Sleepless in London-Town

Caitlin, waiting on her man.

After we got settled we decided just to walk around a bit. We were really close to Hyde park. I decided to make a walk through and go see the Buckingham Palace. So arm-in-arm we started our treck. We were pretty loopy and when we are like that we become our own comedy team. We say the dumbest things and just die laughing at any and everything. Every dog we passed, Caitlin wanted to pet. I told her no mainly because she was my support system holding me up so I wouldn’t fall asleep. Plus you can never be too careful of who has rabies.

oh Hyde Park

It was kind of a muggy day so the park was not too crowded but it was still nice. Of course Caitlin would run off to take pictures, not of monuments but of grass, squirrels, and trees. HAHA. She reminded me of my sister Tahlia being so amused with

squirrels. I will admit that I am SCARED of England squirrels. They are GIANT and will come right up to you. Caitlin was playing with one and it kept harassing her. I am such a parent screaming at her to come back and not get bit.

WE walked all kinds of around Hyde park. I forgot how big Hyde park is. We walked the entire park from one corner to the other. Looking at monuments and the little ponds full of birds. London has a lot of runners, well just like any other city but Caitlin expressed her want to run. Every runner prompted Caitlin to say she wished she would have brought her running shoes so

she could go for a run. With every one of those comments I just gave her the, “Bitch, you crazy!” look and kept on walking.

We finally made it to our future home and took some pictures. Caitlin texted the Queen a bunch to invite us in for tea but we had no response. Caitlin demanded we wait and go in so she could have dinner with her future husband Harry, but I couldn’t wait that long. ;) It was mid-day so the Palace was not too busy. I just know in the mornings with the changing of the guards it is SOOO crowded. We stayed a bit but then decided to go back to the hostel to take a nap. We needed it and decided on what to do that night for dinner and exploration.

Lost in London

So we got off the bus and went to go get breakfast. After a delicious breakfast and horrible service it was time to go to the Bayswater area to find our hostel and check in. Since I had been to London before I was already well aware of the tube system. We got on the underground and got off in Bayswater.

Since I am SUPER smart I realized that I had not written down the address or EVEN the name of the hostel. I knew I read that it was a minute walk from the tube station so I knew it was close. We were both just really tired and wanted to drop off our heavy bags. We walked around for quite some time. Down random streets back and forth along Hyde park trying to find this hostel. I

was getting a bit frustrated at myself for being so irresponsible. The one thing I just wanted to do was find it. I tweeted Kimber and my sister because I had sent the info to Tahlia and hopped that she could tweet me the address. Thank god for mobile twitter because it saves me. HA! It was only about 12pm local time so about 7am back home. Of course everyone was getting ready for work.

I told Caitlin to just find a Starbucks because with my ipod I could get on the internet and check. We found one that was at the entrance to the tube station and went in. As soon as I got on Tahlia tweeted me the address. I google mapped it and found that it was right across the street. Seriously right across the way was our hostel. We were too tired to get angry so we just laughed it off. WE went and and checked in. It was small and quite cozy.

The woman showed us to our room. It was quite dark because there were people still sleeping. Come on! You are on vacation its the afternoon why are you still sleeping???!? We were in a 14 bedroom room. (It was the least amount of money) We choose our little cubbies and decided to go out. Caitlin wanted a bit of a nap but I said since we got lost that time that we spent

took up our nap time and it was now time to go out and take in London. Sleepy and All.

Buses Hate Me

So the cheapest and easiest way for Caitlin and I to get down to London was on the Megabus. Oh good ole megabus. They are everywhere. We even take the megabus to Washington DC and NY from North Carolina. Caitlin and I decided that we would go down to London from Tuesday to Friday. To get the most out of the day on Tuesday we picked 6:15am to leave. We were so used to staying up late at night that neither of us got ANY sleep the night before. We packed and met outside around 5:30 to make sure we got to the coach station. Usually on a Monday night the streets are popping because Monday night here is a good night to go out....The streets were completely empty. We could not find a taxi anywhere. I called the service to try to get one but they said the earliest would be at 6:00 which would not give us enough time to do anything. I was freaking out a little bit. Luckily once we made our way down oxford I hailed a cab and we were on out way.

