London

Hey friends,

PICTURE LINKS AT END OF POST!!!

So...this weekend I went on a little excursion to London! Two of my roommates are studying abroad there right now, and I had two other friends from SNC come visit too. It was a really fun time...here's what we did!

Thursday:

Left Frankfurt at around 18:05...arrived in London at 18:40 (it's not that fast...there's a time change!) Mike and Justin met me at the airport which was pretty cool, and we took the Tube (the metro) for what seemed like hours....but we finally arrived where Mike lived! I believe it's around New Cross? But anyway...it was a pretty cool area of London. We went grocery shopping (where I was fantastically amazed...because London has so many things that Germany doesn't, and it reminded me of the US again and how fat I'm going to get!) Then we watched a movie (I slept through most of it) and went to bed. Mike lives in a flat with about five (?) other British students, and it's a pretty nice place. His flatmates were pretty cool! They make fun of everything he eats though (namely pizza and doughnuts).

Friday: Woke up at like...9:30ish or 10. Chilled around the flat until around 13:30, then we headed to meet the girls (Jenn and Autumn, and a friend of theirs from DePauw) and we headed to an Indian restaurant (which was pretty expensive, but still good). I had the HOTTEST FOOD OF MY LIFE! It was a chicken dish, and it was ridiculous. It was only the medium hotness too! Water could not satisfy my ravenous thirst. The mint gum I chewed afterwards felt spicy. Normally I like spicy food (and I did like it) but like...in Germany, when they say spicy, it's not really spicy at all because Germans don't like spicy things. Well anyway...to satisfy the thirst, we went to a pub until it closed, and went to a bar afterwards (there's a difference!) I got back around 2ish to Justin's flat, and we had pizza. Justin is in a different program than Mike, and he lives in Kensington, which is the really nice part of London. He lives in a flat with 3 other guys, and kind of 4 other girls...it's separate (but equal). Went to bed a little after 3.

Saturday: Super cold day. Woke up around 10:30ish, which seemed way too early. We headed out to our destination for the day...WIMBLEDON! This was super exciting for me because...well...my job is just a little tennis related.....it took us a while to get there but we did! We didn't do the tour (which I didn't want to do because Centre Court was under construction) but we went to the museum and saw a few other things. It was so awesome because I've never even been to a pro tennis match (which I need to do badly) so yeah...
That night we went to a pub type place called Goat Tavern. I guess it's one of the oldest ones in London....so cool! I had an overpriced Shepherd's Pie and some cheese potato wedges, but the atmosphere was pretty sweet. Had a few pints...just a pretty chill night. Went to bed around midnight.

Sunday: Woke up at 6:15, got ready and headed for the Picadilly Line to the airport. Unfortunately, on Sundays the line doesn't start until 7:14 AM. This concerned me because my flight was scheduled to leave at 8:55 AM and it takes about 50 mins to get to the airport...so I had breakfast at Starbucks and got on at 7:14. Well I get checked in and by some miracle of God, I get through security in record time and to the gate listing thing at 8:15. I guess other airports might do it too (none that I have ever been to...) but at Heathrow, they don't post the gate until a few minutes beforehand. Well...it gets to being 8:50 and I'm like, where is our plane? The gate finally popped up and we headed over...they had canceled a flight to Stuttgart earlier because of SNOW! Well ours was about an hour late, but that's ok...I didn't have a certain train to make or anything... after taking another train, I was in Marburg at about 14:30, DEAD TIRED!

Some noticeably different things between London and Germany:

Grocery stores: So much more fattening food/pre-packaged food items in London. And more junk food.

Politeness: Everyone in London says "sorry" and "excuse me" all of the time...it's the same in the US, I just didn't really notice it until being here for about three months, where it's hardly said.

Car direction: Well duh. But I never got used to looking the other direction while crossing the street.

Transport: Taxis in London are cool looking, but more expensive (we didn't take one though...) The metro lines are named after places or people (Piccadilly, District, Circle, Victoria, Bakerloo, etc.) as opposed to colors or numbers here, which I admit is pretty boring...

That's kind of all...it was nice to see some familiar faces, since I haven't really at all since I've been here. I'm looking forward to have some friends coming to Germany to visit possibly within the next few weeks.

Speaking of next few weeks, it's going to be BUSY FOR ME! I have four papers due the week before the last week of class. It will be insane to write all of them by that time, but I'm going to try. If it doesn't work out, I'm going to see if I can get one of them deferred until I come back to the states...it might need to happen. I haven't been procrastinating by any means, profs just don't assign them at the beginning of the semester like they do in the states!

Also speaking of next few weeks...I only have a few weeks left! The official count is 26 days, which is craaaaazy talk. Well...I hope to bear down and work hard hard hard! When I come home, I'm only going to have about 10 days before I go back to school for J-Term. More working! UGHHH

That's all...oh yeah, the picture links I promised. Remember my spiel about being a big boy? Yeah...no comments about certain pictures, that's how people roll here!

London #1

London #2

Cheers!

-D