The first stop on my two-week spring break adventure was a return trip to London, England. I was meeting up with Cassandra and some of her friends from her program in Spain. I flew out of Glasgow on Friday night, so I grabbed a bus to the airport in the afternoon. I made sure to get my ticket stamped and then made it through security and onto the flight. As I was sitting in my window seat I noticed a girl walking down the aisle with a terrified look on her face. She got to my row and asked, "Excuse me, but can I sit with you? This is my first flight ever and I'm kind of freaked out." It would be a pretty cruel person to reject the poor young lady, so I let her share the row. Her name was Kristen, and she was traveling home to visit some friends for the weekend in London. To keep her mind off of the flight I tried to ask her as many questions as possible for the hour-long flight. When we landed I helped her find the exit at the airport, said goodbye, and then found a coffee shop to wait for the girls. One cappuccino and some reading later, the girls' flight from Spain arrived. Cassandra introduced me to our group: Jacqueline (from Iowa, and we had actually been on an intramural sand volleyball team together during freshman year), Hillary (from Colorado), and Anna (from Ohio). We caught up on our bus ride to Baker Street and then walked to our hostel. After a long walk I had to ask a man cleaning the street if we were heading in the right direction. His British accent nearly brought the girls to tears. Eventually we found the hostel and got to our dorm-style room. It was nearly 2:30 a.m., so we had to search for open beds by cell phone light. We all found beds, but sleep was nearly impossible for me. I was jacked up on the cappuccino, the room was really hot, and I was surrounded by a symphony of snoring. Not even Norah Jones could put me to sleep. The strongest snores were coming from the bunk below me, so I had to find out who it was in the morning.
After about an hour of sleep I got out of bed around 7 and discovered the snoring culprit to be a petite girl. Interesting. We kicked off the day with breakfast in the hostel and then started a lengthy walking tour of the city's highlights. It started in Hyde Park, which is a huge park with a small river/lake called 'the Serpentine' running through it. The walk through the park was really nice. There were monuments, fountains, and statues all over, and people were running, walking dogs, and even riding horses. The park exits into Constitution Hill, which leads to Buckingham Palace. We stopped for pictures at the palace and continued our walk through St. James Park, which runs along the Mall all the way to Parliament, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. I was interested in exploring the inside of Westminster until I saw the lines. In both directions from the entrance, the lines wrapped around the abbey for unknown lengths. We decided to cross the River Thames and see the sights along it. 
We passed the London Aquarium, the London Eye, bunches of shops, the Globe Theater, and a lot of interesting street acts. Eventually we got to Tower Bridge, which is always a nice sight, and crossed it and began our journey home from the Tower of London. We walked through the downtown business district of London and past St. Paul's cathedral, where there was an enormous pillow fight going on. We weren't sure why, but it's England so it's okay :) We eventually made it to Oxford Street, which is kind of like Michigan Avenue in Chicago with a ton of hotels, shopping, theaters, etc. We almost made it back to the hostel but eventually we had to give in and get a taxi. It was definitely worth the money because our cab driver was hilarious. 
He was cursing at the radio and its football updates, he drove us by Tony Blair's house, and we analyzed a couple fighting at a street corner. I love British folks. We calculated our walking distance while relaxing for a few hours back at the hostel, and we had walked nearly 12 miles. My dogs was barkin'! After a nap we headed to a pub called "the Swan" so the girls could experience the beauty of pub culture/food. We headed back to the hostel, played a few games of Uno, and then went to bed. Sleeping was much easier the second night.
We woke up Easter Sunday morning, grabbed breakfast, and headed to Hillsong London for church. It was amazing. Seriously. They held it in a Broadway theater on Oxford Street, there were tons of people, and the Easter production was an amazing blend of lights, music, break dancing, gang violence, pimps, and Jesus. I could go to that church every week :) We got out of the church and ran into a few American guys who were stationed just North of London for the Air Force. We asked them where we should go for the afternoon, and they told us to head to Camden Town. That was some great advice. Camden Town is the area of London where punk originated, and it is basically an enormous maze of markets and shops. The area was bustling with people, 
and we wandered in the labyrinth for a few hours. The best part about the area was that hidden in the center of the shops was an enormous ethnic food court. There was food from every corner of the globe, and I wanted to try everything. After we 'tubed' back to the city, we decided to try and see a few museums.
They were closed when we arrived, but we ran into a guy from the Netherlands named Roy. Roy was spending a week in London and his friends had left early, so he was just walking around seeing the sights like us. He joined our group and we headed to the best place to kill a few hours: a pub. We got drinks, seats, and Roy bought us nachos. I knew he was cool. Hillary and Anna got a group of English guys to kneel on the ground and serenade them, so the pub trip was a success. After we finished our drinks we walked through Picadilly Circus back to the hostel, picked up our bags, grabbed some McDonald's for a late supper, said goodbye to Roy, and headed to the airport to spend the night until our 6:30 a.m. flight to Dublin!My return to London was as good as my first trip, and I'm looking forward to going back already.
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