London calling!!!!!

May 1-3

-Sorry this is late! Busy busy.

-This was our last roomie trip together so we wanted to do something big. We tried to do Budapest and Prague but it was hard to get there from italy. So next choice was London, because none of us had been there. We took an early bus to Pisa where we flew on an airline called Ryanair- because they are so cheap they don't fly into many large airports but hey, we were going to London so we didn't care :) Finally got to London in a few hours to Stansted airport, where we had to take another hour bus ride to the city center, where we took a double decker bus to a stop near our hostel (finally! It was basically a whole day of traveling).

-We walked around, and saw we were right by king's cross station which happens to be a tube stop, so we bought oyster cards (reloadable cards you put money on to ride the tube) and we went to see some stuff straight off! Saw Big ben, the London eye at night, thames river, telephone booths, we went to starbucks, randomly saw a spanish culture festival where there was live music, food, and other cool stuff. We got dinner in a place recommended to me by some friends that had gone a few weekends prior to us- I had curry which was delicious! We later went to a pub for a drink (!!!) And then crashed in our beds. Our hostel wasn't bad, 4 to a room (so luckily we didn't have strangers) and we shared a bathroom with the hall- so basically freshman year of college communal bathrooms. They were a little strange, because in one stall there was a sink, shower and toilet in that order, separated by curtains haha. But hey, they made the small space work, and it was fine for two nights.

-Next day we got up super early to get our picture at the Harry Potter platform 9 3/4 setup inside King's cross station-- we were first in line, actually there was no line up yet heh heh we beat everybody by getting up at 6 am :) then we ran around all day long! saw the harry potter gift shop, parliament, shakespeare globe theatre, a cool vintage bookmarket underneath the waterloo bridge, an ethnic food festival was going on by shakespeare's theatre so we had lunch there (I had a moo pie which was essentially a meat pie), and kept going and occasionally taking the tube to get us around. The tube is wonderful and very easy to navigate. It was wonderful. we saw tower bridge, london bridge, took cute pictures by the phone booths, st paul's cathedral, westminster, buckingham palace (actually we went there the DAY the princess Charlotte was born :) how cool are we???) Trafalgar square, and we actually found Abbey Road out in westminster and we did the picture in the crosswalk :) we also had afternoon tea in a little teahouse, because that's what you have to do.

-We had dinner in a pub (I got fish and chips of course, what else) and almost everything was going so well, until at dinner my roommate had her purse stolen. So unfortunate and soooo scary- luckily she had her passport, our plane tickets and cellphone back at the hostel. She cancelled her cards and lost some money, but it could have been way worse.

-We had to leave at 3 am, which sucked, because we had to taxi to the bus station, then bus to the airport, go through customs, and then board our flight to a city called Perugia in italy. Then we took a train from Perugia to Florence where we all happily arrived. We were excited with the fun weekend, the things we saw and with our souvenirs we got, but still freaked out from the purse-stealing situation and drained from all the traveling... and yet we all had homework due next day haha. So homework sucked but hey, we spent the weekend in London :) it wasn't perfect, but I was able to do it with my friends and it was awesome.

Ciao for now