bonjour!

so internet is way too expensive in paris for me to update this thing so i'll do it when i get home with plenty of pictures =)

2 euros for 30 min at this hostel.

5 euros for 45 min at the last hostel.

au revoir for now!

london continued...

sorry, please excuse my use of run-on phrases separated by commas =)....i'm on the meter although we ended up getting our internet for free...it's 2 GBP for the hour but last night and tonight, the machine has spit our money back out, score!. 

day 3:

my tasty white chocolate raspberry muffin, the raspberry orange juice that sprayed all over my jeans and street corner when i opened it, freezing outside the ritz hotel on picadilly, riding the freezing tour bus with our japanese speaking british tour guide glen and gay scottish coach driver ian, windsor castle was kind of a blur but we saw the state apts (didn't get to see the queen's doll house though...wish we had more time instead of having to run around like bandits sneaking pictures of everything and cutting off the audio guides cuz we didn't have enough time to listen to all the info), took silly photos at stonehenge of deb holding up the stones on her hand and me attempting to push the boulders over, lunch at st. george's in (way too much food....or just way too much dessert), private tour of the roman baths followed by a champagne reception where i took 2 sips of champagne and was done =), 2 hr bus ride back followed by a quick tube ride back to our hostel.  oh and all the way back to our hostel, guess who i saw...patrick swayze =).

day 4:

so turns out patrick swayze is starring in guys & dolls at the theatre right next to our hostel so we got up just in time to pick up some day tickets for rows 3 & 4 for only 20 GBP each (they only hand out 18 of these kind of tickets a day and i think we were probably the last ones to get them, yay.)  then it was off to see shakespeare's globe (where we bought tickets for anthony & cleopatra which we're seeing tomorrow aug 6) and ate at EAT (this uber cute cafe with slogans like....ice cream, eat it....yeah clever i know, i could have totally come up with that).  then it was off to the tower of london & tower bridge, followed by some shopping.  guys & dolls was at 7:30 and was brilliant =).  lots of singing (and spitting by the actors on stage...we were so close that we saw mr. swayze spit each time haha).  then we met up with steven (catherine's british beau) and went to boulevard (this bar right in the middle of all the gay bars haha)....and there are these urinals on the street (basically a set of four urinals, just think if you draw an X, in each of those corners where the lines cross, there's a little hole where guys just unzip and do their business...pretty amusing, i think deb got a picture of it).  had a mojito which was way too strong but luckily the lighting was dark and sneaky sneaky, i let the ice melt so it could um, soften the blow. 

day 5:

met up with catherine at charing cross to take the train to canterbury =).  home of chaucer's famous tales.  were almost on coach 5 out of 8 when we needed to be in 1-4 because the train divided at one point along the way.  realized this at the beginning of the trip and then took a power nap on the 1.5 hour train ride to canterbury.  did some shopping, ALMOST got another piercing but realized my mom probably wouldn't be thrilled about that while egging on deb to get another tattoo haha, lunch at little italy, the famous cathedral with student discounts =) i love isic, more shopping at fcuk haha. then back to london for some dinner in chinatown....funny to hear chinese people speak chinese and then immediately switch over to english in a british accent. and now we're online =).  tired, and dreading the thought of repacking our backpacks for our trip to paris. 

so i'm updating (mainly as a reminder to myself of what i've done and where i've visited....but also because mark told me i should update haha).

london:

days 1 & 2:

my atm card being denied, heathrow express, isic discounts, fish&chips, pimms (tasty fruity posh beer that didn't taste alcoholic aka my kind of beer), picadilly circus, the gross hostel showers + hard springs in the mattress + 5 flights of stairs each way, h&m, topshop, big ben, westminister abbey, trafalgar square, getting lost all over london, buckingham palace, st. james park, riding the london eye, dim sum in london! 

and realizing that £'s are not the same as $'s haha.  unfortunately.

also, the @ symbol on keyboards here in london is next to the enter key and in it's american place is the " sign.  also there's a £ symbol where the # sign is usually.  brilliant as they say here in london.

tomorrow: windsor castle, bath and stonehenge =)