Spice up your Life!

London Blog! I decided to name is Spice up your life because even though I was in London, home of the Spice Girls, my trip was very Spice Girl less. So there is my little sprinkle.

So let me start off by telling you that I am really smart and booked the 6am flight instead of the 6pm flight. Vivi was on the right flight so that meant that I was in London for 12 hours by myself. I tried to change my flight but the infamous Ryan doesn't like to have a email contact and in order to call him and his airline you have to pay .80 euro cents per minute. Now me being cheap, I still did this and 10 euros worth of being on hold later I hung up. From there I attempted to have my school help me, whom attempted to call Ryanair from their landline BUT guess what, ryanair did this thing where it blocks all landlines ONLY from Italy. In order to have your landline unblocked you first have to fax them a request, complete with a picture of your passport. Exactly.. So therefore, it was decided, I would be heading to London at 3:35 am on Terravision alone.

So I got to London at 8am but didn't get to the city until around 11 because Terravision is slow and Ryan decides to pick the airports that are at least an hour away from where you think you are flying into.

First I dropped my bags and then I began my journey.

This day was somewhat picture less, and very pictures of me less because I had no one to take pictures of me. Don't worry though I got a few self-timer shots.

Here are some of the interesting things I saw on my adventure:

I love the word rubbish and just their signs in general... I'm sure its only because it is a very funny version of English to me.

 

Building?

This next picture is dedicated to Allison because I think it is Chanel, and this was on every light pole so I'd say this is Allison's kind of Country.

Walking Walking....... Passing the Buckingham Palace.. See Harry and William having a thumbwar and Queeny playing strip poker with Charles?

Next I headed towards and through Green Park (what a creative name for a park.. do you think they change it with the seasons? Answer: no because it was brown at this time)

First of two self timer shots: Sorry, cheesy I know but I had to get some proof that I was actually there. Look how artsy I am.

Carnaby street: My favorite street. It is exactly what I am hoping to find everytime I want to go shopping: A street filled with small shops with really interesting clothing items that I haven't seen before. Also this is SOHO.

China Town...

Apollo Theatre

Second picture: I am walking.. Please note my guide book that if I didn't have it there is no way I would've gotten around on my own.

After walking through China town I randomly was walking through what seemed to be the "red light district" of London. I really like this garage. I wish the store would have been open because it looked like a goody. I also like the bright color.  Also I researched snogging on Urbandictionary.com and it is just kissing. It also pointed out that a lot of Americans think it is more than that but it is just the British word for making out. Stupid Americans. (ps. have I said that in the last three blogs?)

This shop was really cool: Its the vintage magazine store: Sorry mom I looked but they didn't have any 1974 playboys available (har har just kidding) 

I also tried to look for some sort of picture of my grandma but I couldn't remember what magazines she was in. So sorry grandma! I really wanted to purchase something from this store, but I didn't. Sad face.

Vogue house. 

I tried to go to a thai food restaurant but when I got there it was closed for the only hour that I was there. So then I decided to walk back to Anne's place to wait to meet up with Vivi.

So that was the end of my day, Vivi got in around 11pm and we tried to get some food but everything was closed. We ended up sitting down at one of the only open restaurants and after opening the menu found out it was an Italian restaurant. Completely sick of italian food, I was disgusted for the first time by the whole entire menu. It ended up being pretty good and didn't really taste anything like Italian food.

Day 2:

First click on this picture and read what are on each of the little mens' shirts.

Which brings me to another point and random comment: I hate the ' after a plural possessive word. Is that the right name for it? Who knows.. I'm a fashion major at Iowa State leave me alone.

First vivi and I attempted to watch the changing of the guards, but there were so many people there that we were convinced the Queen was going to walk by. I didn't include any of the pictures because you can't really tell what is going on. Below you can see the London Eye and if you click on it you will notice that there is a bird caught in flight also. Vivi is really excited for some reason.. I think its because that bird almost hit her head.. What a drama queen.

We also ran into PETER! This was a surprise because we thought it was going to be just the blondes, but now we had this red head running around with us all day. 

Now really? Are you kidding me. Now 71?! I remember when Now 1 came out and I don't know how I got so far behind because honestly the last one I remember them coming out with was something in the twenties. Come on Now, don't you know that CDs are so middle school now.

Parliament square: Look at benny boo waving

Look I have pictures of me now that I didn't take!

London Eye:

Huge egg thing?

