London Town.

Alright... so now that I have time to chit-chat about my stay in Europe, I'll do just that.
What better way to talk about things than with visual aids, correct?
I'll have Henry David Thoreau to show you around.

Today's episode will consist of my England stay, since it was the first place I hit when TravelinDin's Spring Break began.
Ready?
(Fuck, I just realized this one will be the shortest entry, since I only hung out in England for 3 days... well... more like 2... with only one of those days actually being fun)
Ok, so here we have arrived at Stansted Airport... a little too late to be driven in to London (well, at least too late for a reasonable rate), so we decided to sleep at the airport until 7 in the morning. We slept on the floor, below the departure flights sign, right next to the girl's bathroom.
All other locations at the airport had been claimed by other cheapskate students who were on break just like TravelinDin and Clemson (I don't include myself because I'm on break indefinitely), and reach the area quicker than our clumsy selves. We used our bags as pillows... and I must say... it was the most annoying/uncomfortable 8 hours of my life... in which I only slept for 2.
LAME.

Well, at 7, we take the... Easy Bus? I can't remember the name, but it was the cheapest transport into London (aside from having a relative drive you there), and it was raining... surprise, surprise.
The bus driver lady informs us that Victoria Station was closed due to "some demonstration," and Clemson asked "What kind of demonstration?"
Bus Driver: I think... it's a... St. Patrick's Day demonstration...
Clemson: Oh my God... what do they have against St. Patrick's Day over here? What's so wrong with St. Patrick's day?
I guess "Demonstration" is a Brit term for "parade." Way to confuse us, Brits.
Anyway, we were dropped off at some bus stop that was a couple of blocks away from Victoria Station--where we were originally going to be dropped off-- so we had to call my Bro to pick us up.
The weather looked like this:A little worse, though, because it was raining a lot, it was fucking freezing, we were wet, and there was wind. We stood around waiting for Bro to come pick us up for about half an hour.
We were not diggin' London at this point.

Once we were picked up, we purchased an all day ticket for "The Underground" (how cute... Underground... what ever happened to the word "metro?") for... I think it was 5 pounds... aka 10 bucks.
We headed to my brother's flat, and by now, my pants would fall down due to both being too large and the bottom of my pants being so incredibly soaked.
We met the roommates (who were all hungover and had barely gone to sleep after participating in some huge Pub Crawl the entire night), I changed clothes, hung my very soaked pants (poorly) on their heating system thingie, then had breakfast.
Everyone we bumped into at the building were nice, mature people. Huge contrast between the people in my sister's program... probably has a lot to do with the fact that the only people in the entire building are Notre Dame students... so there's no reason for them to be posers... no point in trying to impress others.
Anyway, after getting fed and whatnot, we headed out to meet London.First was Tate's Modern Museum.
We walked over that bridge you see to the left... I think it was called "The Millenium Bridge."
In the photo, we were leaving the museum, my brother's in the brown sweater behind HDT, and we turned right, toward a bunch of bridges.





This is London Bridge... you can't really tell, but HDT's rather disappointed.
No wonder they made that song about the bridge.En suite, we noticed Tower bridge ahead... so much better (Can you see how wet the floor is? The rain was incessant!).
We crossed Tower Bridge and hung out at the Tower of London. No pictures of that because, really, who wants to see something so depressing?
From there, we went to some store, where I purchased some Manchester United keychain that I was very excited about... only to fucking lose it on my way back to Vegas. I'm such an idiot.

Anyway, after that, we somehow got to Parliament Square, and I took my favorite shot of HDT:Big Ben is awesome... astounding... just... I stood there in awe of that ginormous clock. I couldn't stop thinking about Peter Pan, either.
We took tons of pictures there, but I'm only posting this one, since all others have my face in them... including the ONE picture I took of Westminster Abbey.

