me, tony blair, and that guy who somehow managed to get re-elected

the beattles

the hulk and me

the terminator himself

brad pitt / jen. anniston -- they look so real!

me and patrick stewart (aka captain picard, professor x)

Happy Guy Fawke's day hahahaha

Today I did some more sightseeing, with the main attraction being the wax museum. It was sooo fun going in there and seeing all the different sculptures of people – they looked so real! I took tons of pictures there, with highlight poses of me with George Bush and Tony Blair, The Hulk, and Patrick Stewart. They also had a ‘chamber of death’ exhibit which was pretty funny and freaky at the same time. It was kinda disturbing how graphic they were though hahaha. They had a display of the French Revolution and had all these heads of royal monarchs on a stick hanging which was a little too much. The also had a live exhibit there also had real people hiding in different places that popped out with a knife to scare you, which was fun. There was also a 3D space show and a car ride through the history of London here so like I said this place was awesome! I also went by Buckingham palace which was actually pretty disappointing. Apparently you this time of year you can’t go into it which really sucked. Today was also Guy Fawke’s Day so there were lots of fireworks going on everywhere! The story behind this celebration is very funny though. Apparently there was a guy name Guy Fawke who tried to blow up parliament but the police caught him and killed him – so that’s what they are celebrating! I was supposed to meet up with some people to go to a park and see some fireworks but wasn’t able to get in touch with them at work so that never happened hahaha. I did go to a park that supposedly was having a fireworks display but I didn’t see much there so I just walked around the streets for a while. Again I’ve gotta say it’s a great feeling walking around somewhere you’re not familiar with (without a map!) and not being worried about getting lost or anything like that. The way it works in London is pretty much as long as you walk on any major street for long enough you’ll eventually find an underground nearby hahaha. After that I decided to see the ‘other side’ of London and went to Brixton. The girl I had talked to from Victoria praised its night life (there’s one club called the fridge which is supposed to be really good) but to be perfectly honest I found the place to be very ghetto. A friend of mine from waterloo (Bhavesh) described Brixton as London’s version of Harlem and I have to say he was right hehehe. However it was nice seeing some of the interesting characters there so I hung out at Brixton until the last underground train for the night. I took that and went back to the hotel and that was the end of another day in London!

There's so much to see in London!

Today I did some more sightseeing. I went to St. Paul’s Cathedral, Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, Tower Bridge, Big Ben, the Parliament Buildings, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye to name a few. I opted not to go on the London Eye cause there was a huge line up for it and also cause the student ‘discount’ price was like $20 CAD which was a little too much for me, seeing as I had many other places that I wanted to still go inside of. I did go sit in on one of the Parliament debates which was entertaining to say the least – all the security measures they are taking were especially funny hehehe. I was actually supposed to meet up my sister’s boyfriend’s cousin but some things came up and he couldn’t make it. The one annoying thing I don’t know if I’ve already mentioned is that the tube line I’ve been taking from the hotel sucks so much! There are always delays on it and today I actually had to take the bus to get to another stop cause the train wasn’t running at my stop! I’m told this was just a bad week but I’m quite skeptical about that! Anyways as luck would have it there was a program scheduled at a local meditation center in London for a religious path that I follow (siddhayoga.org) so I went there. It was very enjoyable and peaceful going there and I’m very glad I went. This trip has at times been very stressful (though I might not imply it in these blog posts!) and going and doing something religious really revitalized my spirits. That was pretty much the day.

protests across from parliment building

tower bridge 2

tower bridge

monument near buckingham palace

nice park

can't remember what this was...

big ben 2

big ben / eye view

parliment area

big ben!

london eye

dail universe funny thingy

sunny day in london!

millenium bridge view

st. paul's cathedral

Lazy Day

Today was a lazy day for me. I went and drove around the area near the hotel for a while and found a place to do my laundry. Driving was again very fun, especially when I got lost and had to use my intuition to navigate around the area hahahaha. After that I went to the nearby shopping mall and did some shopping there. For the most part that’s pretty much all I did…today was my ‘day off’ from traveling hahaha. I also hung around the hotel watching BBC/CNN about Bush’s election victory….I really don’t understand how he could get re-elected

Walking around...

I did some more sightseeing (and got lost many times) and also did some window shopping on the way hahaha. Things here are soooooooo expensive when you convert the currency to Canadian dollars!!! I went to Piccadilly Circus / Leicester Square area and saw all that there was to see there. I took a lot of wrong turns today but was able to finally figure out my way around the whole subway system here which I think is actually quite an achievement! After that I actually ran into some other people who were new here in London as well and hung out with them for the rest of the night. I met a really nice girl originally from Canada!!! (Victoria) there too and we took the ‘underground’ back together and both got lost hahaha, but eventually found our way…I’m planning on meeting up with her and some of her friends to go out on Saturday, just as friends in case any of you are wondering!

nice view

monument -- read the fine print on it!

Loving Life in London

Hello,

Just to let you all know I'm not gonna be posting for the next few days cause I've got sooooo much to do and see here plus the access fee for the phone here to connect to the internet is pretty high!

Will post TONS of interesting stories soon (cause I'm meeting up with a lot of friends here!)

Discovering London

I had to wake up at 8 in the morning to sort out all the ferry stuff to the UK and actually was able to get a real good price for the ferry from Calais. UK Customer was surprisingly crusty with us, but eventually let us get on the ferry. We took the super-fast hoverspeed ferry and made it to Dover in about an hour. It was REALLY weird for the first little while driving on the other side of the road here. I actually found it very fun though. We EVENTUALLY made it to London and found our way to the hotel. After some unpacking I was off to meet up with a friend of mine who’s here, Decky. I decided to take the subway to meet with him, but as they call it here the ‘tube’ or ‘underground.’ In fact the term subway here in London has a completely different meaning – it refers to underground passageways hahahaha. Anyways I took the ‘tube’ and after getting very lost eventually made it to where I was supposed to. The subway line in London is far more sophisticated than in Toronto, they have like 10 different lines here or something and they split into different directions at quite a few places. Anyways I had dinner with Decky and another guy, Ananda also from Toronto and that was very nice. We had a lot to talk about! After that I did some sightseeing and that was the day. For the most part I just walked around near Piccadilly Circus and it was actually very nice to just walk around and not have to worry about following a map. If I got lost I could just ask some one in ENGLISH. Oh how I miss English! Anyways Piccadilly really is a circus hahaha it’s very busy commercial district and if you walk a bit farther you run into the unbelievable amount of theatres that are here.

ferry boarding

ferry1