The Jubilee Line

London has been short, and ever so sweet. It took forever to get here from Denmark, which it really shouldn't have. The Ryan air flight we took wasn't that long, but the travel from Lena's to my friend Andrea's flat, downtown London took around 8 hours. Too much! Plus, landing at Stanstead felt like a little kid had taken hold of the plane in the sky and jolted it all around before we bounced down the runway. Not cool, but, live and learn: Ryan Air is not worth it!

The touchdown might have been shaky, but London itself has been grand! My friend Andrea, another great girl I met working at Camp Nissokone, was gracious enough to put us up for 2 nights. It's been great to catch up! As far as the sites, I've been here 4 times now, and while I've seen quite a lot, we really liked staying in an apartment and being a bit normal. Yesterday we dropped our bags off at Andrea's posh little place she shares with her lawyer boyfriend, Tom. We strolled down the sidewalk that afternoon enjoying the leafy walk and sunny day. We walked ourselves right across the Tower Bridge, one of my favorites, and around the Tower of London.

We hadn't had lunch, so we found a pub with 3 kinds of cider on tap and scotch eggs. If you haven't ever heard of or tried a scotch egg, run, do not walk to the nearest place that sells them and bring your stretchy pants! We stopped at a grocery store so that Ryan could fulfill another long term dream ( they seem a little weird, I know!) of buying Bovril, which is a Vegemite type paste that's actually more like beef bouillon. I consider it rather gross, but when Ryan gets something in his head like a hankering for Bovril on toast (which you can't get in the States), he won't stop until he succeeds. Mission accomplished!

As soon as we got back to Andrea's apartment, we made ourselves right at home and did the most British thing we could think of, which was make tea and watch Harry Potter! So, a pretty good list of favorites checked off the list for London so far: walk across tower bridge, scotch egg and cider in pub, grocery store, tea and Potter! the night was made complete when Andrea got home with a bag of fish and chips- extra delicious! Once it was doused in vinegar, all dreams were fulfilled! We had a few drinks with Andrea, caught up, and chatted away about camp days gone by. Man, that summer was like the gift of friends that keeps on giving!

Yesterday Ryan I did the LAST load of laundry we'll have to do on the road (hooray!), then went out to see the Imperial War Museum, which was fascinating, super well designed and I really wanted to see and read everything in there. Really great, and I highly recommend it if you are ever in London. We spent three hours there, and I most definitely could have used a few more, as I feel like I didn't get to see enough of their extensive Holocast wing. Moving, and one of the best I've seen.

Unfortunately, Andrea's had to work both days we are in town, but we made the best if it by going out to a really nice Indian dinner last night, walked along the Thames and saw the tower bridge all lit up. Nice! I wish we could stay longer (how many times have I said that?!), but it's time to move on to Iceland before our last stop before heading back home to Ryan's parent's place in New Jersey, seeing friends in New York, and then driving to Michigan and on to Chicago to start the apartment and job hunt to start the next step and chapter of this crazy thing called life!!

This feels like the part of a flight that, right before landing, they hit the gas before making a smooth landing, and while I can feel the travel bug inside me digging in its heels, I am ready to head home, wherever that is, and start the new normal, whatever that is! I'll get right on that, right after I'm wowed by Iceland. :)