I'm Henry the Eighth I Am

After an uncomfortable flight on one of the world's worst airlines, Easyjet, we were greeted by Paul and Kip. They came to Gatwick to pick us up in the middle of the night which was so sweet. Kip fed us homemade ice cream and we stayed up into the early morning. She showed us her impressive collection of ringworm(s?) named Henry I-VIII, a souvenir from South America. She and Paul took very good care of us for a few days, even installing a new washing machine so we could wash away Morocco, and sent us off on a train to meet up with Gwill.

We were both really happy to be in London. The weather was beautiful nearly every day and we had a really great time. We rode the buses around almost exclusively, enjoying the view from the top deck. We visited a few museums and, in a city of extortionately priced entertainment, food, sights and transportation (4GBP to ride the tube ONE TIME?! That's close to $8!), we were pleasantly surprised to find admission was free. We travelled down to Greenwich and Royal Observatory and stood between the hemispheres. We walked down by the Tower Bridge and St. Katharine's dock, where my dad lived for awhile. We spent a small ransom on visas for Russia, China and Vietnam. Also, most importantly, we had a feast of sushi for Jessica's birthday.


As much as we enjoyed ourselves I have to say that London is a drastically frightening place in some respects. The adolescents are terri-fying and increasingly violent. There are a lot of spitting mad people walking the streets, breaking windows and stealing mobile phones like they will soon stop making them. On Saturday we walked past a phone booth and there was guy inside sparking up some heroin. His face illuminated in the otherwise pitch black capsule was eerie. I didn't feel safe walking around the streets at night in a way that was reminiscent of Tangier or Moscow.

Seeing Gwill after three years was very important to me and I feel lucky that London was a convenient stop on our tour. He graciously gave up his room to us so our backpacks could freely explode all over the floor, dresser and nightstand and when you are travelling that is a simple but immense pleasure.

After a chaotic St Patrick's day, which included us getting locked out of the house for the entire night, we packed frantically (as usual), caught a cab to Liverpool, were denied boarding on a bus to Stansted, ran downstairs to catch the train (which was delayed, naturally), got to the airport with barely enough time to check in, waited in a scandalously long security line, got fast tracked, got detained by a nasty security guard who needed to look at every article in my bursting day pack, ran to the train to the terminals (which almost left without us), ran up the stairs to our gate and nearly collapsed into incredibly uncomfortable seats.

Now we are in Tallinn, Estonia waiting for our bus to depart for St Petersburg.