LONDON!

After spending the week with my parents in Italy I was ready to finally leave the country and see something new. I've always wanted to go to London and since I was so close and tickets weren't too expensive I knew I had to go. My really good friend Lily is studying there this semester and it was the perfect opportunity to go visit London and stay with her. So Friday morning I woke up early and got all my stuff together and headed down to Garibaldi to get my taxi (we had arranged for a taxi to pick me up to take me to the Perugia airport). The Perugia airport was only 15 minutes away but it was actually in Assisi, and way up in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. I twas a cute little airport, with only one gate and no real terminal and to get on the plane we went outside onto the giant windy platform and climbed the steps up to the plane. The flight wasn't bad (I didn't realize that London is an hour behind us) and I was there in no time. I followed the directions that Lily had given me- had a slight problem figuring out how to buy my tube ticket and how to use the pounds and pence... luckily the tube worker was really nice and helped me with both. I changed lines and made my way to Warwick Ave. stop and Clifton Gardens which is where Lily's flat is. I found her flat and met her friend Keiko who is also her roommate and she went with me to Soho to meet Lily and Lily's parents who were also there for the week. Soho is like a big area with lots of restaurants and we found a really good Indian restaurant for dinner. Lily's parents had bought tickets to ride the London Eye so we headed to the tube and took it to the London eye, got a little lost, but eventually found it. It was basically a giant ferris wheel that took 30 minutes to ride and had AMAZING panoramic views of the city.
I took SO many pictures, it was incredible. After riding the eye, Lily Keiko and I said goodbye to Lily's parents and sister who were doing their own thing the next day, and headed over to Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey which were just across the Thames.
The buildings were really pretty at night and I took a lot of pictures. We walked along the water a little bit and then decided to head back because I had a lot of things I wanted to see the next day and we needed to plan out how we were going to go about doing everything. However, upon walking along we decided it would be fun to take the bus back (which was also on my list) so I bought a ticket and we took the tube to Trafalgar square
which was neat and then we took the bus from Piccadilly Circus all the way back to Lily's flat. I got to see a lot of London that way and got to ride on the double decker bus, whoo hoo! When we got back, Lily and I made a list and wrote down all the tube spots and decided to conquer the city from west to east, seeing as much as we could. I just want to say now, how proud of all of us I am- not only did we see everything on my list, but we saw it in style and without any real problems or freak outs! :) So without further ado, I call this:
Seeing everything there is to see in London in one day.
We woke up pretty early, had breakfast, and with my directions, map, and list in hand, headed off towards our first stop: Abbey Road.
Now, Ellen (thank you!) had given me directions since it was really close to the Elon flats. We eventually found it and realized it was going to be a little difficult to get our pictures what with traffic and everything. When we were about to cross to street to switch taking pictures of each other, three girls came walking up the street and asked if we could take each others pictures doing the traditional Beatles walk and then vice versa.. it was really good timing! I also saw the sign for abbey road as well as abbey road studios- amazing! So we took a bunch of pictures and then were on our way yet again. The next stop: Notting Hill and Portobello Road.
We took the tube to Notting hill Gate and wandered along following the signs for portobello market until we came across a massive line of carts and tables in the street with tons and tons of street vendors. It was a really nice area and a gorgeous day so we walked all the way down, stopping to look at all the crazy things people were selling, everything from telescopes to purses to make-up to the most delicious brownies and pastries (for only a few pounds we bought tons of goodies) and even clothes and shoes. That was really cool, you could have spent the whole day there. But since I only had the day, we were off to our next stop: Buckingham Palace. After getting off the tube and walking through Green Park (the parks in London are really nice!) and stopping to take pictures with the pretty flowers, we came to the palace.

