London Visit 1

This visit to London was just what I needed for a mental health break. It helped me realize that regardless of distance and time the people that truly matter will always be there and never change. Sometimes that is a good thing, but in my case it just made for one interesting and hilarious weekend.

Friday: The day started by packing for the weekend at the last minute like always. Met up with Ernest to print out the last documents and head to buy bus tickets to the airport and exchange money. Got to town with a bit of a hunger so we tried out a new fish and chips place, Enzo's Cafe. It wasn't too bad, but we missed our planned bus by about 10 minutes. However, it all worked out since there was another in about an hour which gave us more than enough time to get through check in and security at the airport. The flight was just over an hour, but the best part was the landing. It was a bit of an interesting landing feeling as though we were going to fast and that the wheels weren't on the ground equally. But, the "charge" trumpet was hilarious and the best part. Our easybus was easy to find once we left the terminal. Yes, I know horrible pun. Omar and Mikey met us at the Baker Tube station. We went back to their flat to drop our things and head to a pub for some food and more Ithacans. Laura and Maeve joined us at this lovely little pub around the corner from the boys flat. I had a Guinness that was of course a pale comparison to that in Ireland, but still better than what is in the States. After, we headed to see the typical London sights at night beginning with Big Ben and Parliament. We walked around for a while seeing a bunch of different sights and then headed back to the flat for the night. I love those boys, the night was filled with hilarious situations and pile ons.

Saturday: Mike, Omar, Ernest, and I headed to met Laura to head to the market. We got there to find a huge market ranging from oysters to Indian lamb spring rolls. Laura and I walked around for a bit while the boys did their own thing. After, the group walked around for a while to check out the sights (Big Ben, Parliament, London Center, Buckingham Palace, etc) in the daylight before heading back to the respective flats for some work. We made plans to meet up with the rest of the Ithaca people in Laura's apt at 8, but that happened promptly at 8:45. We headed to the Thai restaurant to find that it was fairly busy and unable to seat us for an hour. In our fit of hunger we decided to find somewhere else and were upon this lovely little restaurant beneath a Chicken Village (Think KFC, goes patriotic and horrible). The sign greeted or "Wellcome" us as we headed to the basement beneath the fast food establishment. That should have been our first clue for the night we were about to experience. After ordering and receiving our drinks 45 min after our arrival the group was getting a bit anxious since it was after 10 and none of us had eaten. During this long wait there was little if any noise from the kitchen, but we did notice our waiter/cook running in and out of the side exit with bags from a local supermarket (clue no. 2). Omar was the brave one to ask our waiter was the deal was with our food, but was assured that it would be only 10-15 mins. About 20 min later we received our long awaited food and devoured it within 15 mins. Again, Omar asked for the bill for the group, but the wait was (yet again) prolonged by our waiters math skills and need to answer several phone calls. While we were figuring out our bill the power blew out in the kitchen and left the room in silence. The waiter/cook returned to figure out what was going on flashlight in hand. The topper of the experience was shortly after we gave in our payment and waiting for change. All of a sudden this very large fellow, dressed in black, with long dreadlocks, waltzed in paid little attention to us, signaled "hello" to the waiter before proceeding into the dark kitchen. Laura at this point was beyond angry and we headed out of the restaurant fairly quick. Allie Snee, flute player from Ithaca, invited the music majors over for a party so that her roommates could experience the highlight that is a musician party. However, we arrived about 4 hours late and pretty much had a fairly quite night retelling the experience that was our meal. By about 4 am Laura and I made it back to her apartment and quickly went to sleep after some well needed girl talk.

Sunday: Woke up to a rainy day in la casa de Rara, Erin, Meghan and Seth (I don't know the others). Laura was up hours before me, but before we got going for the day there was the mandatory girl talk while still in bed of course. We left to meet up with Omar and Ernest at a little cafe by the London center so that the silly undergrads could practice, just kidding. The food was very good, and the capp wasn't terrible just not the right texture of foam. Ernest and I went to the Natural History Museum for about an hour or so since it was free. We walked around the Dinosaur exhibit which was mobbed by people mainly children. We then headed to the planet section and energy/waste management section. It wasn't too far so we met up with the Londoners at the center and headed back to the apartment for the skype date with Alicia and Corinne, which was joined by Chris. It was nice to see all of them, and on top of that dippy made soup! However, Omar, Laura, Ernest, and I ran off to an Organ recital at Westminster Abbey before it was done. It was a concert by the assistant or associate organist of the Abbey playing the music of Ralph Vaughn Williams in this concert it was mostly from English Folk Song Suite, yey band music! It was the perfect length concert 45 mins. The 4 of us left but had a bit of a mishap getting lost at the tube station, but eventually found and figured it out. Back in the apartment we had the brilliant idea of making some bananas foster and bananas foster pita. Mainly we just wanted to use rum and bananas. After our lovely dessert the entertainment of the night began with Andrew's rendition of the "pizza song" and followed by the group production of PPP in London. As seen below this post. Omar and I then decided to hate our bodies and get some McD's from downstairs. By about midnight most of us headed to bed. Then Mike and Andrew decided to jump in Omar's bed again to make life interesting. Got to bed around 12 or 1 only to wake in a few hours.

Monday: Woke up at 5am or rather just before to get up and head to the tube. We made it to the Baker street station fairly easily and found an attendant to ask proper directions to Gloucester Street (which he promptly made fun of my pronunciation). It worked out that we arrived 15 minutes before the Easybus, waiting along with the other people. The bus ride was fairly quick since I slept a bit, but also due to a lack of traffic. The airport wasn't terribly busy making check in and security fairly easy. However, as we were walking to the gate I noticed it said "final call for boarding to Shannon Airport" even though it was 30 min before our flight was due out. We made it fine and again a short flight broken up by naps. We left a fairly sunny London to arrive in rainy Shannon, but it felt nice to be back in Ireland. The bus to Limerick left about the same time as we got off the plane, but there was another after about a half hour. We made it back to the city center and hopped right on the bus back to school. It was interesting though because when we reached campus there were Garda (police) and Army people everywhere. I ended up back in bed by noon and slept for about 4 hours, which meant I had to cancel my flute lesson.

All in all, London was amazing and I miss everyone already. However a picture or video for that matter is worth a thousand words.