Now I ain't sayin she's a gold digger...

That, and many others, was the theme song to our weekend in London. I can’t believe this awesome weekend has already come and gone! I spent so many weeks looking forward to it, and now it’s over. I knew it was going to be a brilliant weekend, and I was most definitely not disappointed.

Our dear friend, Johnny Stewart, picked us (Kari and me) up at 4:30 on Thursday afternoon and drove us to the Belfast City Airport. Since we had some time to kill, he dropped us off to let us check-in and then went and parked his car so that he could come inside and grab a cup of tea with us. Such a gentleman! Our flight was due to leave at 6:30, so we sat sipping tea and chatting until around 5:30 when we figured we should probably jump in the insanely long line through security. We made it through no problem and were on the plane a little after 6:30 on our way to London!

From London Stansted airport we caught a bus to Victoria Station in the heart of London. I was exhausted after only getting three hours of sleep the night before, so I slept most of the way. Luckily I was awake for our drive along the Thames and past Westminster Abbey and Parliament. The glow of the city lights was reflecting off the water. There’s just something about the city at night that captivates me.

We met up with Kari’s friend, Mike, at Victoria Station and then took our first ride on the Tube to Earl’s Court. From the station, we walked to McDonald’s so that I could use Mike’s laptop and McDonald’s free wireless to register for classes at Grove City. I was kind of worried because registration opened at 10PM my time, but we didn’t get to McDonald’s until around 10:30PM. In the past, I’ve had the most terrible experiences registering. Usually the server is so backed up that I can’t get logged in until at least an hour after registration is open, and by that point many of the classes and professors I wanted are already filled up. Not the case this time! I logged in no problem, entered all my fall semester reference codes, clicked submit and my schedule was set within two minutes. Could I be so lucky to have that happen in the spring as well? You bet! Miraculously, I was done with registering in about five minutes! I guess I should’ve flown to London every time I had to register. Too bad that was the last time.

We walked to Mike’s apartment after eating at McDonald’s. The rest of the night was interesting to say the least. Originally, Mike and his three roommates had planned to go to either a sport’s café or a hotel to watch a March Madness basketball game at 1:30 in the morning. Kari and I were just going to stay in their one-bedroom apartment and sleep. Instead, Mike and his roommates ended up watching the game in their apartment. Kari and I shared a bed and tried to sleep through their hoots and hollers. The game was finally over at 4AM. I woke up again at 8AM to Mike and Jake getting ready for work. Needless to say, I did not get a good night’s rest. But, it was a free place to stay for the night, so I wasn’t going to complain.

Friday was our chill day in London. We got up at 10:30, showered, packed up, and walked to the tube station. We took the tube to Leicester (pronounced Lester) Square. Kari and I just wandered around, stopping in various tourist shops and other stores. We decided to grab lunch at Bella Italia, a cute little Italian restaurant. Kari and I split Marguerite and Giardiniera pizzas. After lunch, we took the tube to Knightsridge to do some real shopping at The Gap, H&M, Monsoon and others. We also stumbled upon a French pastry shop and couldn’t pass up the double chocolate and chocolate mocha cake in the window. After eating there, I can’t wait to go to Paris! Then, we took the tube back to Leicester Square. We sat in the park for a while and then went to the Prince of Whales Theatre for the 5 o’clock showing of MAMMA MIA!! It was an awesome show and we had great seats…completely worth the 36 pounds I paid for the ticket. We left the show in a great mood, but feeling hungry. So, we wandered around seeking out the best, but most reasonably priced, restaurant. Our wandering brought us into Trafalgar Square. We snapped some pictures and then back-tracked to Garfunkle’s Restaurant in Leicester Square. We then took the tube back to Mike’s apartment to pick up our stuff and then hopped back on the tube to King’s Cross Station! Why am I excited about that, you may ask? Platform 9 ¾ is in the station. What can I say? I love Harry Potter.

Kari and I met up with Bethany and our friends from Carrick – Ackey, Gavin, Preece, Leanna, and Ruth – at King’s Cross and then walked about fifteen minutes to Paget City Mission. Ackey had visited the mission several times through his church youth group and had kept in touch with the owner, Dada, so we got to stay there for free. The building is really cool. From the outside, it just looks like a typical brick building. Even when you walk inside it just looks like a lot of other youth centres. But, when you step into the next room, you step back into time and enter a sanctuary. The church that originally occupied this piece of land still stands due to a city ordinance prohibiting its destruction. So, they decided to build the youth centre around the church and they put couches and recliners in the sanctuary rather than pews.

When we arrived at the city mission, we literally just dropped our bags and then hopped in the van to drive back toward King’s Cross so that the others could grab dinner at KFC. The server tried asking Bethany what kind of soda she wanted with her meal, and Bethany’s response was, “Whatever you want because I didn’t understand what you just said.” As soon as she said that, all of us burst into laughter. So class! We also got a good laugh out of Ackey’s order – “I’ll take the Big Daddy meal.” Not only did his Northern Irish accent make Big Daddy sound funny, but just the fact that he’s in his 30s and was playing the role of Dad the whole weekend made the whole thing quite ironic. We took our food back to the city mission, ate up, and then got all cozy in our sleeping bags (since the heat wasn’t working in the sanctuary). We spent a couple hours just hanging out, talking, and listening to Gav play the guitar and serenade us, and then we went to bed, excited for the big day Saturday!

After a warm and comfy night’s sleep on the couch, the girls got up at 8AM to walk through the rain and wind to King’s Cross Station to take a shower. That’s right, I paid 3 pounds to shower in King’s Cross Station. I don’t think I’ve ever worked that hard to get a shower before. First, we had to walk fifteen minutes to the station. Then we had to find where to buy our tickets to use the shower. Then we walked down to the shower, but there was no one there to unlock the showers for us, so we stood around for another 15-20 minutes while Leanna and Ruth went and searched. After all that, we finally got to take a shower. Thankfully they were relatively clean, despite the huge bug Bethany found.

