Well guys, I
have to say it hasn’t even been a week yet and I can tell that
this semester alone will be incredible. I’m so
excited. I just moved in with my
famille d’acceuil. I
should say that my host
“family” is but a single lady who lives in an apartment near
the center of Grenoble. That’s
good and bad at the same
time. As it seems, most people are
not near the center of
the city, the ones I have gotten to know best so far in this
endeavor.
On that note, the
first week has been awesome. London was sort
of a blur. It was fun though. The first day, I flew
overnight on a cramped British airways flight and arrived in
London around 10am. From there an
AIFS person drove me
to my hotel, and I sort of got settled (keeping in
mind I was leaving again in a day and a half), and waited for
my roommate to arrive. She arrived
and we hit it off
immediately. Then I went for a run to enjoy
the beautiful weather in London (rare).
I ran along the
Victoria Embankments, about two blocks from Trafalgar
square, Parliament, Big Ben, the Eye (the biggest ferris wheel in
the world built with a futuristic steel and neon blue theme
to celebrate the millennium). The
Thames is always a
happening place. Then we met up
with the entire group at
6pm for drinks in the hotel lobby.
It’s the first time
I've ever “met for drinks”.
After that we were
all about to die of hunger, so we went out to
eat at Wagamama, a new Mongolian style eatery which is
all the rage in England’s cosmopolitan capital. They have ramen, noodle bowls, salads
with trendy ingredients,
and stir fry. It was quite
enjoyable. After that we decided
to go ride the Eye.
Touristy as it was, I
wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity to ride the world’s
biggest ferris wheel. It takes a
half hour to go around (it
goes really slow) and is more a sight-seeing aide than
anything. You ride in these clear
pods that you have peripheral views of all the sights of
London from. It was good bonding
time with the group.
After that we went
to a pub to get a drink. It was about 10 at
this point. I was going on 3 hours
of sleep. I had one
drink, chatted, sat around. Then I
absolutely had to go to
sleep. So I did. The next morning we met for a bus
sightseeing tour. I almost didn’t
go because I had already been on
one, but I’m glad I did. We drove
by all the normal
sites and everything, Buckingham, Trafalgar, Big Ben,
Parliament, all that. But we also
went to Abbey Road and Paul
McCartney’s house. I had been
there before too, but it was
great to see it all again. And our
guide was very
knowledgeable and witty. I learned
a lot about the markets and
regions of London I hadn’t known before.
That ended at
around 12:30 then four of us ditched the Tower of
London tour option to do other stuff.
We ate and then Lorna
and I set off on foot to Buckingham palace. We did the
audio tour. You’re not allowed to
take pictures so that the
tourism industry can make billions of pounds off of souvenir
guide book sales, but it was a stunning establishment.
After that we walked to and toured Parliament. It was as interesting if not
more so than
Buckingham. Our tour guide again
was witty and interesting and
we walked through a day in the life of a Member of
Parliament. When they do votes,
they have special rooms
to divide the yeas and the nays.
When you exit the room,
there are booths like at amusement parks that count how
many were in each room. There’s
also a big hall where the
lobbyists come to talk to their MP’s.
If you have something
to say, you go to this hall, find your MP at a certain time
and make him listen to you. I
liked that.
After Parliament I
was so tired I thought I was going to pass
out. We had walked upwards of 6
miles at this
point. So we went back to the
hotel and rested until dinner, which
was about 20 minutes. Then we
headed to Covent Gardens
and the Leichster Square region for another evening of
delightful English food (sarcasm intended, though Wagamama
was a refreshing exception, probably because it’s
not really English). We ate, then
I had this urge for ice
cream and went on a mission. We took our time getting back to
the hotel, milled around Covent Gardens watching the
street performers, shopping where we wanted. I ended up
going back a bit early because I was so exhausted. Brooke came back a little bit later and
we talked for a
long time, then decided it was time to go to bed because we
had be out of the hotel by 5:45 the next morning for our
flight to Lyon.
And that, my
friends, was the London Stopover.
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