Anyway, day 1:
All five of us (Me, Aubrea, Hanna, Kristen, and Tiffany) met up at LAX with all of our families, said our goodbyes, and flew straight to London. Getting to our hostel was an adventure in itself! It took us about an hour and a half from when we picked up our bags at the airport until we arrive at our hostel... half an hour on one train, at least another half hour switching lines and going up and down and up and down TONS of stairs with all of our luggage, then another half an hour walk trying to find the hostel once we were out of the underground, again, carrying all of our luggage. We were sooo relieved when we finally found it, and were able to get upstairs to drop everything off.
Our hotel room was about the size of my dorm room freshman year - 2 bunk beds, one single bed, and all five of us in one room! But we do have our own private bathroom and shower, which is nice. Oh - and they didn't provide towels, which we weren't expecting, so we ended up using our pillowcases to dry off after showers (we each had two, so it wasn't too bad). It worked, but now I know I will definitely be asking about that when booking at hostels in the future.
As chaotic as all of this was, all of us were still in pretty good spirits. At one point on the Underground, Hanna got stuck in the doors of the train car... like the doors literally closed on her while she was trying to get out.
At another point in the Underground when we were taking an escalator, Tiffany got on the moving stairs with her luggage behind her, and one of her bags got stuck at the bottom while her and her other suitcase were moving up the escalator. We definitely spent a lot of time laughing in the process of trying to get to our hostel.
Anyway, our hotel had a poster advertising a free walking tour of London in the afternoon, so we decided to check it out. It started near Hyde Park, and we ended up seeing so much of the city! We went to Buckingham palace, a few other royal palaces, Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey. The tour ended near big ben, and since we were near the river, we asked our tour guide for a suggestion of a place to eat dinner nearby. He pointed us in the right direction, and we headed over the bridge and past the London Eye, were we ended up eating at this cute Italian restaurant near the water. All of us really enjoyed the food and being able to sit down and relax after such a long day.
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