My Life is Music: London!

London Trip!

Ok! Here we go. This entry is going to be pretty long. I’m going to combine a journal that I will be keeping for my trip in London. I will first start with my experience to the unforsaken place called Braitslava. I woke up on Tuesday morning at 04:30. I was very tired but moving. I had to catch a bus, at 6:50, all the way on the opposite side of Vienna. It takes me about 35 minutes to get the bus stop. When I get there I start to freak out. On the buses website there is an address saying where the bus stop is. I find the address and all I see are two blue double doors and it was down an alleyway. I started to freak out. I had 30 minutes to find my bus. I thought the bus would be there but no luck. I call my RA and he told me I was in the right area. I started freaking out more and then at 6:46 I see my bus. I get on and then we leave 4 minutes later. We didn’t wait for anyone. There were only 5 passengers including myself on the bus. The bus could fit around 100 people. We then started on the highway from Vienna to Bratislava. I started to look around when we were at the halfway point and it looks just like home. All you see is land. I saw a few houses but not a lot. There was just a lot of unused land. The only way you can see something green in Vienna is if you go to a park otherwise it is all cement. Anyway, I get to Bratislava airport and then I got through security. This is a very small airport that maybe only 400 people go through a day and their security is much more strict than Indianapolis Airport. I had to show my passport to 4 people to get past checkpoints. The worst one was the last checkpoint. Where I’m standing there for 5 minutes while this lady looks at the passport and then looks at me and again at the passport and then at me. It was sorta ridiculous. I’m she started scratching at the passport on my picture to see if it was real. How does scratching a sticker tell you if the passport is real or not? I wasn’t a fan. I hate Bratislava and I always will. It is a death trap. I then got to the gate and see the convenience stores in the gate. They don’t sell any food. They just sell magazines and liquor. Lots and lots of liquor. Apparently you can take a huge two liter bottle of wine that they sell on the airplane. Very interesting.

Now off to London!

So I got on the plane and everyone was very interesting. The plane was a Boeing 737 and they tried to stuff the place. The flight wasn’t that long. It was 2 hours or so. They tried to sell everyone a lot of things. Ranging from food to cosmetics like makeup. They also tried to sell use lottery tickets and even smokeless cigarettes. I don’t know how they can be smokeless but they were.

So I arrive in the London Stansted airport and I’m so happy. I was in an English speaking country, and I knew I could go up to anyone and ask where anything is and they could probably help me. I get on my bus and it takes an hour to get into the city. We drove through the slumps of London and it was not pretty what so ever. I then get dropped off at a train station and it was very awkward. It was completely different from Vienna. There are also a lot more people here than in Vienna. There are also a lot of busses EVERYWHERE! Double deckers. It took me a while to realize that they were driving on the opposite side of the road. It is weird to get around because you have to look the other way. They have written out signs on the ground saying look left or look right. The drivers here also suck. They will knock you over if you get in their way. They don’t like people. I then find my hostel and it is a nice hostel but there were a lot of extra charges like for the key and a lock. It is a deposit though so I will get it back. I then headed next door to my hostel and saw the British Museum. It is the biggest museum I have ever been in. It has over 70 rooms full of stuff ranging from Greek statues to the Rosetta Stone from Egypt. They even had a room just for clocks and the history of clocks. I was there for an hour or so and then I headed over to oxford street to look at some stores. They have so much fashion here. It is ridiculous. After that I took the tube to the Parliament and the Westminster Abbey. Right when I walk out of the train station I see Big Ben and it truly is amazing. I have never seen anything like it. It was beautiful. I also went to the abbey for a service. They call it the Evensong. It was a group of men singing songs that I have studied in school. It was weird to finally hear a live performance of it. After the service I set up a time to meet with a friend from Butler, Rachel A.! We met right after the service. It was so good to see her. I haven’t seen anyone I know from home in person since the beginning of January. We walked up and down the Regent St and Oxford St. She showed me some cool shops and she also showed me Picadilly Circus. It is like the Time Square of London. It was really cool. A lot of people are on the streets and they try to ask you to sign things. People do this in Vienna too but I always say “No thank you” or something else in German. I get to London and I say the same thing. I didn’t realize I said it up until Rachel pointed it out. I did it at least 3 times that day. It was Rachel’s last night in London and she is on a Butler Study Abroad program with only Butler people. She was going to go to a last night party at a pub called Cittie of Yorke. She wanted me to come to see if I could eat with them. The professors did let me eat with them and it was really nice. I got Fish and Chips and I loved ir=t! It was really good. It was a little expensive but I really haven’t had a really good meal for a while so I decided to partake. I’m just glad Rachel and I got to catch up. After dinner we said our goodbyes. I headed back to my hostel because I was exhausted. That was my first day of London.

