Wednesday Oct. 13/04

Caught the final train into London from East Grinstead last night (the 22:37) then took the tube to Bayswater (well actually, Notting Hill Gate, since Bayswater was closed for construction) Walked around for a bit and eventually found the Astor Hyde Park youth hostel. Checked into an 8 bed dorm (for £15) and then waited until these chicks showed up! They had just gotten back from a pub, but claimed they still had energy (despite having been up for 36 hours straight!) so we went out again! The closest place that was open late on a Tuesday night was this random Egyptian restaurant on Queensway, so that's where we went! We hung out for about an hour, and then decided it was time to get some sleep, so we headed back to the hostel and said goodnight. We got up the next day around 10am, checked out of the hostel, and decided to hit London. Before hopping on the underground however, we decided to go to a local cafe and get some breakfast. We ordered take-away (aka 'takeout') and mine was given to me in this very European-looking bag, which I tried to incorporate into every photo thereafterwards (as seen above and to your right). We got an all day pass for the underground and saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben/The Parliament Buildings/Westminster Abbey, the London Eye and Picadilly circus. We tried to hook up with Leslie, but we weren't very well organized, and in the end it fell through. Oh well, there's always next time, and nevertheless it was a fun day. It was hard to say goodbye, but we had to since Sar and Cass were flying to Paris later this evening. They'll be back through London in December thought, so hopefully I'll see them again! That's about it, enjoy the pictures.

• From right to left: Me (and my bag), Sarah, Russel (the "Big Gay Texan" whom we met at the hostel) and Cassie in front of the Victoria statue across from Buckingham Place
• The statue
• The Palace
• More Palace
• The Full Palace
• Cassie, trying to be like Batman and scale the Palace gates!
• Me, admiring the anatomical correctness of a lion statue near the palace
• A pillar from the Canada Gate, near the Palace
• Beautiful gardens near the palace
• Gardens, cont'd
• Sarah and Russel in a brush with the law!
• Big Ben
• Bigger Ben
• Big Ben & Friends
• Just the Friends
• View from across the Thames
• The London Eye (which is, in fact, a ferris wheel NOT an eye...)
• Sar, Cass and Russ on a bench near the Eye (what's so funny Cassie?)
• Me and the gals (and the bag, again)
• Picadilly Circus (which is also misnamed, as it's really just a bunch of giant ads for American and Japanese products...with no circus-like qualities to be found)