June 7, 2015
Hello everyone, my second day adventure in the Mother Land was quite enjoyable as I woke up at 8:30am more rested than the last two days with the jet lag and six hour time difference. My breakfast was very well as I had bacon that looked like pieces of ham, as well as, sausages, toasted bread, and some delicious pastries. As I waited for my bread to toast in the toaster, an older lady was next to me waiting on her toast as well. The bread took a long time to toast, and she struck up a conversation with me. As I began to talk to her, she noticed that I was not from Europe, so I told her that I was from Mississippi in the US. The older lady with an European accent said that she was from the US too, and I said "really" in a surprised voice. She noticed and said that she was from Oregon and that she is originally from Sweden, which explained a great deal. My bread finished toasting and by accident I hit the cancel button and the Swedish Oregonian lady's bread popped out not toasted, so I quickly ran off like nothing happened. Yeah, I know what you are thinking that is the typical behavior from a crazy American tourist, and you would be correct; however, I would do that in America as well. Awkward is my forte, so one can only expect awkward results.
Breakfast was at 9am and that time was actually set by a fellow co-hort member who did not show up to the breakfast. After we finished our English breakfast an hour and twenty minutes later, me and another co-hort member went to the no show co-hort member's room. There were several knocks on the door, and we heard some soft inaudible responses for a few moments. Finally, we began to actually have a real conversation through the door, and he answered the door in his underwear. He asked us what time was it and if he missed breakfast. After about a solid thirty seconds of laughter, we said yes and that we all had breakfast about an hour and a half ago. He informed us that he did not hear any alarms or phone calls that were made to him. Nevertheless, this person was on every one's case to not be late for breakfast, and he did not represent that expectation very well this morning. Anyway, we moved on and he grabbed breakfast in short order, and I began a Big Bus Tour.
The Big Bus Tour was on a Burgundy double decker bus that had an open top upper deck. I rode on the top so that I could see the amazing sights, take some great pictures, and work on my beautiful farmer's tan, which I will add the pictures to Facebook when I return from across the pond. Today was a lot warmer than the previous day and the skies were blue with big puffy white clouds, which I am told is a rare occasion for England. I got to see almost all of London that included the guy that wrote Peter Pan's residency, Nothing Hill, Big Ben, The Tower Bridge, London Bridge, the Shard, the Eye of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, West Minister Abbey, and the Tower of London. Unfortunately, I just saw the outside of these sights. After the bus tour, we took the boat tour and saw some of the sights mentioned above from an even better perspective. Wait until your see the pictures! The day for London sight seeing eventually came to a close. For the rest of the night, we ate a the Devonshire Arms pub down from our hotel.
I had some BBQ beef sliders, which had a very sweet sauce. My main course was some good ole bangers and mash. For those that do not know what that dish is, bangers are plump sausage links and mash is just what you can imagine. They are mashed potatoes and some wine gravy was poured on top with spinach leaves. It was banging or (s)mashing, LOL! My dessert consisted of some chocolate caramel praline balls with vanilla ice cream. My soft drink of choice (take a guess) was a real sugar coke. I forgot to mention that my lunch was some pasta from an Italian restaurant near the London Tower Bridge but that was not really a highlight, and I do not even know why I am talking about it right now. I digress. Well, the rest of the evening so far is me writing this blog, which I have pleasure-fully enjoyed boring you with tonight from the bar lounge near the elevators of Kensington Close Hotel in Jolly Ole London, England. Tomorrow begins our university visits. We will be visiting St. George University College and we will be riding the Eye of London tomorrow so maybe my stories may be even more delightful then. I hear that the third day is always better as Jesus so famously portrayed. I apologize in advance if that offended anyone. I find humor in strange ways right now maybe my mind will adjust to this experience before I return or write the next blog. FYI, it does not actually get dark outside until almost 10pm.
Cheerio, Lads!
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