Genuine hello!

Okay, so now I have time for a bit of a post... The last one was a bit rushed.

The plane rides were lame and long. None of them were delayed or anything. We had no problems. Our flight to England did have The Bucket List. That was the only one. Oh well. I ended up only getting 2 hours of sleep, which wasn't very fun. At all. I got moderately motion sick as well. :-P Luckily Sarah V. had some Dramamine so that helped a lot.

After we got through customs we drove around London and our tour guide, Karen, was brilliant. :-) She had tons of interesting stuff to say about what we saw as we drove by. We drove by Fleet Street and the Tower of London and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Our Bed and Breakfast is very nice. My room is on the fourth floor, so it's like we are climbing a mountain to get there. There is a little sink in our room and a fireplace--but the fireplace is not in use.

It took a while but I figured out how to run the TV--which might sound weird to Americans reading this, but the TVs are a bit different.

We had dinner at this pub called The Plough and it was brilliant. I had a meat pie with mashed potatoes and carrots. It was all covered in the best beef gravy I've ever had in my life. After dinner we explored and went through Covent Gardens down to the Millennium Bridge and walked along the Thames. The sun was out and setting and it was beautiful. We then walked through a bit of the Tate Modern, which is akin to the MOMA in New York City, but far more cutting edge.... Lots of weird naked pictures. There was one display, made out of cast iron, that was supposed to look like lightening illuminating neolithic creatures, but really, it looked like a giant lumpy Christmas tree, suspended from a steel T beam surrounded by giant turds. No joke. It was weird.

Then we wandered around a bit more, trying to keep ourselves moving to get onto local time. We got back to the hotel around 9:15 pm, which meant that I was able to catch some Doctor Who! :-D It was fun in the sense that I was watching it on the actual BBC, but sad in the fact that I am the ONLY one on the group with any interest in watching it. All my roommates were sleeping by that time as well so I had to have the volume down.

Today we saw the Tower of London and that was brilliant. We went on a tour led by one of the Beefeaters and he made the whole day. It was a great tour. I gave my report on the Tower of London and so it was great to hear more about the history and to know some of the answers. He called me cheeky... hahaha! At the end of the tour ha asked if we had any questions and I asked if he had any personal experiences with the supposed ''haunting'' of the Tower (Since the Yeoman Warders live at the Tower, in separate housing) and he said yes he did, and he told us one story for our own group after the tour was over. It was cool. :-) After that we all wandered around. I had already seen the crown jewels so I looked at other places in the Tower. I went through the armory, which was full of guns and swords and amour. It was need. And I walked along the wall and ended up seeing the old jewel house in Martin Tower. It was one of those ''Oh, look... A line for something...'' moments, and then you get sucked in and you have to go all the way through before you can get out.

After the Tower we went and had lunch at the famous George Inn and we ate in the old historic pub part... It was cool and old smelling and very.... I don't know how to explain it. To think that Shakespeare and Dickens all ate in that space... Was a cool feeling.

Then we went to the Globe and were scheduled to tour it, but alas... King Lear was showing at the time, so the actual Globe was busy. BUT while we were waiting for Dr. Scholtz to get tickets to the Shakespeare exposition, I was talking with the guy outside the Globe, who worked there and was helping answer our questions. He asked where we were from and I said a university in Iowa, called Wartburg College and he said.... ''Oh! I did a play about Iowa! What's it called. Music Man! There we go!'' and I was like ''Oh, my gosh! I'M FROM THERE!'' and we had a good chat about the show. :-D It was brilliant and a very 'small world' moment. He was one of the barbershoppers. :-)

I have to go because the computer is closing, but I just want to add that at the Globe I saw a sakbut, which for you non-music people is a medieval trombone.

Ta!