Day 1 & 2-St. Louis – London

The day finally came, after tons of more research, reading and writing down every tip I found from other reviews, I finally could leave. I was drivin to the airport and went to catch my flight. I was pretty worried that not only would I freak out on the plane (as I kinda hate flying) I would be bored out of my mind. Well I was pretty bored. Caught my flight to London at my layover in Boston around 4 pm and sat next to some weird guy the whole way there. I tried taking sleeping pills to pass out, but they never worked and I slept about an hour. Honestely I have no idea what I did on this flight, read, listened to my iPod....?? Finally the captain says we would be landing in 45 min and as I was looking out the window I finally see land.... Im flying over England! We land and its 6:50 am. Im feeling like crap considering I had been up since 9 am the day before and now its the next day, 6 hours ahead... Im confused at how long Ive been up at that point. I walk about 15 miles to get my luggage and then I go to find the Tube. Took the 45 minute ride to Russel Square, turn left and kept walking till I found the Contiki Basement. ** You can store your luggage here till your room is ready and there is no elevator, only stairs, and with a super heavy large ass suitcase...... So as Im standing there contemplating just throwing my suitcase down the stairs, a guy comes outside the door and offers to take it down for me. I accept :)

Once inside, I store my bag and already knew I wanted to do The Original Tour (dble decker bus tour... research your trip people!) So I buy the ticket from there, go upstairs and catch the bus. They have 3 different lines and are all over the city, easy to find, jump on jump off kind of thing. Went to Buckingham Palace (right in time for the changing of the gaurd)
It was OK, I guess. I can say Ive seen it now but really it was like they were putting some show on and there was like a marching band and crap like that. Jump on another bus see Westminster/Big Ben/London Eye, you know the normal stuff.

I wanted to actually go into these places but I only had that day and had to meet my other Contikiers at 6 pm that night so I did not have the time. I also did a walking tour (something about rock n roll ledgends) with that company which was awesome, even tho I felt like crap and was super tired. Im really into history/culture so this kind of stuff was right up my ally. London was super clean and so beautiful. Honestly, I would go back and live there! After my tour, I hung out with the walking tour guy and this other guy who was in the tour with me. (Note: I thought I would feel like a retard being by myself, sightseeing all over London, but at the time I didnt really care and alot of the people I met on the bus/walking tour were alone too. I found out a lot of the other Contikiers were alone that day too.) It was getting to be the time where I needed to go back to my hotel, grab my bag and get ready for the meeting. I drag that heavy ass bag up the stairs, check in, get lost in the hotel becuase its laid out super weird, or maybe Im just blonde...? I start gettng ready and in walks Stacey from Australia, my roommate. Unfortunalty she is not on the same tour as me :( I get my first taste of using converters and my hair dryer going crazy on me.

Go down to the London Coffehouse, and meet Veronica & Silvia from L.A. We all go inside and get ready for our meeting. We check in, meet our tour manager Ryan and driver Chris. They go over some of the basics, I look around and check out everyone. There wasnt many people there that night, but more show up the next day when the bus leaves. I make plans to hang out that night with Veronica that night, and give her the hotels number and my room number. Oops... I give her the wrong room number... While walking out the door we run right onto Veronika from Toronto (and the veronic/ka sandwich was born) Shes late for the meeting so we talk for about a minute. I know right away that these 2 girls and I would become my "European besties"

L.A. Veronica aka V-Lo goes to her hotel, I go back to my room and hang out with Stacey. Now she has been in London for a week already and after finding out I didnt get to see the London Bridge yet, shes like lets go see it! We hit up a grocery store for some food and then head for the Tube, thank God she knows how to work those things. So we go, we saw, we take pictures and I tell her we have to do the pub thing so we find one and have some beers (gross!)

Head back to the hotel, time for bed. I pack all my crap up, set my 8 alarms on my cell phone as Im not a fan of waking up early and have been up for about 48 hours now, and prob said a prayer that I wake up on time the next day.