To London to Visit the Queen.

Dear Jack,

Today I went to London with the group. We rode a train from Oxford. I began two poems. One will be about being alone, and the other will be about the train ride... focusing on the guy who sat next to me. I had a nice guy who sat next to me, but I did not say so much as a "hi" or "hello". I don't know why. There's nothing odd bout common courtesy for someone sitting next to you. I am just afraid I guess. What gets me is I don't know what I'm afraid of.

In London we rode in a bus with a much better tour guide, Leoni. She was well informed... other than she got Henry VIII mixed up with Henry VI. She was much friendlier, and not patronizing or condescending. Bravo to Leoni. The loo at Westminster Abbey was the best I've ever been to. It had automatic sinks with automatic soap mixed in the water...then a rinse...then automatically it turned to air--very cool

We stopped at St. Paul's Cathedral for the loo too. I bought a BCP for the COE. It looks pretty nice. A group of us guys went to Piccadilly Circus for lunch at Rutagers. I had nachos... they put chili powder on them before the other stuff. I t wasn't too expensive as far as London goes.

Buz, William Br., William Bu., and I then hopped the Tube to Westminster Abbey so we could tour inside it. Unfortunately it had closed for a service. Thus we went to the Houses of Parliament. However it too had just closed. The Tower of London would also be closing soon, so we decided to walk around London instead.

I figured we could look at the statues at Parliament Square (plus the War protests). We then walked past the Royal Life Guard and got to see the Inspection/Changing of the Guard there. Buz didn't know what it was, and we argued for a while, before, after having the event, he went up to one of the bobbies controlling traffic and asked, "ok.. so what exactly did we just watch?" To which the guy burst into laughter and told him it was the changing of the guard. I was right...ha ha ha. We then walked to the Nelson Column at Trafalgar Square. We subsequently discussed how we did not know who Nelson was, other than he fought the Battle of Trafalgar. I still hold to the idea that he fought Napoleon at Trafalgar, and that's why he's got a column. William Bu. thinks he sank the Spanish Armada.

We then walked to Buckingham Palace. It began to rain on the way. We looked in, and saw that there would be a changing of the guard the next day at 11:30. Then the indecisiveness of the masses set in. They wanted tea, or food, or somewhere to sit down. Well I walked us to Hyde Park Station to catch the Tube so we could go to a place to fulfill the need. Personally I wanted to visit the Gay Pride Festival going on in Hyde Park. I took them to Covent Gardens. There were tons of options. It was 5:30... thus crowded in the food establishments... go figure. Well two weren't hungry, and we couldn't' go in if we did not eat. So we hopped back on the tube so as to head to the hostel. It was a bit of a ride to Shepherd's Bush...horrible name. We got out, and the first comment was, "gee it looks like this is a hopping place with people are age" My jaw dropped, as we had just come from Covent Garden where we were surrounded by people our age, pubs, cafes, restaurants, clubs, stores...

Anyway we found our hostel... St. Christopher's Inn. It was apart of a bar called Bulushi Bar which is a sort of Aussie-American place. It had US and Australian flags everywhere, and loud club music. I got sprayed in the crotch with a seltzer bottle by one of the guys trying to flirt with our attendant while she got our keys. He didn't apologize.

Our rooms were very nice, and not bad for £18 a night. More indecisiveness about what to do for dinner (took 45 mins minimum to decide). We met the girls staying with us at the station (they were 30 mins late.. but the wait was relaxing). They were very apologetic... very nice. We at Mc Donald's... I had sweet curry dip. Then we walked around in the rain.