Feeling clean and refreshed, we walked back to the city mission to pick up the boys and then we walked to Dallas Burger for a delicious English breakfast before embarking on our walking tour of London. Funny story, Ruth took one step outside to go to breakfast and a bird crapped on her head. She wasn’t laughing, but the rest of us were. Now hold on, because it was a long and crazy day…

At King’s Cross Station we caught the Picadilly Line tube to Picadilly Circus. From there we walked to Leicester Square and then to Trafalgar Square, where we stopped to climb onto the lions and snap some pictures. Our next stop was Buckingham Palace. The sun actually came out as we were walking past St. James’ Park to the Palace. It was so beautiful with the green grass, the fully blossomed daffodils, and the buds on the trees beginning to blossom. I kept thinking to myself that if I lived in London, this would probably be my favourite place to come and unwind. We were too late for the changing of the guard at the palace, but we did get to see the two guards pace back and forth and do some stretching. Highly amusing. We next walked through St. James’ Park to this huge, gravel courtyard where each year on her birthday, the Queen watches a procession of the royal military. After that, we headed over to Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament, stumbling upon a protest along the way. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to go in Westminster Abbey as we were too late for the last tour, but at least we got to see it and we saved ourselves the 11 pound admission price. I loved seeing Big Ben! The clock is huge, and seeing it made me think of Peter Pan and flying past it to Neverland. From there we walked across a bridge for a stroll along the Thames, past the London Eye and several museums. This walk got pretty long as the clouds rolled in again and it was really windy; not to mention we had already been walking for a few hours. All I wanted to do was stop at a café for about ten minutes for a cup of tea and a biscuit. No such luck…oh well! We crossed the Thames again via Millennium Bridge and walked to St. Paul’s Cathedral. We stepped inside to get a glimpse of the place where Princess Diana and Prince Charles were married, but stopped short of the ticket booth because none of us wanted to spend 12 pounds to get the full effect. When we exited the cathedral, we were greeted by a wedding party taking pictures on the steps of the cathedral. I’m pretty sure the bride was rich, because all the women guests had these extravagant hats and dresses on. Around the back of the cathedral there was an ivory Rolls Royce waiting to drive the bride and groom to the reception. The rain clouds rolled in again as we were leaving the cathedral, so we dashed into a couple restaurants in hopes of grabbing some lunch, but all the places were pretty expensive, so we got on the tube instead and headed over to Tower of London and London Tower Bridge. The bridge was my favourite site in London. It is gigantic and so stately looking. We all broke into London bridge is falling down as we approached it. Before we crossed the bridge, we finally stopped at a café to rest our tired feet and to grab a snack that would hold us over till dinner. It was so nice to sit and warm up a bit. Feeling refreshed, we wandered back outside and crossed the bridge. As we got to the other side, the sun again broke through the clouds. But, there were really dark clouds off in the distance. I got some really great pictures of the bridge, all lit up by the sun with the contrasting dark clouds behind it. There was even a rainbow! We kept strolling along the Thames and eventually had to duck inside a shopping centre since the dark clouds brought hail with them. What a crazy day weather-wise! We walked some more to get the tube to Covent Garden. Covent Garden is one of the many markets in London. I bought a scarf from one of the stands (and could have bought more if I had any extra room in my suitcase!). The rest of the night was a bit frustrating. We walked forever trying to find a place that had room for nine people for dinner. Finally, we decided to go to Chinatown, despite the fact that most of us had a proper English meal in mind. Let’s just say the service was less than stellar. Our waitress, who spoke a minimal amount of English, brought Gavin duck instead of chicken (and when he complained, she tried to tell him that what he originally had was chicken, even though the second dish looked completely different than the first) and served our table three orders of veggie spring rolls instead of two. Once we got over the frustration, all we could do was laugh about it, especially Gav’s duck. In fact, Gavin is now known as Duck Norris because of the whole incident. Kari had found out that Ackey’s birthday is March 30, so we decided to get ice cream after dinner in order to celebrate. And, we sang happy birthday to him in the middle of Leicester Square. I think he was pretty embarrassed! After a very long day of walking, we finally went back to the city mission and crashed.

With sore feet, we woke up Sunday morning and took the tube to All Souls church in the heart of London. There is a really diverse congregation at this church, from English, to Indian, to Chinese. It was great to worship with them. The pastor gave a great sermon about serving God in the midst of our stressful lives. After the service, we crossed the street to grab lunch at Pizza Express. Pretty funny that we ate more ethnic food than English food in London. Our last stop before heading back to the city mission to pack was Hyde Park and Speaker’s Corner. I really did not enjoy Speaker’s Corner with all the crazy people yelling. One guy claimed to be the prophet of the guy standing next to him who was supposedly God. I suddenly realized while standing there how much the world needs God. The fact that some people actually believe the claims of this so called prophet is so sad.

The rest of Sunday was spent in some form of public transportation – tube to Victoria Station, bus to London Stansted Airport, airplane to Belfast. Kari and I both slept on the bus, exhausted from the day before. We had a good time hanging out for a couple hours in the airport. The plane ride home was pretty smooth, despite the rough landing that scared the crap out of the lady sleeping next to Kari. Another of our dear friends, Sharon, picked us up from the airport and brought us back to uni. I didn’t know we could see so much in one weekend! I really loved London and all of its diversity. I absolutely want to go back some day…who wants to be my travel buddy?