London Day 1

After my 12:30 class I went home and finished packing my mess I had layed out before class. It all fit very nicely into my backpack with even a little room to spare. Val and I left the house at 4:00 even though our train didn't leave till 4:56 because we promised each other that we wouldn't run anywhere on this trip, and we wanted to buy some food before we left for the train. So we went and got sandwiches and then got situated on the train. Val and I talked about her new boyfriend and wrote in our journals the whole way to Paris. Every few minutes another train would pass going the opposite direction and it would scare that crap out of both of us. We both have squiggles in our journals from being startled...haha.

When we arrived in Paris we had to go to the Paris du Nord station which took just a few minutes then we had some time to kill. We walked around and got some Nutella crepes, a necessity in Paris, and since Mamie's hotel was right next to the Gare we went to meet her and her family. We were only there for a few minutes but it was good to meet them. We headed back to the train station, early again, which was a good thing because we forgot about customs. All our stuff had to come off and go into the x-ray belt thing. It was nerve racking! But all went well and we got nice big England stamps in our passports which makes me smile. When we got in line for our train Val realized that we weren't sitting next to each other. We didn't even have seats in the same car. So we said our goodbyes, and "see you in England!" and we got on the train. I wrote in my journal most of the way and went to visit Valeria twice who was also writing in her journal. They guy next to her asked her if she was writing a book...she wrote almost 3 times as much as I did! We went under the water where my ears popped really bad but it was a pretty cool experience and in only 2.5 hours we were in London!

I got of the train but and went to wait for Val, but for some reason the door to that car wasn't opening so I went and pushed the button on the outside and let all the people out. Val and I went to get our oyster cards, which is a good thing we did because each Tube ticket is like £6 and we've used it so much since then. The Oyster cards were only £30. From there we got on the Tube and took it to the nearest stop to our hostel which is way out in the middle of no where. We had the walking directions and it didn't take us very long to get there but when we walked up we found something we didn't expect. It was a black building with big bright red lips on the front. It's a bar/night club/ hostel. They forgot to advertise that on the website. SO when we went to pay (up at the bar) he told us they only took cash so we had to go across the street to a ATM where we got our first £. We payed him and he gave us our key and told us the entrance was through the bar. We walked up some stairs and through a lot of hallways and we finally found our room, #13 on the 3rd floor. We were greeted by two roommates, Stephanie and Carmen who were already settled in. They are from Canada and have been in England for the past 2 months just staying in different hostels and working at different farms all around. Val and I got settled in and fell asleep pretty quickly. It had been a long day.