London, Day 1 (Sunday 6 December)

Highlights:
1. Bus journey
2. Hyde Park
3. Oxford Street
4. Hostel

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1. Bus journey

So, I took the Oxford Tube from Gloucester in Oxford to Marble Arch in London. For those of you who don't immediately know what I'm talking about, it was from one bus station to one of the corners of Hyde Park. It was an interesting journey because it was my first time on a bus since I had actually come to Oxford. It was also a double-decker, which was interesting and gave some nice views of the street. The journey itself only took about an hour, but while I was riding I was listening to Christmas music and getting ideas for Red vs. Blue ficlets, so we'll see how those materialize.

I ran errands until noon, caught the bus around 12:30, and made it to London with some daylight left, which allowed me to do a few nice things.

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2. Hyde Park

Just like I planned, I got to London with an hour or so of daylight left. I got off a few stops early so I could walk through Hyde Park for a while, and I got some nice pictures of sunset on the water. While I was at the park, I saw a group of mounted police or rangers or something, and I also saw what looked like a fair from far off (a Ferris wheel, scream tower, carnie rides, stuff like that). I also saw some kind of roller blading competition or get-together where skaters were trying to impress one another by skating through a series of cones... yeah, I don't really know how to describe it.

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3. Oxford Street

So, to get to my hostel from Hyde Park, I elected to walk. It was actually a very long walk, more than an hour, and I had a heavy backpack on my back, so it didn't make for a very happy me. But I walked through Oxford Street, which is one of the largest retailer streets in London. There are multiple H&Ms, River Islands, and other stores like that along the length. I got some entertaining pictures of some of the window displays, because they were set up like panto scenes (but garishly freaky ones). I'll put those up on Shutterfly soon, once I get the battery charged on my camera.

So anyways, I actually passed up multiple Tube stations because I figured it wouldn't be that long of a walk, but it was. By the time I got to the hostel, my shoulders and back were killing me.

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4. Hostel

I stayed at a hostel called Ashlee House, on Grays Inn Road. It wasn't more than five minutes from King's Cross (you know, the huge railway station that goes out of London to everywhere else ever). So, for traveling to other places in London, it was a good place to stay, because there was a Tube station there that connected to about five different lines.

Other than that... it was kind of crappy. I was in a room on the top floor with eight beds, but thankfully I got a bottom bunk, so I was happy with that. The walls of our room were painted lime green and the stairwell was a bright lavender color... not the best color scheme, but it was kind of cute and good for the crowd they're going for, I think. The whole place kind of smelled like band camp to me and so didn't exactly evoke the best memories, but I made do. It had a kitchen and a common space in the basement, but most of the time, the mostly German kids in the hotel would be drinking and listening to music down there, so most of the time I just hung out in my room.

The first night I was there, there were six other girls and one kind of creepy guy in the bunk above mine. Two of the girls were some kind of French or Swedish or something, two of the girls were German, and two were Americans. I got to know them all right. They were studying abroad in Turin and were taking the weekend off to go to Dublin and London. Like everyone else on the semester system, they still had class. It was interesting chatting to them, because they didn't exactly understand England. Like, at all. I had to explain to them that Oxford is both a town and a university, and that England, Great Britain, and the UK are not synonymous. I mean, I'm no rocket scientist and I understand it, but for them not to know... enh. I expect too much out of people.

Anyways, since I was pretty disoriented from everything, I pretty much spent the rest of the night writing in my journal. It's got all sorts of pretty colors in it now, I like the way I've been keeping it during my trip. It's also acting as a nice refresher, so I hope that years from now I can read my handwriting and see what I remembered and what I was thinking and feeling.

That's about all for Sunday. I really had a boring day that day and didn't do much besides Hyde Park and Oxford Street that anyone's going to care about.

- Jen -