Spring Awakening

After a just a few days back in Florence, it was time to take another trip. On Thursday (April 2nd) Marc, Jon, and I were off to London to visit Jordan and Lauren Shapiro. After a short delay before take-off, and a 30-minute line at customs in London (it was kind of nice to get a passport stamp, but not really worth the long wait) we finally arrived at our hostel close to 2am Friday morning. After a short night sleep, we met up with Jordan Friday morning to begin exploring London. London was actually the only European city that I had been to before coming abroad (went with my Family in 10th grade) so I was really just there to see my friends, and see things for the second time. After grabbing lunch, we took a tour of the Tower of London, which was a big castle back in the day and is also home to the Crown Jewel collection, which is pretty flashy. After the Tower, we met up with Becky Wolf, who was also visiting for the weekend and staying in the hostel with us, and walked around and saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Parliament and just enjoyed the weather while Jordan had an interview and Lauren was on a field trip. After enjoying the weather, we went to a quick dinner before heading off to see a musical (you gotta love the half-price tickets the day of). After discussing for a while on what to see, we settled on Spring Awakening, which was not my favorite musical, but it was definitely fun and pretty good. After the musical, we hit up our first British pub, only to be dissapointed when they actually kicked us out at midnight (how do they do that?!?!?!). After a great night sleep, we woke up Saturday morning and wandered over to the Borough Market for lunch. This market was incredible, free samples of everything from cheese to olive oil to sausage to smoothies, it was a great way to start the day. After sample-hopping, we went to Abbey Road (one place that I actually didn't make it to with the fam) for the obvious picture and sightseeing (you should see how mad some of these drivers get, but come on...if you are driving on Abbey Road you have to know whats coming). After Abbey Road we walked through Hyde Park before making our last tourist stop at Kensington Palace. After another fun dinner at an asian noodle restaurant, we got to the Pub a little earlier, and watched the Michigan State-UConn game, which was the first live sporting event that I caught since the Super Bowl...man I miss sports. After the game, it was time for bed and a wrap on another great weekend....