EPTIt was about a week in London, a week in Lake District/Scotland, and 3 days in Paris. Keep in mind that this happened right before the london riots. When we came back from Paris to get our flight we saw huge convoys of police going into london. It was scary as anything, but sort of interesting to have witnessed big international news.
Furthermore, it has furthered my conviction that I want to be overseas as much as possible thoughout my life. Don't get me wrong, the United States is one of the richest and nicest countries to live in, and this may be a reaction to my life in suburbia, but I really want to get out there and experience as much as possible. I have no idea how to accomplish this, but I still have time to figure it out =D Suggestions?
This blog will only cover the flight and first 1/2 days. I'll include pictures and experiences I find to be noteworthy and interesting.
Flight
I get book, mp3 player, and not that many clothes. My parents wanted me to pack heavier, but a couple tshirts, a couple jeans, a hat, I'm ready to go. Go to SFO. We wait forever. We leave. I get all warm and fuzzy inside. We have to transfer in Atlanta. It's hot and humid. We transfer. We fly over nova scotia. CANADA. I had a really hard time sleeping. So we arrive at about 7:00 am local time, and I'm super tired. After flying over the suburbs of London, if you can call them that, we arrive at heathrow. I'm next to a bunch of korean tourists in the customs line. I understand very little, but it was sorta cool. Anyways...
Day 1...
Stuff is old
We get on the tube at heathrow. My god mass transit there is nice. BART is filled with one legged homeless men. The tube is full of people going to work, and
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ySWWg.jpg)
We run over there. It's overrun by scummy toursists like ourselves. We watch the changing of the guard. After this we walk by St James park (really nice) to just look around london. We've already purchased our travelcards for unlimited usage of mass transit (not cheap, totally worth it) and get on a bus. After on we go down into the financial district, see the LSE. I've been awake for almost 24 hours, with only a couple naps. I'm about ready to die, and we decide to retire for the day. So what do we do? We get on the tube, go to victoria station, get on the train back to our hotel, which was fairly far outside of the city. Norbury I believe. Filled with culture, rather narrow streets, and compact and citylike housing without being "dangerous". I believe we actually got indian pizza because it was convenient. Corn pizza, omnomnom.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/pod9M.jpg)
Changing of the Guard
But even in these experiences, i really did enjoy the foreignness, yet similarity (advantages of British Imperialism) of the environment. The usage of trains and mass transit, civil individuals were nice.
Also nice was the historical richness of the region, and the fact that wherever you looked there was something to do. Also: non chain stores.
not nice... prices, especially because of VAT.
I suppose next time I'll post the first half of the rest of our London time.
What I regret... having to be with family and slog through a lot of meh stuff. XD
