London, Day 1

After I landed in London, very early Friday morning, I met up with Eva, Allison's roommate, at the airport. Being abroad, I couldn't use my cell phone to try to find her. After about 20 minutes, she finally found me, and we took the tube (subway), back to their dorm. Immediately I noticed how hard it is to cross the street. The cars don't have to yield to pedestrians at all, and instincts tell you to look the opposite way to see if cars are coming. Thankfully, the major intersections tell you which way to look. Plus, they use a white line to separate different directions of traffic, so I never could figure out which roads were one way or two way.

The first stop was the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. It was exciting/interesting to see, but still a little anti-climactic. All that really happens that spectators can see is a group of guards marches past you. When that ended, we headed over to the library, which was in the basement of the building Allison had her first class in.

I surprised her at 1, in between her two classes. It was really fun, and she was really surprised. And, she loved her, "Surprise, AKP!" sign. I went with her to her Woman's Studies class, which was supposed to go on a tour of Westminster. We didn't know that the tour was prefaced by a 2 hour lecture. I ended up attending the lecture and then going back to Allison's room to nap. I hadn't slept at all in 26 hours.

When I got back to her room, I couldn't get the key to open the door. I ended up sleeping on the couch in the kitchen for 45 minutes before one of Allison's friends showed up and open the door for me. I got to take a two hour nap while Allison was still in class.

When she got back, we went to a pub at Imperial College for dinner of a burger and chips, and a few beers. A little before 11, we called it a night (mostly because I was exhausted), and headed back to the dorm for bedtime.

Changing of the guard.

Dinner at the pub.

Buckingham Palace.