Please Mind the Gap

So I went to London, and fell in love. The city is beautiful, the people are friendly, and the cider is delicious. :) It was the first stop on our Fall Break, so naturally I was excited as a kindergartener on the first day of school. I was excited to speak English again, and to see this wonderful city again, I had been there a little less than 10 years ago with my family. But London has changed since then, and I'd say I've changed, too. So this was a whole new experience for me! The tube, or the Underground, their public transportation system is beautiful. It is clean, and new and sorry Boston, but a whole heck of a lot better than the public transit I'm used to!
After checking into our hostel, and getting the first of many Starbucks (I know, uber American, but hey they don't have it in Italy!) it was off to see the sights! We took the tube to the downtown area, stepped out of the station and it was just BAM Big Ben! I have had a lot of these epiphany type moment, but Big Ben is a pretty impressive one! The houses of Parliament are enormous, gorgeous buildings that are slightly Gothic in their appearance, with flat levels and pointy turrets on the tops of them. They are beautiful during the day, but even prettier at night! We were told that the minute hand on Big Ben is about twice the size of a double decker bus, so the clock face as a whole is as tall as four double decker buses stacked on top of each other! Then we walked along the Thames River and past the Tate museum and wound our way to the restoration of Shakespeare's the Globe theater. I am a self proclaimed (and darn proud of it) theater dork, so this was really cool for me. Unfortunately we couldn't go inside, since their season is over. But seeing it, how it would've looked back then was still really cool. We wanted t go see a play inside it, which you can still do today, but again the season being over put a small road block up in our plans! But it was really cool to see regardless.
Later that first night, we went on a boat tour of the Thames which was awesome. It told us so much history of the different buildings along the river. And its always nice to hear the history from someone who knows it like the back of their hand. I mean I saw a lot of things during Fall Break, but they always mean a lot more when you get to hear, form someone who understands it, the history of what it is that you are seeing. And the houses of Parliament and the Tower Bridge are absolutely beautiful at night. I love city lights in general, but being a part of something that large and breathtaking, makes them 100% cooler.
After the boat tour it was directly onto the London Eye, the giant Ferris-wheel thing, containing 33 orbs symbolizing the 33 sections of London) that they constructed in London to serve as an observatory for tourists and visitors. At the moment the Eye is the tallest observation wheel, though there is one being constructed in Beijing, I believe, that will out do it, so sadly, the Eye won;t hold this distinction for much longer. We did some pleading with the person operating the Eye and managed to get a bubble all to ourselves. It was so much more fun just being up there with the four of us, than having other people we didn't know, because we got to take as many pictures as we wanted and ask all of the stupid questions to each other that we wanted. I even did a cartwheel inside our bubble! A couple of the girls I were with were almost too scared to go to the edge of our little bubble, so I did a cartwheel to prove that the structure was stable and they had nothing to worry about. We laughed about it, though I'm not sure that any fears of falling out of the bubble were calmed. Oh well!
Later that night we went to an adorable pub and drank Strongbow hard cider, which is probably the most delicious thing I've ever drank. I mean, I pretty much like anything that tastes like apples, apple juice is probably my favorite drink ever. So a carbonated apple drink that was alcoholic, but didn't taste like it was, was amazing in my life. We went to another pub a little further down the same street which was also a lot of fun. I think Italy could take a cue from the English, more pubs I say! I love the atmosphere- an almost underground feeling, and everyone is happy and friendly, it makes nights out in the city a bit more fun!
The next day we went exploring, and shopping. We started off at the British Museum, which luckily for student bank accounts, is free admission. The rooms were broken up into various countries and it was fun to walk around and explore 'the world' throughout the museum. We saw a lot in interesting exhibits, but probably the coolest one was one about the amount of prescription drugs a person takes in their lifetime. It followed the life of this one couple and it followed the different stages in their lives and the different medications that they would have taken during the different periods of their lives. You would never know that you took that many pills in a lifetime, but they were almost all completely necessary to the happenings of that portion of your life. And each of the pills that you would have hypothetically taken was woven into this netting of sorts that stretched on for at least 20 feet, though the wife's was longer, because she lived longer. And there were pictures that accompanied the netting, that detailed the lives of the two people who were represented in the study. It was really interesting.
After the museum it was off to the Covent Garden district of London where we put in some quality shopping time at the various shops along the streets. And where we also sat at this cute little cafe and ate bagel sandwiches, which again, doesn't seem too exciting, except that you can't get them in Italy :)
Later that night was my first experience with the Airline RyanAir, whom gives great deals for in Europe flights (we took 3 during the trip), but is occasionally a little disorganized and sometime unreliable. Luckily I had pretty good experiences with them, but this is not the case for all passengers of the airline. Regardless of my experience though I was excited to fly, because when we touched down, it mean that we were in Dublin! Being a quarter Irish myself, this was extraordinarily exciting! And I could not wait to explore! But that story, is for another time! No need to overwhelm you with too many stories at once! And trust me there are many many more! But that's it for the first round of London, the wonderful city that I was lucky enough to return to at the end of the trip for one a few last adventures before it was time to head back to Perugia. But even in this first small portion of time I spent there, to repeat myself, I fell in love. If only it weren't such an expensive city, I would move there in a heartbeat. In fact, I just might anyway! :) Just kidding ... sort of!