, along the river, although it was dark now. Saw the Princess Diana memorial from a distance, although it was closed when we were there. From there, I really wanted to see the Millennium Bridge, which is a footbridge I learned about last year in one of my engineering classes at OSU. Turns out it has a great view of Saint Paul’s Cathedral from it, so we had been right next to it the night before... We walked across for me, and then decided to try and find the girls. Went back to Deptford and finally found Alex and Kelsey... who were scared to death that something had happened to us. They had been in for a while – we didn’t get back until 10pm. We had heard that this wasn’t a great place to be out at night, which was true, because the bar below our hostal was apparently the local drug trafficking center. There were deals going on all night, and this one car (which Alex had named ‘squeaks’ because of the sound it made driving around) never stopped, but drove in circles around the block very slowly almost the entire time. Alex and Kelsey had been watching from the window for a while – there was also a fox that lived in the deserted wrecks across the way that was pretty active... they had named him Fantastic Mr. Fox, like in the new movie (which none of us have actually seen...). So when we get there, we all exchange stories. Then Kelsey was a ninja and put on all dark clothing and her aviation hat, and crept around the windows to watch the action going on downstairs without being seen. Alex was right with her, peering frightenedly around the window drapes. Then there was Sean – in his boxers, pale as a ghost, standing in the window. Alex was really fast in whispering that he was reflecting the light from the streetlamp, and could be seen. ;) We finally just all went to bed, a little anxious about the downstairs activities...

Sat, Dec 5th: Alex, Kelsey and I were supposed to go to coffee together in the morning, and then meet back up with the guys afterwards. After I showered though, we learned that they were planning on coming also... which would have been fine, if they had gotten up EARLY ENOUGH. Funny story: as Kelsey was brushing her teeth, Sean came in to use the shower. He looked at her, and said, “You are about to witness the most ghetto thing you have ever seen.” At which point he took six pumps of hand soap, looked back at her and finished: “I’m going to go take a shower.” Turned around, and walked in. Kelsey thought it was so funny she had to come share with the rest of us... :) Alex, Kelsey and I ended up waiting outside with our bags for about 10 minutes for the guys, after having waited inside for 5 already. Could have gotten the coffee and been back in that time... but no. Finally got going, with everyone and our stuff, and got our coffees. Then said goodbye, because the girls had big plans for London, and we had others since we had been there a day longer than them. We wandered down a market street near our hostal, but were uncomfortable by the environment... poor and desperate. So we headed back into London also to catch the two palaces we had missed. We couldn’t enter either one – the first was originally a very simple summer residence, but had beautiful landscaping. We wandered through it before taking a metro to Buckingham Palace, where we took some more pictures and wandered around the outside a touch before needing to get to the station of our bus to Oxford. There was some fiasco when we thought we had missed our bus (although we had been sitting there, just out of the rain, for about 10 minutes), but turns out the one we wanted was just running late. Finally got going, as it was getting dark (crazy country has no daylight during the winter...) and arrived in Oxford about 1.5 hours later. The directions to find the hostal were awful, and it was still raining, but we finally did. It was actually a pretty sweet hostal – but we were rooming with a bunch of Spaniards... not good. Dropped wet stuff and bounced – Sean and Chris were both really hungry and wanted Indian food (because apparently London is known to have great Indian restaurants). We went looking, but got off the track from where the front desk manager at our hostal had recommended. We ended up in this little back alleyway with a really nice Italian restaurant, where we decided to just eat because we were so hungry (it was on the more expensive side, so I figured I would just order a soup). When we got in, it was even fancier than we had though – turns out we were tricked into ordering food for 9 Pounds (about $15), which I wasn’t prepared for. :( However, we all got different kinds of pasta, and then tried each others... mine was the best, by far. I have never had pasta like the kind I got here – it was melt-in-your-mouth good, with REALLY fantastic flavors! I can’t remember what it was called because it was in Italian, but oh my!! Still dunno if it was worth the 9 Pounds though, because it wasn’t a big portion...

After dinner we went back to the hostal the long way to see something new, and then got ready for bed and went to sleep. Traveling is such a drainer on one’s energy. :(

Sun, Dec 6th: So, the Spaniards whom with which we were sharing a room came back around 2:30am, and were LOUD and DRUNK for about an hour before finally going to sleep – which really just ruined my night’s sleep after that. Got showered and breakfast at the hostal though before checking out with all our stuff. From there we really just wandered around Oxford all day... we went into the Oxford Castle gift shop, and were going to splurge and take a tour, but we would have had to wait for 30 min for the next one, and after we left we just never made it back. Saw much of the campus and other old places too, before circling back to the newer, touristy part of town. I bought a dress and some candied ginger from a candy store. :) We finally just ran out of places to go, so we went back to the hostal (even though we were checked out) to put together some sandwiches from the rolls and chicken we bought at a supermarket. The guy there then let us leave our backpacks in their storage room so we could wander a bit more unhindered. We talked to him a little – he is from New Zealand, and had some great travel stories. :) We walked back up the other direction than the morning, and found the area of town we were supposed to have gone the night before, with reasonably priced meals, before circling back and picking our stuff back up. Quick jaunt back to get Indian food for Sean and Chris before walking to the bus station (I had bought pound cake and a chocolate/caramel sweet earlier to eat). Tried to get on an early bus (since it was cold and we were early), but they wouldn’t let us on. Poor Sean was getting anxious again about travel, and Chris was on a sugar high from the 2 L of Doctor Pepper he drank... Made it back to London and onto a city bus that took us to the site of the airport shuttle we needed... which we missed by LITERALLY about 30 seconds. So we had to wait for the next one (they come every hour) and hope there was room on it. We hung out in a mall across the street, where we used the bathrooms and waited because it was warmer. Finally got on the next shuttle, and made it to the airport (it was the last shuttle of the day, which was why we had been concerned). At the airport, we had about 5 hours to wait for our plane at 6:30am... We bought some milk and snacked on what we had each bought earlier (I still had my pound cake and chocolate) or slept – we had staked out some floor space under a Christmas tree on the second floor, tucked back into a movable barricade that kept our stuff secluded from passerby. I dozed for about two hours of the time, and the rest I just stared back crankily at anyone who walked by. We finally got on our plane (where Sean handled himself pretty well) and back into Málaga the next morning. From there we had to catch a city bus to the main bus station, and from there I knew what I was doing. :)

Once in the station in Granada, Chris didn’t want to take a bus to his street, because it wasn’t that far and he didn’t want to have to pay for it. So Sean and I walked him most of the way there, before taking the back streets the rest of the way home. It took us an hour to walk – I got home around 3 in the afternoon, but had told my host mom that I didn’t want lunch because I was going to sleep. So I fed myself and talked to Alex, who arrived within 15 minutes of when I did, before passing out for about 4 hours before dinner.