I LOVE LONDON

I am probably the only one who noticed, but did anyone else realize that I have been in Germany for over six months? I can hardly believe it. The time has gone by so fast. I remember going to the meetings before we left and in D.C. and every alumni said “oh yeah, you won’t believe how fast the time flies!” and I just thought “no way! That is almost eleven months! It can’t go by that fast!” However, it really does. As of today, I have just over four more months left in Germany. I’m a little surprised by how fast the time has gone, but I still have four months to learn more German, travel a bit more, play soccer, have fun with friends, and do my best at school.

My big piece of news is that I went to London! I went with Leilani (another CBYXer who lives in Seattle and goes to St. Michael Gymnasium with me) from February 5-February 7. It was pretty insane and once I describe it to you, you’ll realize why!

The trip was actually advertised by a bus travel company in the Rheinland (which includes Aachen). It was a 1.5 day trip to London, but without any overnight stay in a hotel. We left Aachen at 11pm on Friday (it was supposed to be 10pm, but our bus was late). We then drove partly through Holland, Belgium, and France before we got to Calais at around 3am. At Calais, we got on a ferry and took the 1.5 hour trip across the English Channel to Dover. I have never ever gotten sea sick on the Washington ferries, but my stomach sure was feeling a little funny on the crossing from France to England! It was really amazing once we got to Dover because while it was very dark, there were enough lights at the port that we could see the outlines of the famous Cliffs of Dover. I really want to go back to Dover sometime so I can see everything in daylight!
Once we got to London it was 6am London time and 7am German time. We then paid 10 Euros each for a 90 minute city tour given by our bus driver. If you ever go to London, I would strongly recommend taking a city tour. Normally, they last a couple of hours or so and then you have time to sightsee on your own and if you saw somewhere on the tour that you really liked, you can always go back. During our tour, we saw the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Hyde Park, Tower Bridge, Tower of London, the London Eye, Millennium Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, Buckingham Palace, Oxford Street, Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and 10 Downing Street (where the Gordon Brown, the British Prime Minister, lives).

After the tour, Leilani and I went shopping for about an hour at Primark (sort of a WAY cheaper H & M) and I got a wallet and a long sleeve white shirt (both were 3 pounds each!) After our shopping excursion, Leilani and I found a couple of music shops on these really cool little side streets that Leilani had been to last year on a school trip to London. It was really interesting to wander a little bit off the beaten track (Oxford Street, the busiest shopping street in London) and see what happens.

Later in the morning, we bought a one day subway-, underground-, tube-ticket for the two central zones in London. This turned out to be a really great deal. The ticket was around 5.60 pounds and we used it a fair amount to get across central London. What really helped was that Leilani had been to London before and ridden the Tube so she knew most of the time where we were going and so on. Oh yeah and one interesting piece of info: I have never seen escalators so long as the ones in the London Underground. You stand at the bottom and look up and it seems like it goes on forever and ever. Haha just a random thing I wanted to add!
In the afternoon, Leilani and I went back to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. The National Gallery is full of paintings from the 1300s or so until the 1900s. Famous artists such as Monet, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Manet, Cezanne, and many others have paintings displayed in the gallery. I even got to see Van Gogh’s Sunflowers! It was beautiful and I loved getting to see the original!

I also bought an Oxford University sweatshirt from a street stand. I told my parents that my aspirations keep on getting higher and higher!
I was a little worried about the weather in London because it is a city famous for its rain, cold, and fog (sounds a little bit like a mix between San Francisco and Seattle doesn’t it?), but it was clear and sunny the whole day. Yeah, it was a little cold, but warmer than Germany! Another plus was no snow!

In the late afternoon, Leilani and I went to Harrods. It is supposedly the most famous store in the world and I can really see why. They have EVERYTHING! All of the clothes, bags, shoes, and jewelry are designer. There are gigantic food rooms which include everything from vegetables, to cheeses, to fruits, to mushrooms, to fresh seafood and all sorts of meats. There is a huge tea, coffee, and chocolate room. There are rooms full of photographs, paintings, oriental carpets, home furnishings…everything that you can think of seems to be at Harrods. I bought a box of passion fruit black tea for my host family. Even if you have no plan to buy anything at Harrods, I would definitely recommend going there just to see the scale of everything and some of the beautiful and one of a kind things that are for sale. Maybe you’ll even hear a woman singing opera like we did!

After leaving London at 7:45pm German time, we arrived back in Aachen at 5:30 on Sunday morning. It was an extremely fast trip, but I got my first taste of London and I’m already hooked!

Well I’d better bring this post to a close. Ralf, Sven, and I are heading off today to Austria to go skiing for a couple of days. We’ll come home on Tuesday so I can go off the Weimar on Wednesday. It’s been a busy past week and the next couple of weeks will also be busy, but I love every minute of it!

I miss all of you guys and I can’t wait to see you all again when I get home!