Wherein pictures are taken of me, and I am also a complete and utter idiot.

Since I last posted…lots has happened, but not a lot, if you know what I mean? I’m writing this from the airport at Heathrow, waiting for my flight to Frankfurt. Next leg o’ the trip, here I come! (I also posted oodles of photos on facebook last night if you’re interested in seeing more there than here. Of course, there will be repetition as well.)

This post will be lots of photos! Maybe not a lot of writing. But we’ll see.  The night of the 21st, the girl from Munich (Halle is her name) actually changed plans, so I went out to the pub with two Australian girls with whom I became fairly good friends. We got a nice taste of English life, and the especially amusing part is that the pub definitely played basically all American music. The highlight of the night was when a large portion of the pub sang along to that song from Grease. “I’ve got chills, they’re multiplying.” You know. That one. Even the bartenders were crooning into bottle necks, “You better shape up, cause I need a man.”

Good times.

Silly British though innit?

The next morning I headed out to the TATE MODERN. Holy god is it a wonderful place. I really have no words to describe how exciting the museum is. The place is a converted power plant, and it really actually just…works. The building is monstrous (example A: photo) and somehow entirely condusive to modern art. They had some really fabulous exhibits going on, and I especially enjoyed the Surrealism exhibit. Of course, when don’t I enjoy Surrealism, but you know, whatever.  I’ll probably be devoting an entire post to some of the thoughts I had while there, but maybe not. People probably wouldn’t be interested, unless my art historian friends are actually reading the blog? Friends, pipe up and leave a comment if you are, and then I will simply inundate you. You’re welcome in advance.

My next stop was The Globe. Unfortunately you can’t see much from the outside, and to see the inside you must buy an 11 pound ticket which is a bit expensive. HOWEVER, they sold 5 pound tickets to see an actual show. Which is cool, but it’s probably also very very touristy. The 5 pound tickets are standing tickets, though, which is rather authentic, as that’s how the plebians viewed Shakespeare back in the day dontcha know?

I was going to head over to the Royal Academy of Arts next but on my walk to the Underground station I sort of fell off a curb and slightly twisted my ankle. Not feeling entirely well anyway (I got slightly sick on the flight to London, and staying in a room with 11 other girls doesn’t help that) I decided to just head back to the hostel and rest up. I bought a delicious sandwich on the way back (Londoners put brie and sandwiches alllll the time and it’s awesome) and a massive bottle of water that I think was two litres. I had a good time on my bunk bed reading and eating in the peace and quiet of the room while everybody else was out, and I did a make shift cold compress with the bottle of water. Because British people don’t have ice. Obviously.

Apparently I didn’t injure my ankle too badly after all, as I was up and about a few hours later with only a tiny bit of pain. I’m guessing I was just getting used to walking around 5 miles a day. Even in Berkeley I didn’t walk that much and all. My Australian buddies returned around 6pm and we decided to go out again. They’d never gone to Trafalgar Square, and I’d never gone to Covent Gardens, so we set off on an adventure!

We got a little lost, and ended up in front of the Royal Stables. Very pretty. I could imagine Lipizzaners there except for I’d be in the wrong part of Europe.

After that, we observed that Queen Lizzie was home. We reveled in the amount of flags. We carried on to Trafalgar! It turns out that it’s useful to have friends travel with you: they can take cheesy pictures of you on lions while you pretend to roar and then sink embarrassingly into your hands.

We can now safely move on to my current excitement. It can be summarized as such.

1. There are three airports in London: Heathrow, Gatwick, and London City Airport.
2. I thought my flight to Frankfurt was at Heathrow.
3. It was at London City Airport, about 2 hours away. (London is big.)
4. Terribleness happened. I cried.
5. I had to book a new flight, but Lufthansa suggested I go see if I could get a cheaper flight from British Airways. I could, for about 145 pounds cheaper! Yesss!
6. Tried to call Mom so she could know the situation and call the people picking me up in Frankfurt.
7. Discovered my cell phone had somehow fallen out of my purse in the 15 minute walk from Terminal 1 to Terminal 3.
8. Retraced my steps. Twice.
9. Went to every lost and found location in Terminals 1, 2, and 3. Asked 10,000 airport workers and 2 Bobbies  around the area I thought my phone might have dropped
   1. Nothing.
10. Filed a lost and found report. Dude was not helpful nor encouraging.
11. Went back to the British Airways desk in Terminal 3. Bought myself a new ticket for Heathrow! To Frankfurt! I’m getting things right now.
12. Made the 15 minute expedition to Terminal 5. (You have to take a Tram. Have I mentioned that everything in London is huge?)
13. Desperately tried to find a pay phone somewhere.
    1. Also nothing.
14. Have laptop! Will pay exorbitant prices for internet!
15. Paid exorbitant prices for internet, and also coffee.
    1. Emailed everybody ever, informed them of new flight, phoneless status, etc.
16. Sat around a while.
17. Went through security.
18. Sat down near an entire football team from an Illinois college?
    1. Large American men. This is strange, and I’ve only been out of the country like five days.
19. Wrote a blog post!
20. Graced the internet with my presence.
21. Lost my mind.

See you in Frankfurt! (I was evidently joking about the lack of verbosity.)