And more…

All right, so after a chunk of time getting stuff sorted, my newest photos are up! (And my camera is cleared for more!).

A few stragglers from Amsterdam, and all of Berlin and Prague!

http://picasaweb.google.com/jessica.l.peter

Prague Blog

I’ve actually made it to Vienna and have found a delightful little backpacker’s bar with internet (and as I write I am also drinking beer and eating chips. Such is the life). Before I start in on Prague, I want to say my big Viennese excitement for the day: other than having hot chocolate in the palace (a usual touristy thing that sounds a lot more extravagant than it is), I also saw both the President and the Chancellor of Austria. In real life. But… you’ll have to wait for my Vienna blog for that story. As for now, the “Golden City”, Prague (or to most of Europe, Praha).

Arriving in Prague was a culture shock. It (so far) is the most purely foreign to me. I felt pretty overwhelmed just making it to my hostel (Hostel Elf), but once I got to the cozy little independent hostel, and saw the big pot marked “Here I am… your tea”, I started to feel a bit better. At least it wasn’t ALL foreign!

I started my first night with a big CouchSurfers meetup in a Czech pub. I thought I wouldn’t stay for long, but it turns out the CS’ers are friendly people (and there were more than 200 CSers, we booked the whole bar!), and I stayed for hours. I had an authentic Czech meal – roast beef with an oddly sweet sauce (with cream and jam on top as if I was having tea), with big flat bread dumplings that I quite enjoyed. And then I danced to the wild techno on the dance floor under the pub (which, also oddly, had a fake spider pit and a cage up in the air for people to dance in. A couple of the braver ones climbed up to it).

My first morning in Prague was spent seeing the “Jewish Museum” which is actually 6 different sites in the Jewish ghetto, Josefov. The most striking were the Pinkas Synagogue which now has the nearly 80,000 names of Jews from the Czech Republic that were killed in the Holocaust written on the walls and an exhibit with children’s art from the Terezin camp (all but about 250 children of about 10,000 at Terezin were later transported and gassed at Auschwitz), and the Jewish Cemetery. The Cemetery is a crazy pile of headstones because the Jews were only allowed a small area for burying their dead for 400 years… and there was a huge Jewish ghetto! I saw the grave of Rabbi Loew, who legend has it created the Golem of Prague (not to be confused with Gollum from LOTR. That’s something else entirely). And, of course, there was the glorious Spanish synagogue!

I spent the afternoon visiting the Old Town Square (and its astronomical clock that the tourists go wild over once an hour), the New Town Square (Wenceslas Square – after the Good King… – much like a mall on the ground level, but looking up is a crazy blend of architectural styles. I went wacko over deco. Art deco that is… it’s all over the city.)

Following with my deco fever, I headed to the Alphons Mucha Museum to see his famous art deco style posters and the original works behind them. I really enjoyed this museum, and the included video really brought Mucha to life!

The next day was spent on the other side of the river… and first I had to get there! Getting there was the (in?)famous Charles Bridge, with its Gothic arches and tons of statues of saints. Unfortunately, the section on bridge in front of the most famous statue, St John of Nepomunk was closed… which meant that I couldn’t rub the golden picture of him being thrown off the bridge (and killed) to get my one wish. Rats. Well, apparently you only get one from there in a lifetime, so I guess I will have to return to Prague someday!

I wandered the “Little Quarter” on the other side of the river, and headed up the slippery, cobblestoned, sloping streets to Prague Castle (I’m literally surprised I made it without any broken ankles… it was raining and the streets are either cobblestones or marble! Eep!). I wandered the castle grounds (apparently its the biggest castle complex in the world right now, if you count the gardens).

The only actual castle building I went in was St Vitus Cathedral, which was the most over glorious church I have ever seen in my life (probably because I’ve not yet been through the “Catholic kingdoms”, and Protestant churches don’t seem to be as decorative!). I admired the lovely stained glass windows (and stared at the window Mucha did for quite some time!), the curving stone up to the ceiling, and the wealth of silver and gold all over the statues at the edges. I even saw St Wenceslas’ tomb. Wow.

I also stopped at the Doll and Barbie Museum, which is strangely on the castle grounds. I was entirely delighted to see the vintage toys… especially the vintage Halloween & Christmas things, and the Eastern European specialties. Oh… and I may have really enjoyed the Barbies too.  It was quite a delight for a collector to see Barbies #1, #2, and #3, as well as the German doll Barbie was based on…. plus a whole lot more!

