London Day 1...

So I made it the whole night without bumping my head into the thing hanging out of the wall right over my bed a few inches away from me. Breakfast was good. My roomie even took a few muffins to feed ourselves on the go...So after a little lecture from David on "London underground 101", with our maps and buddies, we headed towards the Excel Train station. Our hotel could not be any closer to a train station, I mean literally 2 mins walk. So our walking tour in London began with a walk on Hungerfort Footbridge crossing over Thames River. Oh, sorry Cait, I didn't know you also had one in Akansha's bag, but I can testify it tasted great.
From the Bridge, a very nice view of london including the London Eye could be seen. David explained to us the buildings right and left of Thames River. Of course, I don't remember the names of all of them. The BFI (British Film Institute), Tate Nuseum, and the Globe theater were in very close proximity. We stopped by each place before crossing the bridge over to St. Paul's Cathedral. On the way, we took some nice group pictures for our everlasting memories.







After stopping for lunch, we headed towards the train station where we were going to take a bus tour with a local tour guide. Going through the city, the guide explained us about the historical landmarks and other tourist attractions, including the Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, The london Bridge, and Buckingham Palace. Of course during our bus tour, Neil and I started a weird short discussion which ended at me getting in the over-head compartment of the bus. I still have no idea what I was thinking at that time, but I know we all laughed, which is always good. The bus finally dropped us off at Piccadilly Circus where we had about an hour of free time. That was the first time we had the first hand experience of london's weather. It started hailing out of the blue and everyone was stunned for one second. Then managed to get some umbrellas and made a huddle in the middle of the road. The hailing stopped after a few minutes literally and it was like it never happened. But what it did bring back was the cold that I almost forgot in the excitement of being in london. The dinner was good. The speical london fiest Fish n' chips was amazing. The best Fish n' chip I've ever had. They really know how to make good Fish n' chips.






After the dinner, majority of us went for Jack the Ripper Tour with David. It was a great tour if I could minus the cold factor. Ken, the tour guide, was very expressive, animated, and funny, someone who knows how to get a crowd's attention. During the tour, he took us into the city at the places where some of the murders actually took place. After that, we went back to the hotel, where some of our friends lost us at the train station becasue they took the wrong train. After about 15 mins after reaching at hotel, when our friends finally made it back to the hotel, a bunch of us just hung out at one of our friend's room for a couple of hours and called it a night. After all, tomorrow is our last day in london, which also happens to be our free day in london.

On the way to London....

So 8:30 am after breakfast, we all load up our stuff in the bus and leave for our next destination. Thankfully, no one was late this time, but oh boy, the bus ride was about three hours long...u know by this time, I did not really care about being cold...my biggest turnoff was becoming the long bus rides, just coz I don't have the patience in me to sit down almost motionless for more than about 5 mins...
anyways, Warwick was definitely an attraction worth waiting for...the way this place was preserved and restored was amazing...Wax manikins were placed to portray the original castle environment. Me, Gina, Akansha, Kyle, Cait, Art, and Neil even went for the "530 stairs" to get a better view of the place from the top of the castle...(Probably the best work of spiral stairs I've ever seen).




90 mins to visit a place like Warwick, you've gotta be kidding me....well, unfortunately, this was all the time we had....AND ANOTHER BUS RIDE into Stratford, Shakespeare's birth place. It was definitely worth going there....After visiting the exhibition and some sovenier shops, we had lunch and headed to our bus one more time finally for London. (I finally slept on the bus for a good 15 mins) The bus ride was about 4 hours long....The traffic in london city was not very different than traffic in Manhattan. Mike finally dropped us off at the Ibis Excel Hotel around 7 pm. The room was good, except that my single bed was a built in thing in the wall and when it was open, half of it had a shlef type thing over it in which it was supposed to be closed, very confusing...I know...I'll try to find a picture of it. So, after getting my senses together from all the travelling today, we decided to have dinner at the hotel's restaurant. So, Me, Gina, Akansha, Kyle, Cait, Art, and Neil went down to the restaurant and everyone was happy to see Pizza on the menu. Without any hesitation, everyone ordered pizza. It took a little while to get our food but it was pretty good. Newyork style cheesecake for desert was like heaven on earth at the first glance. But wait a min!....what is this?....Did the decorate the cheesecake with plastic....Oh no...these are actually broken pieces of plastic in my cheesecake...Not something I was expecting in newyork style cheesecake. Anyways, the waitress replaced it for another one. But wait a min!....now this tastes like lemon tart cheesecake...Oh my Lord, what is going on here....Anyways, I was planning to use internet after dinner to catch up on my life...but we had to pay for it, and the only computer available in the lobby was broken...so I guess that was out of question. So, I called it a night after a nice shower and a rerun of Grey's Anatomy.
By the way, calling it a night doesn't mean I actually slept at that time....Of course it was time for me to get cozy in my bed and talk with my roommate until she falls asleep or I do.