Traveling Blues and London Brews

Well, I made it. I finally made it. I'm in London!!!

To be fair, the plane rides were fairly easy. Nobody was sitting next to me on my flight to London from Washington, so I didn't have to worry about awkwardly deciding who got the arm rest. I really can't remember when I slept, how much I slept, and if I was even tired at the time. All I am sure of is that when I got to Heathrow, I had to wait to get through immigration, wait for my bag, wait to get an Oyster Card for the Underground, and generally spend a lot of time standing around in "queues," as they are called here in the UK, rather than actually moving. Once all that was taken care of, I hopped on the tube to Pimlico, got lost for a million years, and then found my hostel, located across the street from the Thames, and above a pub! This was at like 10 in the morning, though, so my room wasn't ready. Instead of waiting around there, I went on a little adventure! I took the tube to Victoria and Oxford Circus and explored each place. Victoria reminded me a lot of Times Square—very big, very loud, very built up, very touristy. It was also quite Americanized. I mean, they had a KFC. Doesn't get much more 'murican than that! Oh, also, despite both Americans and Brits speaking English, there's still a language barrier. It's a way out, not an exit. It's a que, not a line. You que up, not get in line. It's the tube, not the metro. It's sort of an interesting side of culture shock that people tend to forget about. As for Oxford Circus, it was REALLY crowded, but had a lot of cool shops and stuff. All this traveling has certainly made me feel like a grown up—I had to do it all on my own, in terms of actually getting to and from place to place. Tonight, I'll probably stick close to here, maybe order a drink or two at the pub downstairs (BECAUSE I LEGALLY CAN). And tomorrow night I'm seeing HAMLET! Why is my life so cool?

Basically, to sum everything up so far, I LOVE LONDON!