Saturday, July 28th

Saturday, July 28th... Another early morning! Sam and I got up, took advantage of our free breakfast and headed out for the day. We went to the London Bridge Experience which is like a year round haunted house. We got in 2 for 1 thankfully because it probably wasn't worth that much. I know it isn't what the common Londoner would've done with a Saturday afternoon, but it was fun nonetheless. After the Bridge Experience, we rushed down to Camden markets which I'm not a big fan of. It's way too busy, too many questionable shoppers and too make pushy "salesmen". It's basically one huge flea market. You can't simply walk through and get what you want because there's always that one annoying shopper who stops right in front of you taking up all of the crowded aisle... or the one annoying shopkeeper who will try to bribe you into buying their product for double what it's worth and double what you could get it for down the road. It's quite possible the biggest market district I've ever seen. We finally got what we needed and got the heck out just to rush to Buckingham palace so we could see the Olympic mens cycling event. 

Basically, we stood in a huge, pushy crowd (which I've already stated that I don't enjoy) for around 2.5 hours just to see nothing besides 20 seconds of bikes blowing by. And shoving crowds. "Rushed" is the key word in London. Everything  and everyone is such a huge hurry. There's no leisure time! So much to do in so little time. Anyway, regardless of how grumpy I was at the race from the crowd and feeling like we wasted half the afternoon on it, it was still cool to be able to say that I did attend an Olympic event!  It was heavily guarded by the British military, which is another thing I have a bone to pick with shortly. Some Olympic officials opened a gate and let people through to watch the winner's ceremony on a big screen. Apparently they were not supposed to because the British military quickly formed a human barricade around us and wouldn't let us go any further. Which is when I discovered the bone that I need to pick with them. These men (and yes, they were all men and no women) are technically on leave from deployment. They all took their leave to go home and be with their family, but they are now having to do security for the Olympics. Yeah, that's part of being in the military life. But the fact that they're giving up time with their family and are standing around for 16-18 hours a day and then sleep in a huge room, many without beds, are rarely get the required meal or rest times. I guess this is just a soft spot for me because of John, but I think it's crap. Again you're probably thinking "Please tell us how you REALLY feel!"... that's enough of that.  

After the race, we went back to the British museum yet again to try to find my info for the psychology project. It still didn't work. I got to prove it to my teacher by taking him a signed letter that they indeed do not have the display that he says was there FOUR years ago. Frustrating! Sam then wanted to go to a pub that was feature in the movie "Shaun of the Dead" which of course had to be in the most ghetto part of England that we could've stumbled across. Of course, we got out there (borderline scared for our lives) and there was no pub in existence. Another few hours of the day wasted on said "pub" but oh well. We defeatedly ate at a China buffet in China town before returning to campus. A fun fact about restaurants there...  they can and will charge you if you waste food! We returned to campus a few hours later than planned and then Sam finally got to meet the infamous John via Skype and of course we also stayed up a lot layer than planned! Interesting day to say the least.