They don't do the changing of the guards on Saturdays- but I did see one of them marching around and we walked around and I took some pictures before we left for Harrods.
Because I knew we would be spending more than a few minutes in the store, we decided to grab something to eat. We went to EAT. (this was it's name) and had sandwiches and this really good noodle salad thing before heading into Harrods. Oh man, what a CRAZY store. The food halls were definitely my favorite- they had candy, chocolate, tea, coffee, meats, cheese, pastries... you name it. And it was all themed and we just wandered from one to the other. Then we went from the basement straight up to the top floor- going through the really fashionable clothing lines to furniture to electronics to TOYS! to sporting goods. It was definitely an experience. We left Harrods and made our way to St. Paul's Cathedral which wad very different than the cathedrals I have been used to seeing here in Italy.
We walked around the outside and then went inside, the baroque style was very pretty. However, after only looking around we decided not to pay to go in (which I didn't realize we even had to do) and headed to the little park behind the cathedral to eat some of our brownies from Portobello road (which some lady commented on how good they looked) before walking towards the Millennium bridge and The Globe Theatre. The bridge was pretty cool and I took a lot of neat pictures of St. Paul's from the bridge and of the Globe theatre. We didn't actually go in the globe because you had to take a tour, plus it isn't even the original globe- however we did spend some time in their really cool gift shop and I bought some fun Shakespeare gifts.
We decided to head for another tube stop so we could head to the tower of London and tower bridge however after walking all the way there, the underground stop was not only closed but the line we wanted to take was closed for the weekend- there was just no way to get there besides walking and we were too far away. Instead we decided to walk along the Thames towards the direction of the tower of london and tower bridge.
While walking we came across signs for Burrough market (which is only open on the weekends) and wasn't even on our list, but we ran in long enough to get lots of free samples, buy a ton of organic fruit, and really good organic pear juice! yum!
We continued to walk along the water, stopping in several arcades (shopping areas) along the water for me to buy random souvenirs. After a while we made it close enough to get some good shots of the tower bridge and we also passed by the actual London bridge, which is not all that impressive. Thank goodness it was such a beautiful day outside or all this running around may have not happened and we may have spent the whole day in a museum- which is what I had been doing for the past week in Italy- so hooray for that!
Anyway, after our last bit of shopping we took the tube to where the theatre was for our show! Lily and Keiko had bought us tickets to see the Blue Man group and we tried to find a pub so I could get fish and chips but unfortunately they were all packed. We decided to have something quick and light to eat before the show and to eat dinner after the show. So we went in and the lady checked our tickets and told us we had to go to coat check and check all our plastic bags. The coat check guy was really cute and funny and got a real kick out of checking our plastic bags full of pears and apples which he called uncommon items.
The show was really cool, we had amazing seats- 6th row right in the middle, not bad for only getting them a few days in advance. After hearing so much about the Blue Man group I wasn't sure what to expect but I liked all their little acts- especially the music and things they did with paint. I wish there was more music, but I liked all the various acts they had- and I especially liked when they came out and interacted with the audience. Towards the very end there was a really weird part with tons of (recycled) paper that came shooting out of the back of the stage and all these crazy lights and music and the paper made it all the way from the back of the auditorium to the front, we had to hoist it over our heads. It was very strange, but a lot of fun.
After the show we headed back to the flat (after getting our checked apples of course) and dropped everything off before heading to Piccadilly circus for dinner.

After wandering around (and in and out of closing pubs) we decided on a Thai restaurant which was really good- I had delicious chicken pad Thai. Then we went to a Japanese restaurant that Lily and Keiko like for some desert: really good chocolate wasabi cake, white chocolate and ginger cheesecake, and coconut ice cream with mango sauce. Afterwards we walked around Piccadilly circus which was extremely crowded (it was a Saturday night after all) and then decided to head back to the flat. It was a great end to a long and eventful day.
The next morning I had to wake up really early and get everything ready to leave. I took the tube back to Liverpool St. Station which is where I had been dropped off by a Stansted shuttle bus that I took back to the airport again. The shuttle service worked out really well, I had gotten tickets before leaving Italy. However, I missed the first bus and after getting on the second one was running a little late for the airport. The check in lines were a bit long but I finally made it to security who were extremely tight. Not only did I get a full pat down (when I say full I mean full) but they pulled me aside to go through every single part of my bag because something looked strange in the x-ray in my bag. That something turned out to be the golf balls I bought for my dad in Harrods- so I hope he likes them because they almost made me miss my flight. The woman went through all my stuff and kept commenting on the things I had bought and had "oh this tea smells good" "oh you went to the globe theatre!" and yada yada meanwhile I was worrying about my flight. But no worries, I made it to the gate (after a bit of quick sprinting) without a problem. I met up with two girls I know who were also on my flight, one of which is in my Italian class, and we were talking a bit. After boarding we got split up and then my friend Dan boarded the plane and sat next to me. I had no idea so many people were on my flight. There was also another girl right behind us from Umbra. The five of us gathered together after we landed and decided to take a taxi back to the center of town. Our driver was from Assisi and kept talking to Dan about Corvettes and how nice (but boring) Assisi is and was really funny. Finally Finally we made it back and I have spent the rest of my day loading my many many pictures on the computer and catching up with all the things I have to do. I have to register for classes back at Elon soon and I've been trying to figure out my schedule. I think I will take senior seminar fall semester to get it over with. Thank god they are offering the next level of Italian that I need to take- I hope Lanzoni is teaching it. I wish my Italian professor here could come teach at Elon, I've learned the language so much better in his class- however, living in the country while learning the language doesn't hurt either.
Well, it's been a long and amazing spring break and I am happy that everything went as planned and that I have enough street smarts and map smarts to navigate around a city I have never been to before (I did all of London without a map- only with a tube map). Hooray. The rest of my pictures are all up on my yahoo photo account so you definetely should check that out!
Hope everyone else is doing well and that you all have great spring breaks (I think everyone's are coming up in a week or so). Love and miss you all!!