Friday In London

This past weekend, I traveled to London with the other girls studying here from Cornell. We had a blast and walked a tonnn.We left Friday afternoon and took a taxi from school to Telford Central, then the train from Telford to Birmingham New St., then another train to London Euston Station. The trip took about three hours in total, but the train made quite a few stops along the way.  I didn't know much about where we were staying or how we were getting places, but there we were in the middle of a big railway station in London.  Emilie and Kristin had arranged for us to stay in a hostel, so that was our first priority when we got in the city--finding the hostel. Emilie had printed walking directions from the station to there--a two and a half mile walk--so we started walking. First great thing about London: at each of the crosswalks, painted on the street, it tells you which direction to look for traffic.  We only nearly got hit once. No big.

Red Double Decker Bus!

Thankfully we didn't have any big luggage to carry around with us as we each only had our backpacks. It was great to see the city with all the lights and traffic...and the buses! We finally made it to the hostel. The hostel was located in Paddington, which is a residential area in London and the street was very pretty and also relatively quiet.  It was Kristin's birthday on Friday, and it was dinner time when we got there, so after we settled in and got some directions from the main desk about where we might go for a birthday dinner (they were so helpful!), we headed out to the 'underground' (subway station) nearby.  We took the underground to Piccadilly circus, which we found out is basically the Times Square of London.  At night, there are a lot of lights and people and it's a very exciting and bright area.  There are a bunch of shops and places to eat, as well as entertainers on the street.

Piccadilly Circus

We ate dinner at a restaurant right there on the square, literally called 'Grill on the Square' and we had some traditional fish and chips! (My first English meal!) It was absolutely delicious. We attempted to look for some dessert next--ice cream. We couldn't find any ice cream place that was still open that late at night, though there were little shops (shoppes?) located there.  We ending up heading to McDonalds (how American of us) for each of us to get a McFlurry. Their McFlurry is a little different than the kind we have here at home, but it was good ice cream and it was fun to people-watch while there. While at Piccadilly Circus, we checked out M&M world and then took the underground back to Paddington and went on back to the hostel to get some sleep and showers before our busy Saturday.

*Gasp* Cliffhanger! I will report on Saturday next.  Brace yourselves--it was a very busy day!