It is literally just a huge rock. And it has it's own international airport.

So Laura is here. I mean she’s not like right here right now…but she is here in London, somewhere in this hostel. I think she’s sleeping. Let me back up a bit though. A couple nights ago, I met a bloke named Ian from Australia. He was all kinds of tight and just a real funny, good guy. So we hung out that night (Monday night) and they all day yesterday and last night. Honestly, Aussie people are my favorite people (in general) to meet. They kinda just seem to have all the good attributes of an American but with none of the bad ones. But Ian is like a computer programmer or something back in Australia and he apparently just decided one day that he needed a vacation so he bought a ticket to Europe departing the following morning and jumped on a plane. He’s been here now for just a few weeks but his company I guess likes him enough that they said that as long as he comes back within 8 months, they’ll just keep him on salary while he’s away. So basically he’s just getting free money for 8 months. Even though he doesn’t let it come across, I think he’s got a really good job and makes PLENTY of money. And he’s definitely real smart. But anyways, he was a really good guy and I had fun kickin it with him for a few days. He left this morning for Cambridge though so he’s gone and I never got his last name so I’ll probably never talk to him again. So weird…

So anyways I got up this morning and headed to the airport to meet Laura. After a tube ride that was about 3 times as long as I thought it was going to be and a couple wrong choices regarding my tube route to the airport, I arrived. There are 5 terminals in the Heathrow Airport and I had absolutely no idea which one was the right one. I randomly picked terminal 4, and I got lucky. Awesome. So I got to the “Arrivals” door where I had been informed that “she’s sure to come through that door” by the very nice and helpful lady at Information. Her plane got in at 9:35 and she didn’t walk out of that door until just after 10:30. Not gonna lie, I was about to just peace out and head for our backup meeting spot under the assumption that I must have just missed her. But then she walked out. I just couldn’t believe it took the airport that long to get her through and ready to leave. But anyways, she was finally here and I was happy about it.

We proceeded back to the hostel and she checked in, brushed her teeth, that kinda thing, and then we headed out to catch us some London. The weather sucked today cause it was fairly cold, windy and it was raining. We chose to not let that deter us though and so we soldiered on. There is about a 10 minute walk to the closest tube station from our hostel. That’s where we headed. The walk there would have been almost completely uneventful had it not been for one incident. Ok so it’s been raining right? Right. And this is the kinda thing you always see happen in movies but that you have never actually seen happen to someone because, in general, people are nice enough to other people to do there best to make sure this doesn’t happen. It happened to us though. Here we are, just walking down the sidewalk when this huge red double-decker tour bus drives past us at a high speed. Unfortunately, there was a huge puddle in the street right next to us at the exact moment that the bus drove by. Completely soaked us. Especially Laura. She actually blocked the water from getting the lower half of my body. She was completely drenched though from head to toe. It was one of those things though where right after it happens, you kinda just look at each other and you’re like “did that really just happen?” It did. And the best part about it was that there was this guy who was parked just ahead of us and saw the whole thing happen. He looked at us and gave us a really quirky smile, then gave us a shrug of his shoulders as if to say “hey, what are you gonna do?” Haha we got a really big laugh out of the situation and it really didn’t end up being that big of a deal because it was raining on us anyways so we were pretty much destined to be wet at some point. This just accelerated the process. The water did smell pretty bad though so we felt sorry for anyone sitting near us when we got on the tube…oh well.

Anyways though, we ended up just walking around for a while, checked out Big Ben again, Parliament, Westminster Abbey (though we opted out of paying roughly 25 US dollars to actually get inside cause it seemed ridiculously expensive), and just a bunch of other random stuff. Laura definitely made me take a picture of her with a random “Bobby” who was walking by us at one point. She also made me mimic the pose of a statue for a picture. Those are probably the two most touristy things that I have let happen on my trip and they’re both thanks to Laura. But hey, at least I’ll finally start having some real pictures from the trip.

Ok so as a side note, my computer’s spell/grammar check is trying to get me to change the expression “most touristy” to “touristiest”. Are you serious? Touristiest? Even if that is a word, it doesn’t sound like one. And also, when I actually type that word out, my computer then tells me that it is misspelled. Technology…love it and hate it.

So anyways, now Laura is sleeping cause she’s tired from not getting to sleep on the plane. I could definitely keep going right now but I just don’t have a very high typing stamina today. Thus I think I’m gonna end it here. As far as my health, I’m feeling a little worse today just cause my sinuses are crazy pressured up and it feels like they’re about to push my eyes out of my head. Whatever though, I’m just dealing with it. I’m hoping it’s all almost over.

Keep it real ladies and gents.

Rod