October 17, 2011

October 17, 2011

This morning I slept until about 8:30, finished packing, got ready, had breakfast and took the bus into town. We bought some granola bars for later and some lunch to have on the bus. We headed over to the train station to catch our bus at 11:44 but, for some reason, the bus closed its doors in our faces and left without us. We had met two English couples and stuck with them. When one of the men complained, the man working for the bus company said only “eh, it’s Italy.” We were so frustrated. Thankfully, another bus was leaving in half an hour so we took that one to the airport. We arrived in an hour and had no problem getting through security and customs. We got to the gate, which was a very small area with four gates and way too many people. We waited for a long time and there was no announcement about any change in flight time. We befriended an older British woman in line who said she flies Ryan Air and they are never late…I guess there’s a first time for everything. Five minutes after our flight was scheduled to take off, they finally gave us some information—our flight was delayed an hour and a half. What an awful way to start the trip…here’s hoping things get better! We will miss our bus, though, so hopefully they will just let us get on a later one. Good thing we brought granola bars…it’s gonna be a lonnnnng day.

Okay, I am writing this second part once we are here safe and sound and I promise it gets better! Our flight finally left about an hour and a half late and our flight was fine. Nothing special but hey, it got us where we needed to go. We arrived, went through customs, got some pounds, found the buses and, thankfully, were able to use our tickets for a bus an hour later than scheduled. We sat by our same British woman friend who was just a delight—looking out for us and telling us everything we must do in London. We finally arrived in Victoria around 8:45, got pasties at my favorite pasty place (as we were STARVING by this point), got our tube passes for the week, and headed to the hotel. It’s so funny being back in London…it feels like coming home, in a sense. I feel so comfortable here and really know my way around—I LOVE it :)

Our hotel is LOVELY. Our room is on the top floor so very quiet and is actually a room for five people so very spacious. The people here are so nice as well. We dropped our stuff in the room and headed back out into London. We took the tube to the river and walked across the bridge right outside of Embankment tube station. The whole city was lit up around us! We stopped in the National Theatre Bookstore where I had a wonderful conversation with the man who worked there about theatre and my time in London this past January. I love the National! I finally pulled myself away and we crossed under the bridge to see the London Eye, Big Ben, and the Parliament Buildings all lit up. It was a gorgeous fall night and I was so happy to be out :) We headed home around 10:45, just as all the shows were letting out. We had some free tea in the lounge and then headed up to our room to journal and get some sleep.