We went to a makeup shop to check to see if an order Roxy had put in had arrived, and while we were there we wandered into some stores that sold books and pop culture merchandise. We also went into some vintage clothing stores. Afterwards we went to the War Museum, which featured exhibits from almost all the wars Britain has been involved in. Admission was free (it might have only been free past a certain time, I can't remember) and they searched our bags briefly before we went in. The first room has airplanes, tanks, and a trolly while outside the building itself is a giant cannon. I took some photos for a man and his mother in front of one of the tanks. They were from Australia and the man said he had just spent two months in America (Delaware and some other more eastern state) for training for volunteering to help starving kids and that sort of thing.
They had models of houses from WWII, models of clothing, food, toys, and they had simulated trenches (including the smell!) along with a lot of picture and movie exhibits. The trench simulation was in my opinion too short to really have any effect on a person but Aino had thought it was good. However my eyesight is quite good in the dark so I could see everywhere in the trench just fine anyway despite there being few lights (and the lights that were there were flickering). I really liked the models of the houses, it was surprising how small everything was. Even the beds were a lot smaller than we have today.
The gift shop had some nice things like postcards with old photos and some toy and candy replicas, but I was overall disappointed. I thought there would be more clothing replicas and just replicas in general, a lot of it was the same images printed on different things (like a postcard, t-shirt, fridge magnet, and mug). I bought some things for dad there.
After this we met up with some more friends who are also visiting London at the same time and we ate at Pizza Express near Victoria Station. It was good food, but it was a bit expensive and they only cut half of everyone's pizzas into slices, in addition they had immense trouble considering splitting a pizza into half with one half one type of pizza and the other another type. It was also extremely loud and we could only hear about half the table when we were trying to talk.
When we were done we went to Christine's house, who lives nearby, and talked for a while. We eventually caught the last train home but instead of the normal forty-or-so-minutes, the last train takes two hours and it goes to a bunch of stations no one had heard before. Most of the train got off at the first stop because they didn't recognize where it was going, but we stayed on and got home in the end.
Friday, May 28, 2010
26th Wednesday
We went to The British Museum. It was really big and built like a maze, and had a lot of statues and old artifacts from various countries in it. Snorri and I weren't as interested in the museum as everyone else so we walked around while they looked at all the exhibits. After a while Roxy, Snorri, and I went to a convenience store and bought ginger cookies/biscuits and drinks, while the others continued to look around the museum. I bought a lemon-lime water drink that wasn't carbonated, and the others bought various things, and then we returned to the steps of the museum. They were shooting a movie on the steps of the museum, all the actors were Indian and one of the staff(?) was holding something like a really long mop. There was a lady in a business suit who walked up some of the steps and then turned around to talk to a man, but I couldn't hear anything they said even though they were fairly close.
Erin, Snorri, and I went to Piccadilly to wait for Aino, who I met last year in Iceland as well, (Aino is from and lives in Finland). According to a friend, the statue in the middle of Piccadilly is the god Eros and this place used to be a meeting place for lovers. There are a lot of French tourist groups and classes that go on field trips to the museums. There was one at the museum and there was one at Piccadilly too, and I've also been seeing lots of English classes with students in uniforms at all the museums.
Erin, Snorri, and I went to Piccadilly to wait for Aino, who I met last year in Iceland as well, (Aino is from and lives in Finland). According to a friend, the statue in the middle of Piccadilly is the god Eros and this place used to be a meeting place for lovers. There are a lot of French tourist groups and classes that go on field trips to the museums. There was one at the museum and there was one at Piccadilly too, and I've also been seeing lots of English classes with students in uniforms at all the museums.
24th Monday
I arrived at the airport and made it though the American security check just fine, but after I had gotten off the plane in Canada they thought I was suspicious (Because I was bringing two things of luggage for a one week flight) and so they put me in a different area and started to interrogate me. They asked me stuff about where I lived, who I was meeting, what I was going to do in London, had I been out of the country before, et cetera. They were really quite mean about it and after nearly everything I said the staff member said "You know, for some reason I don't believe you."
They told me to write down the names, phone numbers, and addresses of everyone I was going to meet, of my landlord, of Arlene who I visited in Canada a few weeks ago, and of my parents. They asked if my parents knew I was going on this trip (despite me being a legal adult and having already told the staff I didn't live with my parents) and after I gave them my dad's number they left, so I assume they called him. I hadn't memorized numbers or addresses for anyone because I had the important ones written down and all the unimportant ones are in my phone, which doesn't work anywhere outside of the US (not even in Canada), so I hadn't brought my phone. They couldn't believe that I hadn't memorized all of these numbers or that I hadn't brought my phone despite me telling them where all my friends were from (various countries in Europe, hence never memorizing their numbers because I won't need to call for help or call them at all because of the expenses) and telling them my phone doesn't work in Europe or Canada. They kept asking me tons and tons of questions and I had looked down to turn off my ipod because I had been listening to it while I was waiting for them to finish doing something in another room, and they got mad at me for not looking them in the eye when I was turning it off (because I was looking at the ipod itself to make sure it turned off).