I had a “menu” (which means a fixed price meal deal) in a cozy Czech pub with “potato soup” (I would call it vegetable really.. but it tasted just like my style of soup), apple strudel for dessert…. with a main course of wild boar ragout and potato pancakes. I was expected it would taste like pork.. but it tasted more like beef to me! I didn’t really like how sweet the dark gravy was… but the meat was tasty!

The last thing I did in Prague was take a “Ghosts and Beer” tour. Basically, it was a tour telling all the mysterious little oddities of Prague (including some ghost stories), and ended up at a pub called By the Executioner for a free beer. I preferred the curiousities to the actual ghost stories.. (such as the cage on a fountain around the corner from the Old Town Square that was once in the middle of the square in the 16th and 17th centuries… and was where they would keep and torture suspected witches. Now why would they keep it and put it on a fountain? That’s beyond me…)

So Prague. Even my “not so good area” (as one Czech couchsurfer told me about my hostel location) was beautiful as long as you look beyond the street level graffiti and strip bars… just UP. I couldn’t find an ugly buidling in Prague if I searched for it!

Also… it was freezing! Pretty much the coldest I’d expected on my entire trip, and it’s still pretty early in the year. But I handled it well in my cozy jacket. No worries.

Pink Floyd The Wall – Berlin

So I have to say I am a big fan of Berlin. At first I was overwhelmed by the bigness of the city.. (oh, and the part that after a 12-hour day on the bus I managed to take the same S-bahn in opposite directions one after another. Bah!)…

BUT.. the first day found me checking off nearly all of my sites to see with the most awesome New Berlin (free) walking tour. And with the sites came the stories, and I found my interest for the wall and the communist times, the Nazi times and the Holocaust, and back to the Weimar republic and the great nation of Prussia growing steadily. I think we may have gotten lucky with a extremely enthusiastic and very knowledgeable guide (though he was from Liverpool, not Germany at all)… but either way, I’m a big fan of Berlin.

Some especially interesting things I saw: There was Bebelplatz, one of the grand squares of the Weimar era reduced to the spot where thousands of “subversive” books were burned by Nazi students in 1933.. along with a quote from an 1890’s author (whose own books were burned for being subversive), “wherever they burn books, eventually they will burn people too”… (though originally referring to the Spanish inquisition!). The onyl monument otherwise is a glassed in space underneath the centre of the square with a small room of empty book shelves. I found it especially haunting, but then… as you may know… I am quite a lover of books.

There was also the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe which is a whole city block of grey.. well, blocks (apparently the grey is the exact shade that people’s bones go when they are burned). The blocks rise in height toward the centre, and loom down on you in a creepy way while the floor drops down and up again. Lots of different speculation as to the meanings… obvious example would be a cemetary, less obvious the blocks representing the traincars or the role call at the concentration camps, or even more cerebral, the slow descent from anti-Semitism into what it became (the Holocaust). Very poignant.

The Nazi site that I found most interesting was the unmarked site of Hitler’s underground bunker where he famously shot himself. Part of my interest is that it is entirely unmarked, under a slightly sketchy patch of grass… because apparently there are enough neo-Nazi’s around for it to potentially become a memorial. Very creepy.

Other than that.. pretty much every other “site” (or do I mean “sight”) to see in Berlin was seen. The Brandenburg Gate, some of the wall (which I will discuss later), the Reichstag, some more grand squares, the grand boulevard Unter den Linden, Checkpoint Charlie, and.. yes… the hotel window where Michael Jackson (famously?) dangled his baby out of for photographers a few years back.

After the tour, I headed on up to the Reichstag (the German parliament buildings) to go up its relatively new glass dome on top for some fabulous views of the city with a couple Australians I had met on the tour (Matt & Cass… not traveling together though).

And that night I headed to the New Berlin pub crawl (not free, but worth the money!), with those same Australians, along with a few more, some Brits that were also on the tour, and proceeded to meet some cool people (a couple Irish girls – one who knew & lives near Bunclody, where I will be visiting relatives later – and even knew Redmond’s pub!, a few Americans, and one by one: Austrians, Belgians, French.. and probably more.) Neat bars, fun people!

Otherwise in Berlin… Hm.

Well I went to the Topography of Terror exhibit, which is a work in progress. It is the former SS & Gestapo interrogation chambers & prison, but they are still excavating, so for now it’s a free outdoor museum about the rise of the SS and the Gestapo, which was really interesting. It also happens to be next to the longest stretch of unbroken wall left. (And this wall has a fence around it to protect it from “wallpeckers” or people who decide to knock chunks of for souvenir. Oh the irony.)

