LONDON!

OMG, we went into London today and we did SO much, it was AMAZING! It was hands-down the best and most productive/tiring day I've had here so far, haha.

We got up super early so we could take all our trains and tubes into London, and I got really excited when I realized the London Victoria Station is the one from The Bourne Ultimatum. Our first official stop was seeing the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and good grief, were there a lot of people. We walked past St. James' Park on our way to see the London Eye, Big Ben, and Parliament, and then Jess and I went to Westminster Abbey while Kristin waited for us at St. James because she'd been before.

Westminster? INCREDIBLE. We were only supposed to spend an hour there, but it defs turned into closer to two and a half because Jess and I listened to every single recording on the audio tour and just totes geeked the fuck out over things like Poet's Corner, haha. No joke, we spent about twenty minutes trying to pick out postcards before giving up because the guy at the kiosk in the cloisters (which reminded me so much of the Harry Potter movies!) told us there were more at the gift shop. I think we both picked out more to keep for ourselves than to mail to people, haha.

Jess really wanted to go back for the Evensong service at 5, so we took a break by getting food and going to Kensington Gardens/Palace. It was gorgeous, we just picnicked and creeped on Herculean-looking soccer boys, haha. We were almost late for Evensong because of how ridiculous the soccer boys were, but Evensong was really cool. Is it bad that the plainsong made me think of Monty Python and want to giggle? Probs, haha.

The Cobra Starship show didn't start until 7:30, so we went to Trafalgar Square and had a photoshoot with the lions. Yeah, climbing those huge lions in a short dress? Not one of the best ideas I've ever had. Some smart bystander gave us the idea of tying our cardigans around our waists to avoid flashing small children, though, so overall, it was still a success. Then we went looking for Platform 9 & 3/4, except we defs spent like twenty minutes running around St. Pancras before a sympathetic cop essentially told us nicely, "Hey idiots, you're in the wrong station!" We eventually found it, though, took pictures, and then scooted over to ULU for the concert.

Uh, so the concert was AMAZINGGGG: Cash Cash, Sing It Loud, and Cobra Starship, hells yes! Also, some other opener from Brighton called Mimi Soya, but we missed them, whatevs. Not the most outrageous show I've ever been to, but probs Top 5. I feel kind of bad for bringing Kristin and Jess and not warning them of the extent to which scenesters (and especially Cobra fans) are just totes insane at shows, haha. Now I sound like a 60 year old chainsmoker from screaming my lungs out, and feel like Barney (after he ran the marathon) from dancing my ass off, it's pretty sweet (okay, even I'm not entirely sure how much of that was sarcasm).

We were sooo exhausted by the time we got back to Brighton, all sorts of nonsense about baby ducks and stabbing England's weather, but the 2 AM falafel helped, haha. Now I'm basically going to take a three-hour nap so I can get up in time to navigate from Brighton back to Heathrow and then I'm off to ROMA!

[back-posted from 6/11/2009]