London

Leaves, pigeons, and the Grim Reaper. What do they all have in common? They were the things that “attacked” us in London. I’ll explain as this blog post unfolds.

I went to London this weekend with Rachel, Katie, Katrina, Laura, and Julie. A few of us knew people that lived in the area, so we met up with them, too.

We flew in on Friday and explored London on Saturday. First, we met up with Laura’s friend at the Buckingham palace and walked around the city for a bit.

Rachel and I in front of Big Ben.

At the Westminster Abbey, Rachel and I left the group to pick up my friend Tim at the train station.

Rachel and I took the Tube (subway) through London

After picking up Tim, we went to the British Library and Hyde Park.

A bench at the British Library

I was really excited to see the squirrels at Hyde Park

At Hyde Park, the first attack came: the attack of the leaf! A very large leaf came falling through the air, straight at Tim’s head. A leaf is not so scary, but when it suddenly appears in front of your face, it can give you quite a start! Tim took care of that rogue leaf and we continued on our way.

We tried to meet up with the rest of the group, but we had a little trouble finding them. We were supposed to meet for lunch at Covent Gardens . . .

but there was a large crowd, including the masses watching a man shove a balloon down his throat.

We must have missed the other half of our group in the crowds. We tried to meet up with them at the British Museum. We found Katrina, who was meeting up with her friend from England, and we looked around the museum for a little while.

We were able to see the Rosetta stone!

Tim, Rachel, and Katrina stood in a foreboding entryway to the ancient Middle East section

When we were about to leave the museum, we heard a loud noise outside. Suddenly, a helicopter landed in the tiny plot of land in front of the museum! Apparently someone needed to be airlifted out of the museum.

Ambulance helicopter makes precision landing

When we left the museum, we attempted to meet up with the rest of the group at the Tower Bridge, but we didn’t see them there. We finally had the whole group together by 5pm when we all met at the Evensong at St. Paul’s Cathedral. We were all quite exhausted, so we sat in Starbucks. The girls all changed clothes in the bathroom – we dressed up to go to Phantom of the Opera. At this point, Tim left to go home, Laura’s friend Scott also left, and Katrina and her friend went and explored another part of London (they hadn’t gotten tickets in time to see Phantom).

Phantom of the Opera at Her Majestys Theatre in London

The show was incredible – amazing sets, very skilled tech crew, great music, and an all around wonderful performance. It was one of the highlights of the day!

Now Saturday was of course Halloween. This meant that as we walked back to our hostel after the show, we encountered several costumed party-goers.

Enter the Grim Reaper. We were almost back to the hostel when this masked spook with a large sickle sort of loomed toward us, partially blocking the sidewalk where we were walking. The first 4 girls kind of ducked under his arm and hurried along. When he stepped toward me, I acted without thinking – I dug my elbow into his ribs and then kept going as if nothing had happened. I elbowed the Grim Reaper! I think he was shocked… almost as shocked as I was! I guess my brothers taught me how to put my elbows to use.

On Sunday, we had to catch our flight back to Germany, but we made a quick stop at the Kings Cross station on the way to our EasyBus pickup point.

Kings Cross station

As we were wandering around looking for Platform 9 3/4, Rachel had a surprise attack from a pigeon. It flew up in her face as she was walking down the platform. She immediately went into self defense mode and stood in her martial arts ready stance before she had a chance to realize that it was only a pigeon!

Platform 9 3/4

We couldn’t get through Platform 9 3/4, so we decided to come back the normal way – flying!

We ran through the rain to catch our bus to the airport.

We were drenched, but we made it onto the bus!

We made it onto the plane, which was amazing considering we were sleep-deprived and exhausted from the weekend of running around London. On the back of the seats on the airplane, there are signs posted telling you what to do in case of an emergency landing. One of the pictures really looks like it indicates that passengers must remove glasses and dentures before sliding down the inflatable overwing emergency ramp.

Well, despite the attacks from leaves, grim reapers, and pigeons, we survived our trip to London.