Weekend in London Nov. 24-26

So my first trip to England was awesome. Jenny and I caught a bus direct to Nantes Atlantique on Friday after classes. Our flight on Ryanair left at 5:30 PM and since we gain an hour in travel, we arrived at.... 5:30 PM! No problems with our carry-on baggage though now you have to put all liquids/toiletries in a gallon sized zip-lock bag. I had read about the new regulations, so we were prepared for that. I just love flying and traveling, and all that good stuff. We did get hit with a rather large unexpected expense immediately upon arriving at Stansted: a 25 pound (or 50 dollar) round-trip train ticket from Stansted into London proper.

We took the Stansted Express into the Liverpool station and then took the tube to our stop at South Kensington. We had booked a Meininger hostel in the very posh Kensington neighbourhood. Too bad neither of us can read a map to save our lives and we ended up walking around for an hour and a half looking for it (especially considering it was only 5 blocks away). I have no shame when it comes to asking for directions, and that is how we finally found our way. 2 random things to note: their street #s ascend on one side of the street while the other side descends; that was part of the problem we had when trying to locate the hostel, though mainly it was our lack of map-reading skills. The other thing is that the lights go from red to yellow and then to green. Also had to learn quickly that you have to look to the right when crossing streets since they drive on the opposite side! The streets actually even tell you which way to look!

We checked into our hostel around 9:30 PM and then took the tube to Picadilly Circus (probably like NY's Time Square). The town is busteling, and I've never seen anything like it. Even in San Francisco, I don't think there's the same kind of energy. At any point in time, you are bound to hear anywhere from 4-6 different languages being spoken. It truely is an eclectic cosmopolitan city. I was surprised at how clean and beautiful it is too. We even took a picture of the (dog) poop-free streets..... something lacking in France. We were starving so got a midnight snack and headed back to the hostel for some sleep around 1 AM.

On Saturday we woke up at 8:30 and enjoyed our complimentary continental breakfast. It was so nice to have wheat bread! The breakfast was pretty great, and being free, I'd say it was fantastic! We were ladies on a mission, and ran all over town seeing: Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, Kensington Palace, Parliment and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and Cathedral, Buckingham Palace/The Changing of the Guards, Scotland Yard, Trafalgar Square, and finally Harrod's.

Harrod's blew me away. The first thing we saw was a 600 dollar jar of Creme de la Mer face cream. Other jaw-droping items were a 15,000 dollar espresso machine, 40,000 dollar toy Hummer car for kids to drive, and the "Silver Room". They even had a polo section in the sports and leisure dept. Not Polo as in Ralph Lauren, polo as in they sold saddles, briddles, brushes etc... What dept store sells horse tack?! It was fun nonetheless to go through all the floors and gawk.

I guess we had luck to go right when the Christmas decorations were up because the city was just stunning by night. We did, however, get monsooned and spent much of our time wet and cold. My umprella even flipped inside out at one point from the strong wind. We headed over to Arsenal around 4 because Jenny is the biggest sports fanatic I have ever met (and this says a lot coming from my family), so she wanted to go to a British pub and watch Arsenal play. It was fun and something I would never have done on my own. Unfortunately, the got demolished loosing 3-1. We then headed across the street for a fish and chips dinner- yummy and cheap!

Then it was back to Picadilly Circus, a walk around the theater district and to the Virgin Mega store. I held out even though there were some CDs I would have loved to have. I could spend an entire evening in a Virgin store, and since I've been without my iPod pretty much since arriving here (my 6th and brand new one died about a week after I arrived leaving me nearly suicidal), I had fun just playing CDs. Jenny found one (Embrace) that isn't released in France or the U.S. so picked it up. I was exhausted and wanted to get a good night's sleep so we could wake up early and see some more stuff before heading back to the airport at noon.

We got up at 7 for another breakfast on Sunday and then went to see the London Tower and Bridge. I think this was one of my favorite sights even though we got drenched on the walk to the tube. We hung out around there and (gasp) hit up a Starbucks. I can't bring myself to get anything there, but sat with her while she had her mochachino or whatever and we had a nice chat before getting ready to catch our train back to the airport.

We had a seamless trip home and were back at the foyer by 7:30 PM. Unfortunately the night came with some sad news. Jesse is moving out. She ran into a French friend from when she studied Angers who is teaching English in Nantes and was looking for an apt. She found, I guess, a great loft in the center of town and Jesse's going to move in with her. I'm happy for her b/c I think she's been unhappy, but it is really sad to loose one of my closest freinds here. Ppl are dropping like flies; Zara went home to Ireland for break and didn't come back, another girl left 3 days after arriving, and another assistant left 2 weeks ago. It's sad that most people don't just love it here. I'm so thankful to have this experience and am really enjoying teaching, getting to know my students, being able to see so many things, but if you asked me if I'd recommend traveling to Nantes, I'd probably say no. I'm just not in love with this city, and am really starting to get down about not having "French" connections. I'm trying to put myself out there, but I guess I'll have to come up with some new strategies. It's fair to say that this experience can't compare to my time in Costa Rica. I just don't have the same passion for the language or culture the way I do with Spanish and South America. Even so, I know that once I'm back home, I will miss this city and it's people so try to remember that and enjoy the good things.

It's about 5:30 PM here and I have to go and talk to the directors of the foyer about rent and the CAF (govt. aid for housing). We probably won't get the money until March, and that's just too late. Plus the money goes directly to the foyer, not us, and I don't think there is any guarantee we'll see it if it doesn't come until March. Anyways, it's kind of a mess we're going to try and get squared away if possible. I'll post picures from the trip ASAP. Love to everyone. Gros Bisous, Elizabeth