Saturday, July 7th.

Saturdy, July 7th.
I woke up way too early for my liking to go to breakfast at 7:30am. Then we had yet another mandatory meeting at 8:30 filled with stuff that I'm certain we've heard at least 4 times. Yes, I know they're only concerned with our safety and us enjoying the trip. After this, we got on a coach again and went on a bus tour from 10-12. This was awesome because it was the first time that we really got to see the "legit" London stuff. Our tour guide was an awesome older woman who reminded me so much of Mary Poppins. I wasn't sure if that was an offensive comparison, so I didn't ask if her name was Mary. "Mary" took us to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace which was awesome. She also showed us around a little but let us break off and do what we wanted.

Me and 2 other girls saw Buckingham up close, Queen Victoria's Memorial, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Big Ben and Parliament, all sorts of Gardens and Parks, and stores. I spotted Hard Rock Cafe and instantly had to go there. When we went, I saw a geniune Led Zeppelin drum set... and yes- I really did cry tears of joy. I made sure to buy a Hard Rock shirt from the gift shop... where I didn't realize you had to wait in line outside of the stores and I just barged in. I'm very everyone was talking about what a stupid American I was. One of the huge things going on in the city that day was Gay Pride. We saw a little bit of the parade but then went to Soho (largest gay district) and saw lots of crazy stuff... and I mean lots. We went through all of the touristy stuff and explored and I bought a new British staightener then made our way back to campus for a few around 8.

We all got back and decided it was a Saturday night in London so we might as well go to a pub around 10. No one told us that pubs AND tube stations close early. Recipe for disaster! We walked around aimlessly for miles trying to find something that was open. We really weren't lost, but we just didn't know the hours or locations of anything. We never did find anything except a McDonald's around 1am then it was a challenge to make our way back. We sat down under a building's awning and ate our foreign McDonald's and ATTEMPTED our way back. After waiting an hour for nearly the only bus running at night, we eventually got back to campus around 3am. I went to bed and slept in entierly too long into Sunday.