I thought I was going to see Westminster Abbey and St. Paul’s Cathedral but only got around to seeing the Cathedral. I was so busy in the morning since I needed to purchase my bus ticket from London to Edinburgh, Scotland for Wednesday. I decided to move my departure for the flexi-tour through Scotland by a week. So, I took the tube to Victoria Station and then walked to Victoria Coach Station to buy my ticket. Then I headed to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Words cannot describe the place. I took some photos outside but wasn’t able to take any inside the building. Can you imagine I was in the same place where Prince Charles married Princess Diana? I also ended up staying for one of the 30 minute services. During the service, I looked around where I was sitting and they had cherubs all around and if you looked straight up at the ceiling they had angels painted on it. After the service, I walked through some more of the cathedral before walking down to the London boutique ‘Butterfly’ where Maryam worked. We talked for a while before I had to leave to meet Cherie. Before I left the boutique, I told Maryam I would call her when I came back through London and she could show me around some more.
Then I left to meet Cherie, a friend from home who was studying at Pepperdine University (located in California but they have a house in London) for the semester. I was meeting her at 3:00 pm. The University is located in South Kensington. Finally getting together with Cherie, we took the long way around to get to Starbucks to get something to take away. Back in the states, we call it take-out. In London, it is called take-away. I ordered an iced tea frappucchino. Then we headed to Hyde Park which is huge! Cherie took some pictures of me since all I had been taking were photos of buildings with no-one in them. Not even photos of me. While in Hyde Park, we walked down to Peter Pan’s statue and the Italian Fountains. I think this is my favorite area in London. Then we had to head back since I was meeting Kyle (an Australian I met on the net) at London Bridge station at 6:30 pm. Before meeting him, I headed back to St. Christopher’s Inn to go to the room for awhile to rest. But when I got to the room, my key card wasn’t working to get me into the room so I headed to St. Christopher’s Village to have them fix the card. That is where I met Scott who was also stayng in the same room as me. He asked me if I wanted to get a drink. I almost said no because I was suppose to meet Kyle. But, I actually said yes. Why not! This trip is about meeting new people and getting out of my shell (my shyness surrounds me like a shroud). Scott and I headed next door to Belushi’s bar. First London pub for my first drink in Europe. He ordered cider for the both of us. We sat around and talked for awhile. He told me a bit about himself. He had just gotten out of the navy after having been enlisted for ten years. He was going to school in Detroit, Michigan. Then I had to leave to meet Kyle but I didn’t want to leave. I had to since I had already made plans to meet Kyle that night.
I met Kyle at London Bridge station and we headed to St. Christopher’s Inn which has a bar on the 1st floor. I ordered a half pint of Guinness and we talked for awhile before he had to leave to head back to his hostel and I headed back to mine. After being in the room for a short while, Scott showed up and asked if I wanted to go get another drink. I know now that I should have said yes but I was already in my pj’s. I ended up going to sleep about 10:00 pm but woke up about 3:40 am to snoring coming from the bed next to mine. Some new guy staying in the room with the rest of us. There were eight of us in the room and one one is asleep. Do you know which one that could be. He had woken all of us up with his snoring. Fred had gotten up from his bed to try and shake the guy. Hoping that would do the trick and wake him up. Didn’t work — he must have been dead to the world. Finally one of the guys moved his head sideways and his snoring wasn’t as loud. At that point, we were ready to kill him if he didn’t stop snoring.