I also visited another long stretch of wall (though this one partially unbroken, as it is right beside the river Spree, in the punky Kreuzburg district). And this was the East Side Gallery. Basically in 1989, a group of artists decorated the wall to celebrate it coming down. Or at least partially coming down (since clearly, this must have been up if they could paint it!). They redid it in 2000 (damn wallpeckers), and a lot of it is still there. Some has disappeared… but some of the empty parts have been replaced by other graffiti – which, if you are a graffiti fan like I am, Berlin is an excellent place for. This was really interesting, and I got some good photos, so if I ever make it to an internet cafe that I can connect my camera cable too, you’ll see them.

Other things I did? Well I did break out some wicked Gangsta’s Paradise at karaoke night at the hostel. (What what). And I wandered the city. And took the metro. (Actually easy when you get used to it).

The eating wasn’t too exciting. I was going for a lot of cheap grab stuff. The breakfast at my hostel (Generator Hostel) was the best I’ve ever had at a hostel, so that covered that. I had a marvellous crepe at a kawaii (that’s Japanese cute) crepe stand in a metro station. Peculiar, but it was super tasty. And I looked for Cafe Sybille on Karl-Marx-Allee, a communist East German themed restaurant, but I can barely read maps (and, also, it was tricky) so I couldn’t find it… and went to McDonald’s instead (Haha. Sucks to be you communism. I went for the most capitalistic place I could find.)

Two German delights on my way out of Berlin:

1) I had to actually break out my German skills when ordering my cheese (brie.. yum yum. Also ridiculously cheap in Germany) & bread from behind a supermarket counter because the lady didn’t speak English. And then, she said (in German, because remember, she didn’t speak English) that I speak pretty good German! That’s right.

2) On the train to Prague I looked out at a little village and saw a girl around my age in traditional German attire, dirndl and all. I was like “WHAT”. But she was probably just on her way to be a serving beer wench or something. (Is that the proper term?)

‘Dam spanking new post… on Amsterdam

Ah… finally. I decide to post my Amsterdam-ian adventures. I found that a lot of my excitement in Amsterdam was found in wandering neighbourhoods, rather than the traditional “tourist sites” (though I did hit a couple of the especially interesting ones!).

First off, my hostel – Flying Pig Downtown – was very neat. The bar attached was just for hostel-stayers, and had a big no-shoes area with pillows and lots of lamps. Very… Middle Eastern? I don’t know, it felt a bit like that to me! And downstairs where the breakfast was (a pretty decent breakfast I might add) was Grandma’s Basement, which was decorated like… you guessed it… a granny’s house (all tacky photos, lamps, wallpaper). My “28-bed room” was actually 3 attached rooms with no doors between them. My section of the room was cheese themed. (Um.. yeah.) Alas, the only roommates I met were 9 Austrian guys traveling together (and not really looking to make buddies). At least one of them was a bit smelly.

And then.. some sights. And sites.

I started my first night with a visit to the Red Light District. I found it… bizarre. I mean, I’ve seen hookers around Hamilton (Barton, Cannon….) but to have them dancing in windows in their undies was definitely… different. I couldn’t help comparing them “Oh, that ones definitely better looking”… and nearly needed to suppress giggles when anyone decided to use their services… (OR anytime groups of guys headed into one of “live sex shows”. And yes, I did end up visiting a sex museum later… but that was far more civilized. Read on for further details).

My first museum was the Van Gogh Museum, which I really liked. It had a few of my favourite pieces by Van Gogh (particularly a couple of his self-portraits, and “Wheatfield with Crows” which is a pretty dark piece – in emotion – especially when you consider that he had only just finished this painting when he shot himself twice in this wheatfield or one much like it. There was also one of the Sunflowers, which is famous… but not my personal favourite). There were also some good pieces by Cezanne and Gauguin, and even one by (another of my favourites) Toulouse-Lautrec! What I didn’t like was the crowds. Especially one the first floor, the tourists were crazy. They were actually in a totally inappropriate line (um… yeah, this is still a big open square room) to shuffle along in front of the paintings, barely looking at them. They were like zombies! I pictured them dronign on “we are great art lovers we love only van gogh we will not stop to look at cezanne…” and so on.

I decided against the Rijksmuseum, since I realize that I am not a very big fan of the Dutch masters, or renaissance era art in particular.

