Well…we’re in london. so far, it has *sucked*. the plane ride and the airport parts were surprisingly easy. Then came the part where two girls had to lug seven very heavy (and im not exaggerating, one suitcase even got tagged as extra heavy cause it weighed 65 pounds) suitcases from the airport to the train, the train to the Victoria train station (neat looking place, with some “colorful” people walking around) and then on “The Tube” for two different train lines. worst part is, there are *NO ELEVATORS*! We had to drag all these heavy suitcases down several (yes, several) flights of stairs. luckily, in a lot of instances random people would grab a bag and carry it down for us. Still, we were seriously huffing and puffing it. oh yeah, heres a laugh at ally moment: my carryon bag that came with my luggage set was on wheels, but as a duffel bag shape with a shoulder strap so pulling it by the shoulder strap on its end was kinda difficult. it wasnt until we were at the london airport that i discovered the weird lil pocket on the bottom was hiding a pullout handle that turned it into a rolling suitcase. K and I were cracking up fter the way i had been dragging it and all this time it had had a handle.
Anyway, so we got off the tube at our final stop were fretting about having to lug everything *up* all the stairs we had come down, when i see a heavenly sign that says “LIFT”. back up on the street with our 50 bags, we now hafta drag them a few blocks to the hostel. luckily theyre all rolling and easy (still damn heavy but at least easy to coordinate when there are no stairs involved) so we make it to the hostel at 2pm (arrived at airport at 9 am — this took us 5 hours) with only one break. its not a 5 star hotel or anything, but after having lived in older dorms before its fine by me. the bed had clean linens (for free- some hostels you hafta rent the sheets) and is really comfortable. we’re in a room for 6 — 3 sets of bunk beds. right now we only have one roommate, Dan. hes 19 and from australia and said he was at summer camp in mass. for 3 months and now hes backpacking thru europe for i think 4 more months. he only has one duffel bag for the whole 7 months! he seems pretty cool, some of the people ive seen in london have been slightly odd. im glad we got him and not the rowdy group of french or russian or whatever guys that checked in with us.
after we got settled in the room, we went to go get lunch. not far from the hostel are several little sandwich shop and such. our hostel seems to be in a good location. its not in a crowded, busy. congested area and its nice to walk down the street – esp since we had great weather today. its similar to how downtown athens (georgia, not greece) was.
we got burgers at a tin cafe for cheap (about £2 so like $4 including our drinks). the burgers were kinda diff than the US. they werent bad really, not great but kinda different. kristie called them “horrible” 🙂 i got a chocolate milk but its like milk and cocoa powder so when you buy it all the choc has sunk to the bottom. the cokes have real sugar in them too. havent these people heard of high fructose corn syrup!?! thats what makes stuff good!
after we ate we investigated the internet cafe. its expensive and the computers are like the ones on the cruise ship, not regular computers so you can only access the web and not do chat or write documents or anything. (there goes another $2 as im typing this up). there doesnt seem to be any place to hook in the laptop at the hostel so im just keeping it in the locker till we get an apt.
when we got back to our room we passed out for like 3 hours, which brings me to now…sitting here writing.
ally-cat 