London

July 31st, I left FCO to arrive at London Heathrow (LHR) around 1:30PM. All I brought with me was my backpack with a change of clothes for the weekend and my Canon 40D. After landing, I decided to take Heathrow Express to Paddington Station (Possibly the most expensive way to get out of LHR unless I took a taxi. 16 GBP). However being on the HE train, was quite comfortable and I felt I was first class.

Arriving at Paddington Station, I immediately notice the 20 degrees difference between London and Rome. The whole weekend was 70 degrees F while Rome that weekend was above 95 degrees F. My hostel was at the University of Westminster, Maryleborne Hall, off of Baker St (Sherlock Holmes) which was about a mile away. I was not familiar on using the Underground Tube system so I walked from Paddington to the Hostel/university and made it within 20 minutes.

Upon my arrival they were extremely generous. The room was small, but nice nonetheless. It was a one person efficiency dorm style room and the bathroom was cramped and similar to ones on the airplane except room for a shower. Once I settled in my hostel, I ended up taking a 2 hour nap because of a lack of sleep the night before and on the plane. Then Karen Schrauben gave me a call and then I was ready.



I was glad to meet up with her. When I arrived in Heathrow I called her and Breana Cronk to see what their plans were but no answer. The unsettling feeling that I wasn't going to see either one did make me nervous, even though I was in an english speaking country, not italian.

Funny to mention, From the moment the plane landed on the runway until later that night, I still had the mindset that I had to speak in Italian. It took about a day for me to get over that and eventually I caught onto the English accent...YOU SOUND LIKE YOU'RE FROM LONDON!!!! (Chuck a.k.a. Kuno from the film "Forgetting Sarah Marshall")

Around 6 o'clock Karen met up with me. She was studying at Regent's park College which was right across the street from me so that ended up working out. She showed me around some of Regent's Park and College and then we went out to eat at a pizzeria right down the street from my hostel off of Baker. (great italian style pizza too!)



Afterwards she had to meet up with the GVSU group and we parted ways. We made arrangements to meet up tomorrow at 9am to take the tube and go to Abbey Rd...Pretty much the main reasons of my travels. It was about 8:00PM when I got back and I decided to go venture off around the block by myself. Bought some snack food, picked up a photo mag, and enjoyed the cooler weather.