I did also go to the Anne Frank Huis (House), which I found really effective. In my theme of reading books set where I am going, I was (and still am) reading the Anne Frank Diary. I find her entirely relatable, and at times I feel like she thinks a lot like me! Seeing the house really made it all real for me, and despite the fact that it isn’t furnished, I could picture where things were. Seeing the pictures of celebrities and royalty that she had pasted to the walls in her room were very neat.

The two sketchier museum type things I visited….1) Cannabis College – well in a city like Amsterdam, a neat educational place about marijuana is quite a cool idea! I popped in here with Diego & Heather (a Chicago couple I had met in London).. the best part was the basement “garden” which showed the big pot plants in the different stages of growth. Just like an episode of Weeds. Marvellous. 2) The Damrak Sex Museum – apparently the classier of the 2 Amsterdam sex museums (according to Rick Steves’ guidebook), this one was full of… sexy things through the ages. The little Victorian snuff boxes and little items with graphic scenes on them really amused me. As did the really ancient things. I did have to skip past the graphic room full of 1970’s and 80’s porno shoots though. Ergh.

And that was pretty much the end of the sights. I visited the Dam Square (the tourist mecca, surrounded by souvenir shops… but also home to a lot of interesting buskers & street performers…), the Waterlooplein flea market (hippie and punky and just my style… I would have bought something if I had any room in my pack!), the Leidseplein area (a nice wander), the Spui (pronounced “Spow”, and usually prefaced by “Het”, another shopp-y and stroll-y area), and Jordaan which I probably liked the best – all cute shops and cafes.

I may have also visited a “coffeeshop” or 2. And it may have been with Diego & Heather. No comment

And… what I ate. Well I had a nice full breakfast at the hostel every morning, which was much appreciated. Otherwise I don’t think I really ate in a sit down restaurant the whole time! I got a bunch of stuff from little deli’s and bakeries that are scattered everywhere (my favourite was a brie sandwich on a baguette. Brie!). I also ate at McDonald’s, as is my plan to collect information on McD’s all over Europe. Haha. In Amsterdam they have something called a “McKroket”, which is kind of brown and crusty looking (like a McChicken, but its not because they also have McChicken), with a white sauce and is apparently something that Dutch people like. A Kroket. I didn’t have any of the “toasties” that were sold in every bakery (kind of a pizza pocket, but not filled with pizza… filled with… I don’t even know), because the smell turned  my stomach every time. I did eat at Wok to Walk, which is a neat little place where you head in and they make you a tasty stirfry to order, and you get it to go in a little Chinese takeout container. Mm. I wish I had my teriyaki tofu pineapple stirfry again right now.

Otherwise… I was surprised by how friendly the Dutch were. Even in a place entirely besieged by tourists like the Dam Square, I got offers of assistance if I pulled out a map.

And.. I think that was pretty much Amsterdam!

Kropp-tastic, or Jessica’s Great Train Adventure

So to preface this, I just wanted to brag about this neat thing. Someone found my Stonehenge photos on Flickr, and wanted to post some on this individually written news site article! (Yeah they are by far not the only pictures up, but it’s still neat! http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/un-threatens-act-against-britain-failure-protect-heritage-sites?import_id=48c6fe89a46ed4.25622999

My username there is psyche_13 if you want to see which pictures are mine.

And… now the great failure in getting to Kropp, in der Nordeustschland (the North of Germany!) to visit relatives. I had to take 3 trains and 1 bus to get there, with tight connections between them. Of course, my first train is half an hour late due to a power failure at an earlier station. I kept taking the trains anyway until I came to a halt. There would be no more buses to Kropp that day! So instead of trying to find a place to stay in Hamburg (and also wasting a day on my railpass), I decided to head to my next destination. Berlin. Which is where I currently find myself.

I did end up on my first (nearly empty) train booked in beside someone. But it was a guy around my age, and we quickly found out that – yes – we were both Canadians, and Ontarians, and in fact he was from Guelph. What are the odds. But I was also able to share my VAST KNOWLEDGE of trains (that is an exaggeration), since he had never been on a train, and I had to teach him that there was a snackbar, and that WC meant the bathrooms, and that yes, you were allowed to walk around while the train was moving.

Anyway. Some of you who know my itinerary well may be asking, “Wait, did you skip the Amsterdam blog entry?” Yes I did. But I will write it later. It’s longer than this one, and I didn’t have enough internet time.

Photos!

Just a quick note to say, I’ve uploaded my photos thus far! I’ve also changed photo hosting sites because I want to beat Flickr with a stick.

