Day 81, 4/11/2010

Day 71, 4/1/2010

This is yet another long day. If you haven’t noticed I’ve said that a lot. It was one of the busiest weeks/months that we’ve had yet. More work that started in the morning and went on through the afternoon. All of us only stopped long enough to get some lunch. Then more work for the rest of the day. Like I said, it was a long day. After we were done working we all went home usually at staggered times. I went home around 7 or so because I had to get ready to leave the next day for London. I was going to go to London on my own to see things at my own pace. Needless to say with that weekend the friendship I thought I had with Trisha was gone forever. She and I won’t ever be as close or as good of friends ever again.

Day 72, 4/2/2010

This was the beginning of our four day weekend. Sadly I wasn’t able to find a hostel for Thursday night otherwise I would have been there an entire day earlier. It was rather upsetting when I searched for hostel rooms NOBODY had an opening on Thursday. So I made my reservations for today. I didn’t have a flight until Way late in the evening so I didn’t get an entire day to do things for that weekend. It kinda sucked. So That day I slept until lunch time because I didn’t have school for the day. After that I packed up my computer and finished packing everything I would need for the weekend. Then I went down stairs for a little while so I could talk to Sean and enjoy the afternoon before I had to torture myself with traveling. At about four I decided it was time to get ready to go to the airport in Dusseldorf. My plane flight wasn’t until about 9 so I needed to leave with enough time to get there two hours before hand. It would take me at least an hour to get to the airport itself. So at around that time I headed to the Bonn Hauptbahnhof and got myself a ticket on the RE to Dusseldorf. The train wasn’t due to arrive till 5:30 which I wasn’t happy about because I was already feeling like I was late on getting there. I got on the train and was on my way to the airport. When I got to the airport I had to get on the skytram over to the terminal then I went through the airport security to get to my gate, just like always. I only had to wait a little while for the bus to take us to the plane. After that I was off on my trip. When the plane arrived in London I headed to the only place I knew to go for transport to the city and it was coaches. I wasn’t happy about it but I didn’t know if there were actually any trains. So I got a bus ticket to a coach that was leaving in 5 minutes so I ran over to where the buses were picking up so I could head to Victoria Station in London. That took me soooo long to get there I finished Trisha’s book during that time so I had to read other things like books I bought later that weekend. So for the rest of the coach ride I just looked out the window. When the coach finally arrived at Victoria station we all had to find our way from the coach drop off to the Underground station itself. It took me forever to find it because It wasn’t anywhere near the coach station. Eventually I just followed the other people that got off the bus with me to the station. It took a while to find because there were no signs leading toward it. When I got there I bought a one way ticket over to the station I needed from the help station and then figured out which stations I needed to get to in order to get to Queensway the station that was near my hostel. I eventually found it after some confusing signs and directions found on a city map. First I couldn’t find Queensway on the map. Then, I had to figure out which station would take me to that line, then I had to find which direction on the train to go to get to the Central line, in which Queensway is on. I eventually navigated successfully to the station I needed to go but before that when I was waiting for the first train I had a small scare that turned out rather funny later. As I was standing there I heard the train coming, so, like usual, I got up to stand and wait for it to stop so I could board. Well as the train was entering the tub station (that’s what they call them in England) this GIANT bolt of electricity shot off the front of the train to the tracks. I almost fell over myself with fright because I was not expecting this bolt at all. It was rather frightening and after that I stayed farther back from the tracks because I didn’t want to get struck. Although I don’t think I would have because the bolts happen a lot, just not usually that large. After that I got to the station, Queensway and came out of the station to street level in order to look for my hostel. This also turned into an ordeal because I became quite lost looking for this place and it turns out that it was literally Right there in front of the station. I ended up walking up and down the street for several more hours up and down and up and down. I started to get rather nervous because I was afraid that someone unpleasant would notice that I was walking back and forth looking lost. During this whole time I was trying to not look worried. Eventually I decided to go into the Burger King and get some food like that was what I was doing all along. While I was there I asked the worker for some directions that ended up being really bad because he sent me farther down the street, which was the wrong street. After getting my food I headed in the direction he told me and this turned out bad because the addresses stopped after 100 and I was looking for 121. So I was getting more and more upset. Finally, I decided to stop and get the map I had made in class on Thursday instead of working. I found a table to place it on and I looked at it till I figured out where the hell I was and where the hell my hostel was. Turns out the guy at Burger King told me the wrong direction. I would have been so much easier if the hostel website would have given good directions in the first place instead of right next to Queensway. So I turned right around and headed back to the station. To the right of the exit to the station was another street that T-ed with the street I was on. Since I knew where I was going I turned left at this street and I only had to go a few feet and there it was. Right there, Royal Bayswater Hotel. I was not happy because it took me more than an hour to get to a place that would have only taken me about 5 minutes to walk to. So finally I was able to check in and I headed up the stair case to my room, 114. When I got up to my room I turned on the TV and ate my dinner then after a few hours of wasting time watching TV I went to sleep.