We got to the bus and got on it. Of course we were surrounded by mid-20s irish guys who were traveling somewhere. They had bags and bags filled with beer and jager. Of course this would happen to me. I would want to sleep on the bus since it would be 4 and a half hours down to London but No. These guys popped open their beers at 6:15 in the morning and began drinking. I knew this would be quite a long journey. Mid way through the bus driver stopped and made them all chuck their beers off the bus. Lets get real though did he honestly think that they threw away any of the unopened ones??? No. We did fall asleep for a bit and once I woke up I realized we were already in London. :) I couldn't wait to get off and get my luggage dropped off at the hostel and go out exploring. That is if we could even find the hostel.........

“I’ll take you to the coffeeshop”

When we arrived in the city our buses dropped us off at the Heineken experience. There were about 5 buses so you can imagine the herds of people getting off the buses. Amsterdam also has bike lanes because a lot of the residents choose to ride bikes everywhere rather then driving. I find this an awesome method and wish other cities would follow along. Everyone getting off the buses stood directly in the bike lanes and let me tell you, bikers on the trail do NOT stop. I’m sure multiple people got hit and or yelled at.

We began our hike to the hostel we were staying at. We continued to walk and I could tell people just wanted to get to their rooms and take showers. After an extremely and what we found to be an unnecessarily long walk we arrived at our hostel. Of course this trip was not in the best organized fashion and we stood outside in the cold

for another 45 minutes as the leaders were getting our passport numbers for the rooms. You know, because they couldn’t go ahead and get our numbers on the 14 hour bus ride. #dead

The next hour I don’t really remember due to my lack of concentration. I remember that we were in the dining area for forever and it took the leaders a while to distribute the keys. I kinda just wanted to bring my bag along as we walked around Amsterdam. I mean this was valuable time I could be spending site seeing! We finally got to our room and dropped our stuff off. Luckily I had a four person room with Kara, Keli, and Leah. I knew them all so I didn’t have to be worried about people stealing.

Naturally I was starving so we decided that we would do something historic and something fun on the first day. We all decided on just going ahead and doing the heineken experience. WE walked around and found a nice little “snack shop” and stopped there for food. Finally we headed over to the Heineken experience. I remembered this from my bestie Liz Wagstaff. She studied in Dublin over the summer and I remember hearing and seeing pictures from her Amsterdam trip. I was excited.

The tickets were 15 Euros. A bit pricey but I knew that this was something I wanted to do. We went in and of course it turned into picture land. We blew through the first parts

pretty quickly snapping photos. It was a really large brewery and museum. They even had a ride along the way. It turned you into beer. It was fun. Of course my favorite parts were at the end where we had a free sample with a funny guy. We also got wristbands that had two notches on it. You could trade them each for a beer or you could use both and learn how to pour your own pint. I am a guy, a thirsty guy so naturally I said screw the pouring I just want two beers. And that is what I did.

I dare say that were were all a bit tipsy. Just from two pints and a sample. But we were exhausted and tired so that did not help. It was now time to move on to other places. THE RED LIGHT DISTRICT!!!

If you have ever seen an Amsterdam map, it’s beautiful. It is also so hard to read. I think it was because we had in our minds our hotel at a different location then it was. Haha. Getting to the Red light district was easier said then done. We wanted to go to the RLD in order to go to an authentic coffee shop. ;) And please don’t look at me like that. I am in Amsterdam “pepsi” as the greater ones call it is perfectly legal and I am 21. :P

We finally got to one after walking into a few. Its not like any of us are that knowledgeable about buying “pepsi.” I took the lead and just went in and looked at the menu. The “pepsi” we decided to buy was entitled, “AK-47” Perfect right? I was also expecting things to be pre-rolled but thats not always the case. I had to roll my own “pepsi” in hopes of doing it right.

I was just smiling around at all the people. A lot of the people in there were in their 40s. They probably just got off work and came in to smoke a joint and relax. How amazing their lives must be. The bag of “pepsi” we bought was huge so i only rolled one. When we left I decided since I was the teacher back in the shop that I was not going to be the navigator. My head was not on right to read a map. I was only in the state of mind to put one leg in front of the other.

We got lost. The good part about getting lost, however was that we got lost in the RLD. haha. we did get to see the women in the windows and have a laugh about it. And I mean that it is really just a women in a black light window wearing a white bikini. oh my.

When we finally made it back to the hostel it was like 11pm. I know right we got back early but all of us were exhausted and (insert synonym for high) We crashed to prepare for another long day.

Sorry friends and family for this blunt blog. (get the pun??) Your little boy has grown up.

Neglected :/

Wow! Poor The Bryce is right. I have been neglecting this blog. I dont even know what happened. When I got back from Amsterdam I wrote about the bust rip there but then failed to continue my story. No worries, I will continue from here.....