Fall Break--- LONDON

The first night in London we stayed in an awesome hotel right beside the airport we flew into. The hotel was a Hilton, I think. We had nine girls and we bought two connected rooms. We snuck in three girls after renting the rooms because there was a limit. Each room had a king sized bed and for cots to have for the “third” person in each room. It was a tight fit but we all got a nice, clean, comfortable sleep. The next morning we woke up early and went into the city. We started our hunt for Broadway show tickets. We went to sellers and theatres, looking for student tickets and deciding which ones we wanted to see. The first night I went to see Wicked, which is a musical that tells the background of the witches in the Wizard of Oz. The musical explained and showed a lot of characters underlying motives to the ‘bad’ things that happened in Oz. This was one of my favorite parts of London. I also found it amazing refreshing to be in an English speaking country again.

We stayed in a hostel that had three level bunk beds built into the walls. All nine of us were in one room with one tiny sink and no bathroom. To shower and use the restroom we had to go into the basement from the third floor. The shower rooms were almost impossible to find also. There were always half naked people running to their rooms from all over the hostel. I think part of that problem was that there were about four ways to get to the basement from every corner of the building, and once you are down there it is so easy to get turned around. The hostel was pretty clean and I felt safe because their security was crazy tight.

The second Broadway show I saw was Chicago. I had seen it from my best friends 18^th birthday in high school but it was so great that I thought I would enjoy seeing it again. The performance was actually as I remembered it; the only difference was that this time I was on the first row. After the show we all waited outside of the stage door to congratulate our favorite cast members. That was quite an experience because the cast acted like they hadn’t done anything. They would walk out the back door and just stroll down the next street. We talked to a man who said something to the extent that each gig was just a job. I guessed when I think of famous or talented people who do what they want with their lives, I don’t think of their passion as a job.

We went to see the things that everyone should in London. Along with shopping around the city, I went to Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, London Bridge, and Buckingham Palace. It was so neat to be standing in place that the Queen of London lives and rules from. Later on in our trip we went about thirty minutes on the subway out of the city to Wimbledon. The grounds were beautiful. I wasn’t aware that Wimbledon also had a golf course and many other recreation grounds within the park. I paid too much money to go into the Wimbledon museum and then see the Center Court through a glassed in box. But later all nine of us girls found a security guard that wanted to show off his power and actually take us into the Center Court. I got to go into the stadium and actually sit in the seats. I saw the sixty seats that the royals own at every match.