London: Land of Bland Food? No. HP? Yes.

      This past weekend my roommates and I decided to take a little adventure to London. While the trip was only four days long, we have plenty of memories and much less money to show otherwise. The trip started off pretty smoothly with leaving for the train station at 6 am. This is the earliest we have had to get up so far on this trip so it was kind of a struggle. We made it to the station with plenty of time, but getting our tickets and passports stamped didn't go as smoothly. I had left my credit card that I bought my ticket with at the apartment and also the piece of paper that had all of my trip information on it as well. They were able to find it after a few minutes, but warned me that it would not be acceptable next time. Oops. We left that office and then tried to travel through the gates to have our passports stamped, which should be an easy task because we weren't leaving the EU right? No. We didn't have the address of my friend's house that we were staying at and apparently they really don't like that. One of us got yelled at by one of the officers and we realized that this might deter us from ever actually getting to London. They then interrogated us all to see what our purpose would be in London and why on earth we would have come to Paris to go to school. I really didn't think it was that confusing of a reason...
      When we loaded the train we found out that one companion would be in a different car and we would have to meet up at the station when we finally reached the mother land. My other roommate and I boarded the train and quickly fell asleep without a problem. When we reached London, we got off to see our other roommate with a bottle of champagne and 10 British pounds. Turns out she sat next to two older ladies who ended up chatting her ear off and giving her a job and these presents. Good to a be a talker isn't it?
      We then set off to find my roommate for next year, Grace, the one we were staying with, and get some food. We took a detour and found platform 9 3/4 where a hoard of kids were taking pictures, we couldn't resist though and took part as well. Harry Potter terms were being thrown around left and right as we had finally reached the dwelling of one of our all time favorite characters.
      After leaving the station we quickly found the restaurant that we would be meeting Grace at. We had a round of cider beer because we were in London and why not, we didn't have a schedule right? My friend finally arrived and we sat down and had lunch, shephards pie to be exact. I had always sort of presumed that English food would be incredibly bland, but to my astonishment it was one of the best meals I have had in Europe so far. When lunch was over Grace had to go back to work so she gave us her key and directions to her place. We left satisfied and ready to take on London as foreigners. Obviously we got lost and had to ask for directions multiple times, but it was okay because they all speak English!
      We slept for an hour and then took off on another adventure to see the London Bridge. This was probably the best site that we saw the entire trip, couldn't fully explain the reasoning behind it because I'm still not even sure why, but it was pretty awe inspiring to see. Again, the food at dinner was awesome and we all enjoyed the atmosphere.
      We went out later that night and found a pretty cheap bar. While it was nice to see drinks under 3 (Euro, Dollars, Pounds, etc.) the bar was full of obnoxious Americans who were just looking to get plastered and make fools of themselves. While this may be okay in Madison, it was too weird to deal with in Europe. We left at 1 am and fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows couches. 
      

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