Foggy London Town

Its been a few days since my last post, but that's because I was down south in London! I left Friday afternoon after my anatomy lab (we dissected the anti-brachium of the dog leg we had been working on for a while, good stuff). My train left around 4 and everything was going very smoothly, apart for the fact that I was getting a bit sick, very sniffly and stuffy nose, no bueno. But as we continued on our way we became later and later! First we got to a station where a lot of people went onto the train. Ad the train was quite packed, the conductor informed us that the train was very full and that some people were going to have to get off. I had a reserved seat so it certainly wasn't going to be me. After that he informed us that we were behind a slower train, so we couldn't go as fast as we normally would, and that the till was broken so were physically weren't able to go as fast as we normally could! But, eventually, I made it to London, and after getting a little lost in the terminal, I found the taxi queue and (after a rather expensive taxi ride) I was at Stephs! She lives in the school dorms because she's doing an internship for a semester there, so it was the perfect opportunity to see and new city and an old friend! That night we went out with some of her friends to a local pub, which was a lot of fun! I met a lot of her friends and they were all really nice and seemed to enjoy living in London and were telling great stories about all of the places that they have visited since they've been there.  The next day we went out lunch and a good Pad Thai place and then went on a walking tour of Richmond, where the main campus for Stephs Uni is. We thought it was going to be a rock'n'roll tour, but it ended up being a historical tour of the area. After we figured that he wasn't going to start talking about Jagger and Townsend, it was a pretty enjoyable tour, very interesting and architecturally geared, so it ended up being unexpectedly fun! After that some of Stephs friends were in the area watching a rugby game so we met up with them and met a few rugby players who took us to a local rugby pub to hang out. One was from Wales and the other was from London, and we all had a good time exchanging stories, though the Londoner gave me crap for getting a Strongbow (cider thats popular here/delicious) but I gave him crap right back, and lets just say he was taken aback by my turn-of-phrase. Also I met a little person from London and we had a lovely conversation, sine he initially thought I was from Wales, my response pretty much killed that assumption as the CA accent does not sound like the Welsh one. After a while some of us were hungry, so we got Lebanese food and moved on to another pub and then home after a long day. The next day we took our time getting ready and went to lunch at an Italian place where Princess Diana used to have lunch! It was really good, so I can see why she went there! Afterwards we went to the Tower of London, which came highly recommended by friends here. It was really cool! We all got the audio guides so we followed that around. We got to see the CROWN JEWELS!!! It was sooooo sparkly! I wish we could have taken pictures, but a girl in front of us did and she got shut down by the beefeaters who work there, he made her delete the picture, so I didn't want to have a similar fate. But I can now say that I have seen the largest clear cut diamond in the world! The jewels were amazing, and next time they are going out is for Charles' coronation, so not for a while! We saw the tower where people were kept, and various torture devices, and an exhibit on armor, and lots of crows. Afterwards we popped in the gift shop and then had to rush back to the halls to get my stuff and then take me to the train so I wouldn't miss my train! The ride back was fairly uneventful, I made friends with an elderly couple sitting across from me on their way to Blackpool, which sounds like a cool city, so I may have to go visit someday! Then there was a group of boys who were playing music and singing along really loudly, but i had my iPod so I only listened when it was a really good song, but they weren't the best singers so I didn't listen too often! But I made it home in one piece with all my stuff, so all in all I would say successful trip to London! And now I can officially say that I've been to London and not just in the airport!
PS- other notable things I saw: the eye, London Bridge, Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abby