Just like veryMaryKate, I am back and ready to start blogging again. Unfortunately I am short on time right now, so this will have to be a very brief recount of my adventures over the course of the last week. I'll post pictures later.
So my London trip was great. It was off to a rough start. Initially, I thought I would be in language school already so I booked a very late flight on Thursday and then a very early flight to return on Monday morning with the intention of only having to miss one day of class. Well, that reasoning was good, but then I pushed my class start date back to Nov 1 which made it really just a hassle. Marcos and I arrived at Heathrow at 11PM because our flight was delayed twice and we had only until 11:35 to get through customs and to catch the last express train into the city... well because I have the worst luck with airports...I was held up at customs! Basically you have to fill out a declaration card when entering the UK even if it's from another EU country. Anyway for occupation I wrote "student" which lead to the customs officer nearly rejecting my petition for entry into the country because I could not prove that I was
1) financially able to support myself while in London,
2) because I didn't have proof of a return flight to Berlin, and
3) obviously I look like a raging lunatic terrorist.
I got through, after he gave me a lecture about how unprepared I was and that he was doing me SUCH a favor. Had I just written that I worked for Deloitte, and explained that I was just touring Europe for my birthday, I'd have gotten through no problem. Oh, AND we were literally the LAST people in Terminal 1. It was a ghost town.
Aside from that London was great. We had AMAZING weather. You will be able to tell from the pictures. Rather than go into all the details, I'll just post pictures later, but basically we were just very ambitious pedestrian tourists for 3 days.
One thing that I feel I must comment on is that I've heard people frequently comment on how the tube is so great. Well to all those people, here is a cyber slap across the face because it is dreadful. Granted, I hate crowds, but those stations were miserable. Thousands of people, narrow platforms, many delays and construction. I think this is why we spent most of our time above ground walking or taking the bus. Oh an it closes at midnight. WTF? You are at the top of the list for world class cities and you don't have public transit that runs from midnight - 530am?
On Friday night, we went to WICKED. Many of you know I've been dying to see it for years, literally since the day it came out back in 2003. Well it's fantastic! It was actually great to see it with a cast that all had British accents. I think it added to the effect that they were in a far away land. We had great seats even though the theatre was HUGE.
Okay, that's all I have for now.
NEXT TIME: I joined the gym yesterday...finally. I'll be posting about that experience later today. And yes, it is an experience.
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