London: The Whirlwind Tour

Bonjour fellow followers:

let me start off by apologizing for the lack of blogging as of late. i have a lot to say so sit down..get cozy..and stay a while. we have been on quite the tour of the UK. so here's a wrap up.

sara and i flew from Helsinki to London for the second leg of our eurotrip. we met up with two of my BFFs (Morgan and Kate)at the airport. this was a challenge in itself because:

a. we don't have any communication devices.
b. we are in a strange country.
c. kate and morgs were jet lagged and very weary.
d. we didn't have a meeting spot.

so sara and i landed and we got grilled by passport control. who was a very angry man with a british accent...but don't let the accent fool you..he was an arse. for a few minutes i thought we were going to be denied into the country based on a miscommunication. moving on.

we finally found morgs and kate and they were scared we didn't make it. so we celebrated and hugged and then we had to tackle the next challenge which was....finding a way to our hostel. 75 pounds (if you know the conversion rate..do the math...it blows) later we arrived safetly at the Palmers Lodge Hostel.

our hostel was really nice and the people there were very friendly. we met people from Australia, Romania, England, Korea ummmm i forget where else. anyway we were in a 12 person all female dorm which was fine...except for the girl next to me had a very nasty cold and had the strangest coughs ive ever heard.. obviously i did not get any sleep to her overly snotty self. by day three i wanted to punt her. i blame her for my chronic blood shot eyes.



this is the front of our hostel. this is sara jumping for joy.

so we all decided that we were going to spend one day and go to every big touristy spot we could. here are the highlights in a photo montage.



this is Buckingham palace. there were a crap ton of people just standing at the gates. crossing the street was quite the ordeal. there were these little guards that made you walk completely around the side of the street in a single file line. he would point and say (in a british accent) "follow the rope please. ma'am please stay to the side!" i was never very good at follow the leader.



this is us by the statues across from the palace.



this is kate and i recreating the statues above us.



this is also part of the monument...i wish i knew the name of it...moving on. im squishing a man with my monster fingers.



this is us doing the obvious signifier of OSU. please note that i am wearing a pink tank top that ties at the top by my shoulders...this information will come in handy for the next picture.



this is me realizing that my tank top just came untied. shit.





this picture is for my dad (an avid follower of this blog). this is the queen's limousine. a rolls royce phantom iv...they only made 18 of these for royalty and heads of state. the queen got style.

so my pictures of our day stops here due to a dead camera battery. but we went to big ben, Westminster abbey, the TATE modern art museum, and hyde park.

the next part of this story will be dedicated to the luggage mishap...please enjoy the reenactment.


sara and i switched bags for the trip to the airport. she was rolling mine and i was rolling hers. this entire trip i had been warning sara, "hey sara! don't drag your luggage down the stairs" (clunk clunk clunk)



"hey guys! we have to catch the jubilee line all the way down to london bridge! oh look! we gotta get on this tube (aka the tram)! hurry! hurry!" as sara shuffles in last..climbing the tube. NOTE: on our journey we have seen multiple people get squished in between the doors of the tram..very scary and we wanted to avoid this at all costs.

*grunt* doors are beeping, warning the passengers that the doors will close in five seconds. *grunt again* with a couple of tugs to save my luggage (megan's luggage) i pulled and i pulled and i heard *snap* *tear* then a small asian woman comes out and presents the wheel from the bottom of the suitcase.



"megan. i am so sorry."



with no wheels and the bottom threatening to rip...i carried my suitcase, my life, all the way to edinburgh. i carried a 30 pound child across the country. needless to say...my arms are still hurting today.




exhibit a. hanging on.



exhibit b. the bleed.



exhibit c. the contents.

that is all for now. the other ladies will be blogging soon.

moi moi,
megan

p.s. - i officially turned in my master's thesis yesterday : ) now it's time for vacation...needless to say there was a pub crawl after my submission.