First day of London

Sunday May 17^th

6:50 am

Arrive in London at

7-8 am

Heathrow airport: get luggage, exchange currency, find tube

8-9 am

Kings Cross station to find Ashlee House and also get 16-25 railcard

Store luggage there and also use internet at net stream cafe to email Kent

9-10 am

Head over to Victoria coach station

10-11 am

Westminster's service at 10 for the Matin

11-3 pm

Fat tire bike tour

3-5pm

Thames river tour

westminster's to tower

tower to waterloo

5 pm

London eye near waterloo

6 pm

head back to hotel and write in diary and extract photos

Journal:

The 16^th was mostly figuring out how to travel to DC. So I took the Chinatown bus with century coach and got dropped off in Chinatown outside of 5^th and H street. I had forgotten where the metro station was so had to ask a Chinese community church who were really nice. Earlier in the day while on the way to getting to Philly's Chinatown the screw of my glass came off and I was terrified as I could not put it back on by myself and did not have spare glasses and was partially blind. However, I asked this really nice man in the Chinese community church in DC and he told me that the metro station was 7^th and H and that the glasses shop was 7 and D and it was actually exactly where he said everything was. I actually doubted he knew where the glasses shop was and asked the Chinatown guide with my glasses that only had one glass hanging off of my nose, I'm sure the tourists thought I was weird or something. Anyhow, so that was fixed and I got to go to the really nice bathroom in the optical shop. Made it to the airport, helped out an air stewardess with pushing a person on a wheelchair into the elevator, I just told her I was a nurse and she was like okay. So check in with my bag even though my STA reservation did not work with the electronic device. I'm going to have to do that again when I get back. Sat to a very boring person who didn't talk much on the plane, he just read the book that his daughter told him to read. I believe he was going to Germany for a trip.

Overall, I felt like God was very gracious to me.

The 17^th was an exhausting day. After traveling, I totally bumbled my plans for the day. Note to self, try to have everything arranged before leaving home.

So actually went to the wrong station to go on the Fat Tire Bike tour.

The day was terribly rainy and cold. Again, did not bring enough clothes as I was trying to pack light so bought a $30 sweatshirt that said London, England. Anyhow, I needed a black zip up sweatshirt anyways for next year I guess.

Basically got into Heathrow and was delighted that I could go on the London underground, colloquially known as the tube for really cheap.

So rode it to to Kings cross where I checked myself into the Ashlee house, which at first glance looks crappy, but actually not too bad although I really disliked the fact that it does not have free wifi.

So then went on to the wrong station for my bike tour but managed to actually catch my group and go with them even though I was almost half an hour late.

I was praying really hard that it would stop raining for the tour and it did, around the same time as when it was suppose to start. However, it was still cloudy and cold for our tour.

We visited all 4 parks in the London area and also Buckingham palace, and Kensington and Princess Diana's memorial walk. We also randomly ran into a parade of veterans I think and also some people with funny bowler hats and a lot of honor badges pinned on their suit.

Then after our tour I wondered around for at least an hour trying to find the right station to get to the Thames river cruise and also the London eye, was an awesome ferris wheel,

Then waiting in the rain for the evening service which was pretty amazing as I got to pray outside of one of England's most beautiful churches even though it was raining.

At around 6:15 we finally got to go in after the organ recital was over. The service was surprisingly small of only around a hundred people with the canon of Westminster who was a woman. I was not sure if that's because they're very liberal. Anyhow, the service was about St. Dunstan who formed Westminster as a monastery. Apparently he was a patron of education and music. We sang songs like amazing grace and such. The person next to me in the pew was actually from the the united states and was on his way to an archaeological dig in Jordan as a volunteer, I thought at first he was an archeology professor at a university but he's actually a doctor. His wife is from China and had an umbrella with the heaven brand.

So wandered about for quite a bit after this as the yellow and green lines were closed for this weekend for renovations which was extremely inconvenient for me as I was just new in town and really didn't know much about the tube. But finally managed to walk over to waterloo station and get back to kings cross. Then I tried to organize my stuff and realize that my recharger was missing for the global phone. Also, I didn't have a watch or anything as I was depending on the global phone for my alarm clock etc.

So had to run around trying to find a phone place or a place that sold alarm clocks. Walked around for at least an hour and was apparently cat called by people who were drunk/sketchy. Finally managed to find a place that were really nice as to not only let me test out the alarm clock they also set the time for me. I'm so glad that I lived in Philly so the streets were not as terrifying as it could have been.

God has been at work for me today in the weather, the service at westminster and finding the alarm clock for a reasonable amount of money.