So my photos of Bath that didn’t make it into the last album, all of London and Brussels, and Amsterdam thus far are at http://picasaweb.google.com/jessica.l.peter

(If you still want to stare longingly at my older shots of Bath, the photos are still up at the Flickr site!)

An Afternoon in Belgium

So on Friday morning I left London fresh and early to head to the Eurostar. The Chunnel? (tunnel under the English channel) – not too scary. Not even too noticeable. The getting on to the Eurostar train (that’d be a different one) was a bit of a different story.

Everything was conspiring against me: a) I had arrived just in time for the train I had booked (usually a good thing.. but….); b) my ticket wouldn’t print from the self-serve machine like its supposed to, so I had to wait in a big line for a lady to handwrite one; c) I had to go through customs and security [and didn't know I would have to!]; d) the train was going to leave at least 5 minutes early [no good reason for that...]. So all of this made me… running through the station to get the train. Wow.

Anyway, before I knew it, I was in Brussels, Belgium. Unfortunately, my train stopped at “Brussels Midi” rather than the “Brussels Centrale” station.  And the Brussels Midi station wasn’t on one of my guidebook maps..so I wandered aimlessly, hoping that I would make it in the right direction far enough that it would be on my little map. I discovered that Belgian people are super friendly; as soon as I as much as stopped to look at a piece of paper I would get offers of directional help.

I managed to wander the right way (with the help of some Belgians), and found a sudden huge crowd of (mostly Japanese) tourists. Hm. I had made it to Mannekin Pis, the most famous statue of a little boy peeing. Ever.  Apparently he is always in outfits (with a special little hole) that people make him, today he was maybe.. a private school boy?

I kept it going until I made it to Grand Place…. Very neat gilded square and cool buildings encircling… a massive beer garden!? (Pretty sure my guidebooks would have mentioned if there was usually a giant beer garden in the middle). But, as I had a Jupiler beer on a coffin in the dimly light La Cerceuil (yep, “the coffin”) bar, I asked the bartender – turns out its Beerfest. Hm. I watched and wandered, but didn’t get a beer from beerfest, because there was a huge line for the tickets necessary. It was VERY packed.

On the way back, I got a Belgian waffle with ice cream and hot fudge. Mm. Well.. sound good, right? Except that it was like.. they hand you this hot waffle just on a napkin, and it’s huge, and the ice cream is melting and the chocolate is dripping and it’s so tall… and you’re supposed to just eat it. Off your hand. Well, needless to say, I made a really extreme mess.

And that was pretty much the end of my Belgian visit! And then I headed on to Amsterdam…

Anarchy in the UK – London Part 3

So though I find myself in Amsterdam, I’ll share my last couple days in London. As well as the disaster of the day… just as I got the very last thing put into my pack this morning to head out, something caught my baby finger and I was like “ouch.” and pulled it out of the pack, only to realize it was full of blood, and in the very short time it took me to run to the bathroom for cold water and toilet paper to wrap it in, my hand was full of blood. Turns out I pretty much ripped off half my nail. Oops. (I had to run back to the room to borrow a bandaid from one of my roommates, since I couldn’t get at mine with one blood hand). Anyway… onto London.

So.. I started Thursday out with a big sightseeing extravaganza… all of those famous things like Big Ben (and the attached Parliament Buildings), Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace… and also the London Eye (big Ferris Wheel type thing) and .. you know, double decker buses and red phone booths. I came, I looked,…. then I left. I didn’t really feel the need to see the insides.

Then I hit up Primark, which had been recommended to me as a super cheap big big store. And so it was. I bought a new bag to travel with, because my new towel didn’t fit in my pack.

Dinner was Indian (mm mmm) with a bunch of people from the hostel (some of whom had never really had Indian), and the evening was again it was again a hostel bar night… along with laundry. All at once. Worked out quite well actually.

Friday was mainly a super long visit to the Imperial War Museum, which I just loved. Great set up of the exhibits, and the exhibits themselves were neat. The Holocaust & Crimes Against Humanity Floors were hard hitting, and I really liked the propaganda posters elsewhere. (I love propaganda posters. I think I need to start a collection of authentic ones. Also, I forgot to mention that the other day at the Tate Modern my favourite room was a room chock full of Red USSR propaganda posters. Excellent.)

I also visited the “Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre” for dinner, where I think I was actually the only tourist there. The shops were mostly old-fashioned and tacky, but this seemed like London for Londoners (especially the multi-ethnic Londoners that you hear so much about!)

