London is crazyyy

Song of the Week: Tower bridge

Tower of London

Tourist pic!

Houses of Parliament

Southwark Cathedral. amazing architecture!

We all know him...BIG BEN

you were robbed..

Prime Minister's, Tony Blair, house. They had to put a fence around it because people started throwing eggs, tomatoes, etc. at it when they were unhappy with government decisions.

Where the volleyball portion of the Olympics will be held haha

Trafalagar Square

History museum. It was free!

Changing of the guards outside of Prince Charles' house.

Buckingham Palace. Sadly, the Queen was not in.

Gate outside of the Palace

Memorial to soldiers lost from other countries

Duke Wellington statue (he's the one wellies were named after)

Famous doubledecker red buses

Haley and I on the tube

The Nasty hostel ^^

Fast paced. thousands of people swamp the streets. Almost getting knocked over. Hardly ever hear english. THIS is London. Completely different than what i expected. I wanted to come here to school actually. Glad i changed my mind. I am from the south...we like our days slow and easy. London likes life to move a million miles a minute on a few different trams to nowhere in particular. I did have a great time, even though we had some interesting experiences. Me and my friend Haley got conned into staying in an insanely sketchy hostel the first night. It was something to write home about, for sure. The name of the hostel was spray painted on the side of the building. We did not even know it was the right one until getting close enough to read the graffiti! After the women at the front desk finally understood that we DID book the hostel and already paid a deposit, we finally were given a key. After walking into the room, we realized we were in a very unsafe co-ed room. We quickly went downstairs to complain--only to find out we had to pay an additional 3 pounds to stay in a female room. The female room was fine. it consisted of two violin playing romanians who had been living in the hostel for three months (!!). And im pretty sure we both had bed bugs...ew. Why hasn't this place been shut down?! Some countries need a better business bureau (AHEM! all of Europe...)

The 2nd day we went on a free tour and really got to explore london. We saw all the top sites, such as Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. The pictures really explain it all! The hostel we stayed at this night was much better. It had a spacious common room and really friendly people. Also, it was in a much better neighborhood. A New Orleans Jazz band played in the bar downstairs, which was seriously the highlight. Two of the band members were British, but obviously the three Americans showed them what NOLA was all about. It reminded me of sitting at a cafe on Canal Street while street bands playing percussion strolled by slowly. Loved it!