What a depressing thought! I can't believe how fast 2 weeks has flown by! I have loved every minute of being in London...even if the people here aren't very friendly. At least the city is cool enough to make up for their lack of friendliness. It's the craziest thing here...you have to be the one to go up to a person at the store or something if you have a question or need help or anything. They won't approach you and make sure you're finding everything and such. And Brits in general are just very private and kind of stuck in their own little world. Even when the tube is jam-packed with people, it's still so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Weird.
So here's a re-cap of what we did today:
Everyone slept in this morning...except me because I woke up early to use the computer. A full 2 hours worth of catching up on stuff and downloading pictures! We got ready and finally went out the door at about noon. My dad had to stay back at the apartment to get some work done, so it was just us girls again.
We decided to spend our last day checking out the British Museum. Before leaving, we had to put some more money onto our Oyster Cards (passes for the tube). My mom gave me a huge handful of coins to put into the machine, and apparently the machine wasn't very hungry. About half way through my feeding them in it started spitting them out at me! It was a bit like winning the lottery--coins were just spilling out everywhere! The man working got a good laugh out of it though.
Anyway, the museum was phenomenal! I had no idea it would be so cool! Think of any era in history, and they're sure to have amazing artifacts from the time. There were rooms and rooms full of wicked awesome Egyptian stuff and relics from the Parthenon in Greece...plus a million other things. And we saw the Rosetta Stone, which was pretty incredible.
Outside of the museum there was this big mural of a path going through this green country landscape, so my mom made us stand in front of it for a picture. We were doing a jumping picture, except her picture-taking skills weren't so good. We had to do it about a gazillion times. We were quite a spectacle for the huge mass of people on the stairs staring at us like we were insane. I don't think there was a single person there with a sense of humor. And of course we were all laughing our guts out. We looked pretty ridiculous, but hey, at least we gave people something to talk about around the dinner table.
Our feet were extraordinarily tired and achy at this point, so we ended the afternoon by chilling at Trafalgar Square and watching some of the Olympics. Our TV in the apartment has been broken the entire trip (up until today...the day before we leave!), so we haven't had much of an opportunity to watch the Olympics. However, I was able to watch some highlights from swimming. Hurrah for Michael Phelps! One word: amazing.
We bid farewell to Big Ben (or, as Mallory fondly calls it, Benny G--Don't worry, I don't get it either) and headed back to the barbie apartment. It was kind of depressing to think that that would be the last time we'd be strolling down those streets. But it's not really the last time, because I will likely return someday.
For dinner we decided to find a restaurant near our apartment, as we had not really checked out the area much except for Portobello Market. Everything here closes sooo early! Except for the pubs and clubs, of course. I guess everything else closes early so people can go out for a few pints before catching some z's.
We were looking around and checking out menus of a few restaurants on a corner when a guy outside one Italian restaurant started talking to my mom. This is a highly unusual event (see my comments in the first paragraph...), so we decided to go into his restaurant because he was so friendly.
Everyone that worked there was mega friendly and the place was pretty chill. Our waiter was a hilarious guy who had a major case of ADHD. I'm dead serious--I don't think I saw him stand still for a split second! He forced me to pronounce the dish I was ordering (Italian pronounciation isn't quite as easy as Spanish) and he was constantly making sure we were enjoying the food and everything. I can't even begin to tell you how happy I was to finally go somewhere with excellent customer service! That restaurant experience alone solidified my desire to hop on the next plane to Italy. Plus it didn't hurt that the food was pretty delish as well! I had this amazing pasta made out of potato flour. I can't exactly remember the name right now, but it was excellent. It was for sure a perfect ending to our time here in London.
Tomorrow morning, bright and early (5:45 am! Ugh!) we leave the apartment and head off to Ireland! I think I've been anticipating this part of the trip the most since we started planning it. We'll be road trippin a bit, which means we have a rental car. This also means that we have to drive...on the wrong side of the road. It should be an interesting adventure. My dad promised to let me drive, so he better live up to it!
I'm not sure when/where we'll have an internet connection, so I may not get to update this much. I'll do my best to post as often as possible, though. Ciao!
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