london calling



1. Covent Garden

2. Pretty shops around Covent Garden

3. Hog Roast at the market

4. Union Jack pride
5. Emily, me, Heather, Kim
6. Nelson's Column at Trafalgar Square

7. Fountain in front of Buckingham Palace

8. The Queen's pad
9. The London Eye
10. Ticket to our first play
11. Getting my fortune told
12. Hanging from one of the tunnels
13. Disco ceiling above the rollerskating girls in hot pants (what)

As you can probably tell by the cheesy title and pictures, yesterday we went into London for the first time!

We had introductory classes first for an hour and a half in the one room schoolhouse, ate our lunch cooked by Nick the chef, and walked the ten minutes it took to get the train. The road was lined with beautiful shrubbery and cherry trees. Of course it was.
The train was cleaner than I expected (sorry any Englishfolk reading this, but I had low expectations for some reason), and the scenery was lovely along the way. Rivers and fields and cows. Not too shabby. We got off at Liverpool Street Station, where we headed underground to take the tube. We took two; after the first one we headed down a bunch of escalator and stairs and someone ever so kindly pointed out "we just keep going further and further underground don't we?". Thanks pal. That's comforting.
Anyways, I survived the tube and we walked out into Covent Garden, which was packed with people. It was gorgeous out, hot and sunny. Where's all the rain London? Although I'm certainly not complaining.
We wandered around for a bit before heading off to Trafalgar Square. We passed through Leicester Square on the way but didn't stop. When we got to Trafalgar Square there was some Olympic Event going on that had the whole Square blocked up, so I sadly didn't get a picture of Aslan the giant lions.
Next we headed through a beautiful park where there were gigantic trees, squirrels, ducks, geese, shrubbery shaped like the Queen's crown.. it was beautiful (you'll probably be sick of me using the word beautiful by the end of these three months. I need a thesaurus).
We stopped in front of Buckingham Palace for a few minutes. I had to run in really quick and pick up some DVD's from Liz.
By this time we were all starving so we headed toward the riverbank to have dinner at Wagamama. The London Eye is gigantic, jeez. I imagined it as sort of a ferris wheel, maybe a bit bigger? Um, no. It's massive. Each pod is like the size of my old apartment. They look terrifying to go up in but I'm obviously going to have to do it at some point while I'm here.
Dinner was fast and delicious. We had a little bit of time to explore the waterfront before heading to the play, so me and few girls went and grabbed an ice cream from a not unattractive guy in an ice cream van who told us we should go to Brick Lane to party. So now that's on my list. Thanks, attractive ice cream guy.
Our final stop for the night was the play, Carnesky's Tarot Drome. Um. What. We wandered away from the riverbank and ended up in some grafittied tunnels where the entrance of the play was. We walked into a tunnel to the entrance room, which was a gigantic wrestling ring set up. After a strange introduction with a man and a woman in silver glittery showgirl outfits, we were told to wander through the tunnels to see the tarot cards in real life.
I'm not really sure what it was all about, to be honest. One woman was rubbing dirt all over herself. Another sang really creepily and handed out scrolls with odd fortunes on it which read more like facebook statuses than predictions. I got a stamp on my hand from a shaky woman in a unitard that said 05 APRIL 2018. Not entirely sure what that date is for.
After some time wandering in the tunnels we were invited back into the wrestling ring room where a wrestling match was about to happen. At this point I got kicked in the face by one of the wrestlers. That was nice. I have a bruise on my nose as a sovenier. Thanks!
The play ended with a rock bank and women rollerskating around wearing sparkly hot pants. So, there was that.
We took the train back into Harlow, and I debated going for a pint at the Crown but honestly all I could do was crawl into bed. 11 hours of walking and a kick in the face really did me in.