So we were aiming for some Indian/Thai food but thought that an English pub would also be appropriate: Fish and Chips. Very greasy, but exactly what was needed after 4 months of eating pasta 5 out of 7 days. 

After eating we decided to splurge a whole 3.50 pounds on this very scary clink prison museum. The lady told us it would take us 30 minutes to walk through and it probably took us 5 minutes. On top of that we ended up not really even looking at things and just talking about the holocaust the whole time. Probably the only disappointing thing about London, but you know you lose some you win some.

The Bridges: First Bridge: The London Bridge

Second Bridge: The tower Bridge

Don't get them confused okay? 

Below is the London Tower: The actual towers were destroyed in a fire so it was actually not that interesting of a thing to see; however, the story of King Henry the 8th and his many wives is really crazy so you should probably research that right now.

Classic. London telephone booth.

St. Paul's cathedral. 

Ok so this picture isn't actually from Night 2 but we forgot to take pictures. That night we went and saw Wicked, the witch's side of the Wizard of Oz. It was amazing. The girl's voice who played the wicked witch was unbelievable. She was so good that I would like to get a little jewelry box that everytime I opened it, a little ballerina would dance to her voice. Creepy.. Sorry. Don't worry I did the closest thing to it and bought the soundtrack... for my mom

So Vivi and I planned on going out that night, but once we got home to our huge hotel room, which was really the width of my body's length, we saw that meet the parents was on.. IN ENGLISH.. and had to watch it. Plus we wanted to get an early start on the next day. This is what happens when you haven't seen a movie in 3 months.

Day 3:

The day started off with the Tube/underground being closed so we bought a day bus pass (only 5 pounds) and went to the Madam Tusseaud Wax Museum. Which had practically every celebrity (human and cartoon) EXCEPT the Spice girls. Which to me makes no sense because they are British so they should've been the first mold. Maybe they are touching them up in the back room.

Britney, Christina
 
Indiana Jones, Jennifer Aniston

Also why is Indiana Jones being chased by a huge sequin ball? I remember it looking slightly different in the movie, but I guess I only saw it once.

 

Drew barrymore and Cameron Diaz

Vivi and I biking with Armstrong.... I look tired and Vivi looks like she has been doing this her whole life. I guess she's just in better shape than I am.

 
Hitler: this ones for you grandma: and all my jewish relatives

Oh Audrey

See we did meet the Queen. We attempted to look proper. I think we look like her troublesome great grand-daughters. Which makes us........William's kids?

Shrek.. Check out the little gingerbread man

This one is for my mom. Because not only has she seen Highschool Musical 1 and 2 but went to the theatre alone and saw 3. AND owns all the soundtracks. Yet again cheerleading skills come in handy.

Afterwards we attempted to go to Wimbledon, but it was really far away and with the tube being closed it would have been a very long strenuous journey to possibly just see nothing.

Instead we headed to Notting Hill and Hyde Park. The rich side of London. Complete with the white rows of houses straight out of the movie.

and red houses..now we just need some snow

Night 3: Going out

So tonight Vivi and I made a point to go out and meet some english folks. First vivi took a series of these photos, I thought this was a good example to include.

First we went to McDonalds for dinner because who knows why; however, we did end up making so really good taxi cab driver friends. We ended up taking a black cab to the main bar street, and no we did not get a discount because we didn't get a ride from one of our actual "friends". 

So we went in the first "club" that we saw because it was only 5 pounds to get in, but it wasn't really thriving with the young english folk that we were looking for. There were young people but none of them were English EXCEPT for these two boys who were going around taking pictures of people for their job and supposedly you can order them offline. I guess they do this in New York. Do you think this would work in Ames? I think so. Anyway so we chatted up these guys and eventually befriended them. Vivi decided to tell them that we were olympic skiers and that my name was Julia and hers was Lydia. First of all she picked the best names possible and of course we look like olympic skiers. The last time I skied was in 5th grade and I'm pretty Vivi never has haha. har

Here we are playing the saxophone with this kewl dude

Here is the picture you have all been waiting for: our english friends... plus one random.. the guy on the end.. not really sure who he is or why he is in our picture.. we probably asked him to be

Dear James William Murray and Tom,

we are sorry that we lied to you. We are not actually olympic athletes, even though I am sure you believed us. Also sorry we did not invite you up to our hotel room, but we just aren't those types of girls and you should not be those types of boys. Thank you for being our friends. I hope to see you and your Football friends again some day.

sincerely,

McKenzie / Julia Foster