Bumbling through the sights

Yesterday we got up early and decided to brave the "tube", check out the school that they came over for, and then hit Piccadily Circus. We fumbled around the tube station for awhile, trying to figure out the system. It turned out the be simpler than we were making it out to be: the city is divided into zones,and you can buy a ticket to a specific stop, or get a travelcard that's good in certain zones, and for certain days. We bought one day travelcards for zones 1-3, since that covered everywhere we needed to go.

The tube maps are very well laid out. I've ridden subways in a few cities (New York, Washington DC, San Francisco), and I really think that the london tube is one of the easiest to get around on. You just find out what line your destination is on, which direction it is, and hop on until you reach your stop. Sometimes you may have to stop and switch lines, but it's simple and everything has very easy to read signs. Swipe your travelcard at the exit, and you're done.

The area that the school is in turned out to be a stark contrast to the noisy, cramped, busy Kings Cross that our hotel is in. It's mostly residential houses, with parks and all sorts of casual businesses. We found the school, which was a 10-minute walk from the tube station, then ate a fish-and-chips shop. It was quite good, and definitely different from having fish and chips in seattle or something. Dunno if I can explain it, it just tasted different. And, my fish had a lot of bones in it, but apparently I was the only one.

We then got back on the tube and got out at Piccadily Circus. The tube station exit right at the center of the square, right by the statue thing in all the pictures. We took pictures, and admired the view for a bit. We then pushed through the huge crowd and into Virgin Records (we were actually looking for Tower Records, but didn't see it right away). It wasn't nearly as big as I expected, but it was VERY refreshing to see a music store with a larger dance section than hiphop section. In fact, the hiphop section was one small little shelf, while the dance/electronic section was a whole area of the store. I picked up a few hardcore CD, listened to Moby's new album, and then we left. We originally started wandering around, looking for Tower Records, but somehow we wandered into trafalgar square. From there we accidentally wandered into St James Park, then to Buckinham Palace, then Big Ben and Westminster Abby. It was seriously all an accident, but all of these sights are so close together. We just kept saying "hey, it looks like there might be something around that corner", and sure enough...

After all that walking, everyone was pretty tired, so we headed back to the hotel. Kyle & Deonne crashed right away, but I talked everyone else into going down to Tower Bridge, since it's supposed to be quite a sight at night. There are so many interesting sights there, since it's the oldest area of london. We wandered around the tower bridge (which was astounding), and stumbled onto the London Dungeon (which we are going to tour once the weekend is over), and the Tower of London (which is hardly a tower, but more like a big castle).

When we got back we managed to get Deonne back up to run down to McDonalds with us. We had been intriqued when we saw a sign about a Curry Chicken sandwich, and wondered what else was different. It turned out that the rest of the menu was basically the same. They do make a huge fit if you special-order anything. Deonne asked for no lettuce on his chicken sandwiches, and the girl made a rolled her eyes and had to walk back and tell the cooks. I've noticed that resteraunt personell in general are not as friendly as in America. Plus, Deonne didn't make it clear enough that he only wanted sandwiches, so he go two meals. We also got some Cadburry Egg Mcflurries, which are TO DIE FOR!

Oh also, Cadburry stuff is everywhere. Like, the Cadburry bunny eggs. They are huge here, and there are Cadburry machines every ten feet in the tube, and at nearly all major venues and locations. They sell a huge variety of different chocalates, besides the eggs. And, there is an interesting selection of pop here. Cans and bottles are all smaller (portions of pretty much all food/drink items are smaller here, which is probably why people here are so much thinner and better-looking than the average americans you see on the streets), because they are all easy fractions of a liter. The common bottles are half liter, rather than a 20oz. We have all fallen in love with this apple soda. In fact, we've bought out the supply at the convenience store near our hotel.