My Second Day!

I had a lot of trouble sleeping so I woke up in the middle of the night a lot. I finally woke up around 7 and got ready for the day. The hostel provides breakfast starting at 8. I headed down there and ate. I also talked to a person that works at the hostel and he started asking me questions about how I think the differences are in Vienna, London, and the USA. I had thought about it a lot in the first month of being in Wien but now it is like second nature. London is very fast pace but only after 6 pm. In the morning it is like a normal city like Indy. I started walking around London and went over to Hyde Park. I didn’t take the tube because if you take it before 9:30 in the morning you have to pay two extra pounds and I thought I could use the excersie. I didn’t realize how long it would take to get to hyde park. I went to say hello to the Peter Pan statue and also see the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. It was beautiful. After that I decided to head to Buckingham Palace and it was also beautiful. I saw a lot of guards but they are by the palace and you can’t walk up to them. It made me a little sad. After that I decided to head over to the London Bridge and the Pier. The London Bridge was very boring. I wasn’t a fan. After this I was completely exhausted but I decided to go to the most expensive part of the city and see what was there. It was Notting Hill. This is where a lot of celebrities live. I didn’t see any but this is obviously where I would live if I every lived in London. I would never be able to afford it but It was a really nice part of town. After walking a bit I had to head back to my hostel to change to get ready for the musical Sister Act. I was really really excited to see it and I have to say it was an AMAZING Show! I literally had a smile on my face the whole time and there were a lot of funny jokes. I was in the 13^th row and had great cheap tickets. After the show I still hadn’t had enough so I get on a train to Picadilly Circus and look to see what other shows are going on. I decided to try and get student tickets for Les Mis. Rachel had seen it and she said it was amazing. I get a student ticket for 27 pounds, which is a good price because the seat that I was in cost 90 pounds. I was in the second row front and center. The show was unbelievable. I haven’t see talent like that for a long long time. It was really one of the best shows I have ever seen. After this I tried to find a starbucks because it is a lot cheaper here than in Vienna. I couldn’t find one that was open so I went back and ended my night.

Day Three!

I woke up early again this morning and got ready to check out and get breakfast. I checked out and left my stuff at the hostel in the luggage room. I started to then walk down Oxford St because I wanted to buy some new clothes. I went to H&M and bought a shirt and sweater for really cheap. After that I headed to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guard. A lot of people where there and it was sorta intimidating. All of these policemen were yelling at people to get in line. Then it started at 11:30. Changing of the Guard was actually pretty boring. I saw them change the guards and it took 30 minutes for that to happen. They also had a band playing and they were playing the national anthem, songs from Les Mis, and the Beatles. It was very interesting. I then tried to find a place to eat and I couldn’t decide where. I started to think about Harrod’s department store. I went and it was like a castle full of clothes, jewelry, and accessories. I walked into the fragrance department and so at least 20 workers in this small room with a different fragrance and they were trying to spray it on all of the women. I wanted to go have a cup of tea at the Harrod’s café. One cup of tea cost 4 pounds which is $6. I decided to leave and I found a resturant by Picadilly Circus called Mermaid’s Tail. It was AMAZING! I got ribs for really cheap and I loved it. I love American food. I then went to a Starbucks and got a frap. A lot of the drinks are different in the UK compared to the US. After this I had to go catch my bus to the Airport. I really had a blast in London. I don’t think I could ever live there permanently but I would like to go back sometime and stay for a longer time!