The evening was pretty quiet as I prepared for another travel day the next day, and I hung out and chatted with Marjorie…

God Save the Queen – London Part 2

So I’m still in London, and I bet everyone is waiting on tenterhooks to read my next post (I really like that expression, because it is kind of scary). Speaking of that, I had a very scary experience today where I got stuck in an elevator that wouldn’t open its doors, and kept going up and down and down and up. Especially scary since every time it got to the floor I wanted to be on, it would lurch down. I thought I was going to die, and I was ringing that little bell madly when the doors finally opened. I did not die, don’t worry.

So.. this is a bit to chat about my first 2 days in London! (That’d be Tues-Wed).

Tuesday started with the “free walking tour” of the hostel, which I thought would be a little tour of our area, but it turned out to be a 3.5 hour tour with NEW LONDON (their name is all capitals.), of the “Old City of London” (AKA the part that was once Roman Londinium, and so on). It was actually a neat tour, and I learned a few interesting tidbits (my favourite parts were about the 1660’s: plague and fire and war, and about the Blitzkrieg. Still some shrapnel damage preserved here and there).

After, despite the fact that I was exhausted, I went to lunch with a nice Brazilian guy named Luis who I met on the tour (in Covent Garden, which is apparently a market.)

Still, I soldiered on and went to not one, but TWO museums. (Am I crazy? Maybe).

1) British Library – very neat, especially if you know of my love of all things old and papery. The Far east stuff didn’t excite me as much, but the biblical stuff (eg. the oldest copy of the “3rd letter to the Hebrews” – from the 3rd century! & an original Gutenberg bible…) and the literature stuff (eg. the original, handwritten copy of Jane Austen’s Persuasion! Just the one I was reading!!, & some 17th C Shakespeare compendiums…. ).

2) National Portrait Gallery – I went here especially to see all the portraits of the Kings & Queens & other assorted royalty. And I was not disappointed! I did skip the “contemporary” floor though. Didn’t need to see pop stars and such.

Then it was people watching in Trafalgar Square, delicious “macaroni cheese” at a pub, and enjoying a hostel activity (movie night! We watched Blood Diamond, which is one of my favourites, and makes me remember again that I would only want diamonds that are conflict free. You know, just in case anybody was thinking of getting me one.)

Wednesday dawned early (well early-ish) with me getting lost on the Tube for the first time (in my defence, the transfer station I needed was closed for “engineering” which apparently means construction), on my way to the Tower of London tour with The Original London Walks tour company. I made it at the very last minute (took me nearly an hour for a 15 minute commute….).

But it ended up as awesome. I did the 2 hour tour which let me know even more about the Tower (and you may happen to know that the Tower of London is another of my obsessions…), and let me put each tower of the Tower into perspective in my head. I spent nearly 5 hours on the grounds, ate lunch, and did my own personal tour of the Towers that were open to public. Saw the ravens (& heard them too), saw some Beefeaters. You know, the whole bit.

Afternoon I headed to the Tate Modern gallery, and most things were pretty cool… except that the room I wanted to visit “Poetry and Dreams” (they’re arranged by weird themes, but this one has the surrealism, which is my favourite type of art) – was closed! Apparently they were… moving the paintings around or something? Bizarre.

And then the afternoon/evening I met my Aussie roommates… then my Kiwi, American, & French roommates… and then a whole bunch of other people from my hostel as we had some drinks and the £4 all-you-can-eat BBQ on the rooftop patio, followed by a night of karaoke (yay!) at the bar downstairs. I sang Me & Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin. You know, just in case anyone was wondering.

Stay tuned Saturday or Sunday for the continuation of London. Same bat time (er.. similar), same Bat channel.

This is London

So I was writing my Bath bonanza from here in London, and since I have a bit of time left on my internet, might as well give a little intro.

London transportation = awesome. I almost can’t wait to use the Tube again (yes, it’s that handy and nice.)

The hostel was easy to find – I risked it and went to St Christophers Village (same chain as the Bath hostel). Luckily, this one had its bar intact… as well as a rooftop patio with a hot tub, a movie room (with big screen), and activities every day.. among other things. I was in.

I’m on the South Bank of the city, in walking distance of the Tate Modern (art gallery), Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, a few other sites that I especially wanted to see.

In the evening, I wandered on down to London bridge (very close), with a perfect view of Tower Bridge (note: Tower Bridge is the famous one, not London Bridge). I gazed at the Thames flowing by under me, and checked out the skyline. I could make out the Gherkin (its kind of pickle shaped), and just the tippy tops (with penants and all) of the Tower of London behind some trees. Hope to visit there… Wednesday perhaps.

Good night from London.