They found three things suspicious. One, that I was bringing two bags and that one of those was a bag filled with gifts for friends. Two, that I was bringing so little money (they asked me how much I was bringing and when I told them, they said "You can barely survive one day on that amount" despite it being a lot more than that would take, and I told them I was staying with a friend, eating their food, and not planning to go out and do expensive things and they acted like that was unheard of). Three, that I was meeting up with friends because apparently... friends don't meet up together in Canada. I had a subway map with directions on how to get to the meeting place where Snorri would be waiting and they kept folding and unfolding it, looking at the back as if it would magically hold some clue as to what I was doing wrong despite it having nothing but meeting instructions on it.
After about two hours of this, they went to actually rummage through my suitcases to check and make sure I wasn't packing anything contraband. I had been doodling some pictures about the volcano and how it was disrupting flights, and once they saw that they asked me if I was "going to go to any protests" and if I had "very strong opinions". I told them I wasn't and that I had opinions but they weren't strong and I wasn't going to act on them. Finally they let me go, but I still had to go to the ticket counter and everything to pick up the tickets for my connecting flight... which was arriving in ten minutes by then. I ran through the airport and got to the security check where I was stuck in a line that was going slowly, except most of the people in it were all from Scotland and all friends of each other, and when they found out when my airplane was supposed to leave they all let me cut ahead of them. I kept running because the security check was at about the middle of the airport while the gate for my flight was at the very end, and when I got there they said it hadn't even started boarding yet because the plane had been late.
I went through the English customs just fine, but at baggage claim I found out my baggage hadn't arrived. So I had to file a missing baggage form and use Gunnar's (Snorri's uncle, the one we're staying with) address and phone number so they could drop it off.
I met Erin at the airport, she's from Ohio and she's visited Washington before. From Heathrow we traveled by train and eventually got to Victoria station where we met Snorri. We had a bit of trouble finding out exactly where to go because I mistook a store name in the directions as a street name, but a man who was probably homeless saw that we were lost and helped us out.
From there we wandered around until we settled at Piccadilly, where we were meeting the other Icelanders who were also going to be staying at Gunnar's place. For the rest of the day we basically wandered around some more.
They told me to write down the names, phone numbers, and addresses of everyone I was going to meet, of my landlord, of Arlene who I visited in Canada a few weeks ago, and of my parents. They asked if my parents knew I was going on this trip (despite me being a legal adult and having already told the staff I didn't live with my parents) and after I gave them my dad's number they left, so I assume they called him. I hadn't memorized numbers or addresses for anyone because I had the important ones written down and all the unimportant ones are in my phone, which doesn't work anywhere outside of the US (not even in Canada), so I hadn't brought my phone. They couldn't believe that I hadn't memorized all of these numbers or that I hadn't brought my phone despite me telling them where all my friends were from (various countries in Europe, hence never memorizing their numbers because I won't need to call for help or call them at all because of the expenses) and telling them my phone doesn't work in Europe or Canada. They kept asking me tons and tons of questions and I had looked down to turn off my ipod because I had been listening to it while I was waiting for them to finish doing something in another room, and they got mad at me for not looking them in the eye when I was turning it off (because I was looking at the ipod itself to make sure it turned off).
They found three things suspicious. One, that I was bringing two bags and that one of those was a bag filled with gifts for friends. Two, that I was bringing so little money (they asked me how much I was bringing and when I told them, they said "You can barely survive one day on that amount" despite it being a lot more than that would take, and I told them I was staying with a friend, eating their food, and not planning to go out and do expensive things and they acted like that was unheard of). Three, that I was meeting up with friends because apparently... friends don't meet up together in Canada. I had a subway map with directions on how to get to the meeting place where Snorri would be waiting and they kept folding and unfolding it, looking at the back as if it would magically hold some clue as to what I was doing wrong despite it having nothing but meeting instructions on it.
After about two hours of this, they went to actually rummage through my suitcases to check and make sure I wasn't packing anything contraband. I had been doodling some pictures about the volcano and how it was disrupting flights, and once they saw that they asked me if I was "going to go to any protests" and if I had "very strong opinions". I told them I wasn't and that I had opinions but they weren't strong and I wasn't going to act on them. Finally they let me go, but I still had to go to the ticket counter and everything to pick up the tickets for my connecting flight... which was arriving in ten minutes by then. I ran through the airport and got to the security check where I was stuck in a line that was going slowly, except most of the people in it were all from Scotland and all friends of each other, and when they found out when my airplane was supposed to leave they all let me cut ahead of them. I kept running because the security check was at about the middle of the airport while the gate for my flight was at the very end, and when I got there they said it hadn't even started boarding yet because the plane had been late.
I went through the English customs just fine, but at baggage claim I found out my baggage hadn't arrived. So I had to file a missing baggage form and use Gunnar's (Snorri's uncle, the one we're staying with) address and phone number so they could drop it off.
I met Erin at the airport, she's from Ohio and she's visited Washington before. From Heathrow we traveled by train and eventually got to Victoria station where we met Snorri. We had a bit of trouble finding out exactly where to go because I mistook a store name in the directions as a street name, but a man who was probably homeless saw that we were lost and helped us out.
From there we wandered around until we settled at Piccadilly, where we were meeting the other Icelanders who were also going to be staying at Gunnar's place. For the rest of the day we basically wandered around some more.
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