welcome to london-the best city in the world.

i can not believe that i am finding a place and time to update my blog, but i was so excited to document all that i have done so far in london. we got in around 5 pm last night, but waited in customs for an hour or so. for some reason, england has been the only customs that has drilled us with questions and taken forever to get through. we made it into the city pretty late and got checked into our hostel. we were not so excited about staying in a hostel, but the price was right and we thought we needed to try it at least once in our lives. oh what an experience it is.

we are in a super nice hostel actually-there is a lounge, bar, restaurant and 15 or so rooms i think? in our room there are 12 girl beds, but only 9 are being slept in tonight including us three. there is no curfew in this hostel, so people came in at all times of the night. it wasnt too bad though because everyone respects each others space for the most part. each bed has a cute curtain that goes all the way around the bed for privacy, and each bed has a little night lamp too. i layed in my cubicle and read while journaling for quite a while last night. the girl that slept on the top bunk above me was from poland and she kept rolling around in her sleep and was pretty loud. but she is gone tonight.

today we had a jammed packed day. i couldnt sleep so i woke up at 6:30 and did some research on the computers for paris on tuesday...just trying to find the cheapest way to get around and get in museums. im pretty excited. ashley and i went to hillsong church this morning! who knew i would come to europe to see two of my favorite christian bands? the worship in the church was CRAZY! it was in a theatre with awesome lights and the entire band jumped around. it was cool.

after church ashley and i met up with marissa in piccadilly circus to grab some lunch. we ended up grabbing sandwiches and eating on a bench. it was so cute. we walked around after lunch before stopping by the national art gallery-the pictures were awesome. then we navigated to the tower of london. marissa wanted to tour the tower, and ash and i didnt have the money, so we went to the london bridge and took some crazy awesome pictures while marissa toured the tower. we were suprised to find that the london bridge IS nothing more than a bridge. its not the bridge you are thinking of in the pictures, that is the tower of london. the london bridge is just a plain jane bridge and the only way you know its the london bridge is because it has a little plaque on it. lameee...

the tower of london was ABSOLUTELY beautiful. i have pictures but will have to wait until i get home to post them on here.

we met up with marissa a few hours later and ventured to the london eye. it is the huge ferris wheel that looks over the thames river and onto big ben and westminister. it was amazing. serioulsy huge, so big that each car holds 24 people. the colors on the eye changed every minute or so and it was quite the site to see. we didnt go on it though, it was pretty expensive for one ride-17£.

we walked through the city a little more once it got dark. we really wanted to see westminister abbey and big ben all lit up. i have never seen anything like it. westminister is the largest church in europe-i hope to tour it tomorrow, but am not sure how much it costs...bummer. we ventured back to our hostel area to find some fish and chips for dinner. we found a cute little place that was showing some NFL football-so we ate there and got a little american fix too.

now here i am, in the lobby of the hostel. i only have 4 more minutes on the computer-you have to sign up for 30 minute time slots-so i better get running.

tomorrow morning we are meeting up with a few girls from one of my classes in italy who happen to also be staying in our hostel. we are going to buy tickets for wicked on broadway tomorrow night! we figured we would save our money these past few days and have a good dinner and a show tomorrow. im so excited. also in store for tomorrow? abbey road! i am so excited for this. i CAN NOT wait to go see it...supposedly its pretty crazy how many people attempt to walk across it. haha. that will be me. we are going to see the changing of the guards at buckingham palace tomorrow morning as well. that will be an incredible experience.

our time here is so short...we leave tuesday afternoon for paris for the next 6 days. there is so much to do in paris-i am so thankful that we have much more time there.

ok, got to go. more to come later. probably not until i get home on november 1st!

did i mention how excited i am to see my mom on november 2? and we are going to rome. me my mom her best friend and one of my best friends. does it get any better? i think not. woop woop :)