From there, we walked on over to St. James Park, where I took tons of pictures because you could see the London Eye in the background, there were cute squirrels everywhere... well, it was just awesome. The rain had stopped... so I wasn't even cold.
Anyway, in the distance, I saw this little cottage thing... so I decided that it will forever be known as HDT's home: (white building to the right)We then walked a little further to see, of freaking course, Buckingham Palace.
(Clemson's the girl in the hat)That wasn't even a good shot. I'm actually standing on the cool monument that is in front of the Palace... the very pretty roundabout.
The Queen was in, because the flag was flying high... and as we walked and checked out the gates, some giant hummer limo strolled by, with some rapper, filming a music video.
We pretty much stood there, dumb-founded, at how the hell they ever thought of filming a video there.
As we stood, glaring at the limo, TravelinDin noticed some little kid inside the palace looking out the window closest to us.
"There's fucking little kid in there!!" she said.

I just love how she manages to add that great descriptor in there... when referring to a child.
Anyway, we walked some more... and reached this very pretty church:The exact name I can't remember... but it's a Catholic one.
They were celebrating mass, so Brother and I listened a bit... but not too long, since TravelinDin and Clemson were standing outside drinking their expensive ass Starbucks.
We then decided we were hungry as hell... so Bro took us to a Chinese buffet.
8 pounds... for... tame Chinese food.
Blah.

We ate until the sight of food started making us queasy, and we headed for Trafalgar Square.
Before we reached the square, Brother took us to his school... which was lovely... the old French Embassy that Notre Dame purchased.
We got a very funny inside joke thanks to that... right, TravelinDin? haha.
I met some of Bro's classmates/friends, looked through their books... stared at their aquarium... just... stood in awe for a bit... then headed back out (my brother's such a lucky punk).

Upon reaching Trafalgar Sqaure, we realized we had forgotten something:
London was celebrating St. Patrick's Day...
They had closed Trafalgar Square to hold a "demonstration," i.e. a concert celebrating St. Patrick's Day.
They somehow knew we weren't Irish (call me crazy, but I think it was thanks to my bro's brown sweater that read "Hecho en Mexico"... and the fact that both Bro and I are pretty damn brown in comparison to white people), so they were like "keep walkin'" and pushed us away, as they let some drunken white kids walk in there without a problem.
Alright. Whatever. Fuck you.

Sooooooooo. It was some sort of concert only white people were allowed to attend... white people rocking green.

We then walked a bit more... it got dark... we saw Big Ben lit up, The Eye was also lit, as were other monuments.
We checked out some sort of stable before we called it a day and headed back to the flat.

At the flat, I watched Flight of the Concords... laughed... then fell asleep as if someone had hit me upside the head with a bat.
I only woke up once a group of Brother's friends were in the room, laughing, and making plans to go out.

Bro's Friend: So, what pubs are we hittin'?
Us (Clemson, TravelinDin, and Me): None.
Bro's Friend: Why?
Us: We're leaving...
Bro's Friend: Like... tonight?
TravelinDin: Like, right now.
Bro's Friend: Ah, well... that sucks... I thought you guys were doing the crawl with us tonight.

Yeah, life sucks like that... he was pretty decent looking, too.

So, at 10:15PM we head out to the bus stop... only to see on our ticket that our bus was supposed to arrive at 10:20 PM.
The bus never showed.
We had to buy a 16 pound train ride to the Stansted airport... and we were all pretty pissed.
We hugged Brother goodbye... got a little teary eyed... then left to the airport, where we slept until... 9 AM?
Our plane took off to Rome at 10 AM, and that's how we said goodbye to good ol' England.
(of course, at the airport a ton of stupid shit occured... like, the people working at the cafe began recognizing us, we reassorted our luggage contents, the cunt at the entrance of the security checkpoint worried me by telling me I could only have ONE piece... I had to somehow shove my purse into my carry-on... when everyone else was fucking walking around with a purse AND a carry-on... this in turn made me get in a nasty fit with Clemson... who was being a moron... but I bit my tongue because I think there's something wrong with going off on a girl 4 years my junior, etc, etc)

I'll end it all by saying:
I loved London... even if it's expensive as fuck... even if my problems with Clemson began to escalate from there... even if I only really saw it for a day... even if it was cold and rainy as fuck... even if the stupid cops were racist douche bags... even if the streets were taken over by drunken people of Irish ancestry.

I was in London to celebrate St. Patrick's Day... in the company of kids from a school that have "the fighting Irish" as a mascot.
Fuck. Yes.