London - Wet and Wild... ok, just Wet

(written 12:30 6-26-07, Astor Victoria Hostel)

Well hello there - I'm writing the entry from our hostel this time - we have a little bit of time to kill before we have to head to Gatwick to grab our plane to Dublin, so I figured I'd update a bit on London.

We got to the train station, took a bit of an unneeded walk too far past the train station to get to our hostel, but when we got here, we found we had made a good decision - it was nice, it was clean, it was fairly convenient (close to an underground station) - we were all set. We hung out here for a bit, then two of our roommates at the hostel decided they were going to hang out with us - we had decided to go to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner - you know, "THE" hard rock cafe - the "one that started it all." (In case you don't know how it got started, eric clapton liked to go to the hard rock a lot, and decided that he would leave a guitar there to save a table for him whenever he came by. So he left that there, and Pete Townshend saw that and said "mine's as good as his" so he left his.... and so on and so forth). So we waited for an hour and a half for a table at the pub next door, had dinner, and went back to bed. The next day, we took the Sandeman's new europe free tour which we had taken in Berlin and Munich - very good tour by the way. The guy was a good tour guide who braved the nasty rain all day with us and showed us the top attractions of london, which I of course took pictures of. Later that night, after getting our fish and chips for dinner at a local pub down the street with a glass of "warm" beer (it's not that warm, just kinda like basement temperature), we hung out for a bit, recovering from all our walking, then checked out Piccadilly circus - ahh, the times square of london. After that, we checked out Oxford Circus where the infamous apple store was located - it was closed, but cool to check it out - it's reallyyyy big. This morning, we woke up, checked out of the hostel, and headed out to Buckingham palace to see the changing of the guard - pretty neat, but we should have just stuck to one place along the wall instead of trying to see it all and jumping back and forth from the outside yard to the inside gated areas - oh well, we saw enough red coats with the giant fluffy black hats, so we had had enough. Now we're back at the hostel chilling for a bit, and in a bit, we'll head out to victoria station, take a train to Gatwick and hop on a plane for the Guinness capital of the world- Dublin! So, until then, enjoy your 90 degree weather (assuming you're in rochester - gheesh, we're freezing our tails off here in wet london), and I'll see all of you in a few days - we have 3 nights in Dublin, we fly home the 29th and get into toronto at 11:00 local time, so we'll crash there, and head back in the morning of the 30th. Check out the pictures, and I'll catch ya all later. Here's the address if you like:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/98781425@N00/

Love and miss all of you!
-Matt