First trip outside of Spain

This past weekend was so much fun! I went to visit Colleen in London and Katie came from Dublin as well. It was great to see such an amazing city and also great to see friends. I even enjoyed hanging out with U of R people that I don´t even know because we could still reminisce about Aja Noodle and California Rollin and how good and comparatively cheap they are. London is such an expensive city! I am glad I am not spending the whole semester there because it would be so stressful. Every time you buy something you double the price in your mind and then say; wow, I just paid $5 for a cup of coffee or $10 to ride the subway, etc. I couldn´t believe how expensive the public transportation was. But despite my minor complaints it was a great weekend.

I arrived on Thursday afternoon, and since Colleen was still at work I decided to take a bus tour to get an overview of the city. Then I met up with Colleen and we went back to her flat, then out with her roommates for wings at an American-like sports bar. The BBQ wings were such a good change from all the jamon (ham) here in Madrid.

The next morning Katie arrived and we went to the Tate Modern to see some cool and some very strange art. There were huge slides there that Katie wanted to ride, but unfortunately there appeared to be a bunch of elementary kids there on field trips, so the lines were too long. We then went to a pub for some fish and chips. We didn´t even order any alcohol and we were still asked for IDs (which she looked at skepticly since they are from New York, Michigan and Wisconsin.) According to wikipedia "you must be 14 to enter a pub regardless of your intention of drinking alcohol" so apparently we all appeared younger than 14. It was fun to just sit there and watch the locals and get a little glimpse of what it is like to be British. After that we checked out Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey from the outside. We couldn´t go inside the Abbey because it had just closed for evensong.

On Friday Katie and I went to the British Museum while Colleen went to school to do a bit of work. The museum was so big that it would have taken all day to see everything, but we got to see a lot of interesting stuff from all over the world, including the Rosetta Stone. We then met up with Colleen again and went to Leicester Square to try to buy tickets for a show that night. The lines were crazy and there were no half price tickets for that night (which is what we were hoping for) but we got tickets for ₤25 to see The Mousetrap. From there we headed to the Tower of London and took a Yeoman Warder tour. I´m definitely glad we took the tour because we got to hear a lot of interesting (albeit gruesome) stories about the people who were imprisoned and executed there. We followed the same path that Anne Boleyn did when she was brought to be executed. We then went in to see the crown jewels. It was kind of funny b/c they put everyone on an escalator and just glide you past them. Then we went inside the palace for a look, but it was mostly full of military stuff like swords and armor that didn´t really interest us. It was cool to know that that is where the British royalty lived for over 500 years.

From there we grabbed food and ate it on the bus b/c we were in a rush to get to the show. The Mousetrap is a famous Agatha Christie murder mystery and also the longest running show in London. After the show the audiences are always asked to keep the secret of the murderer and become part of ¨the best kept secret in London.¨ We were all pretty tired at that point, but I still enjoyed the show. After that Colleen made an excellent dinner then we went out with her flat-mates to a chocolate bar where we ate free chocolate all night. It was great, they just kept bringing around plates of chocolate and filling up the bowl on our table, which someone of course promptly dumped into her purse. I left Colleen´s flat around 2am that night to catch the bus to the airport. I got to my apartment in Madrid around 11am and went straight to bed. I basically slept all day on Sunday, waking only to shower, eat and do homework.

Hopefully all of my future trips are as much fun!