London Day One

We woke up on the Eurolines bus this morning to find ourselves bussing into the station in London, England! At first, I, Whitney was underwhelmed. There were crappy little shops that lined the dirty streets, and I was unimpressed.

But we had a great time getting off of the bus; hitting a Starbucks with our friend Samantha, whom we met on the Shamrocker Tour and who was coincidentally on our same voyage from Dublin to London; and getting on the "Tube" to head to our hostel near Russell Square.

Little did we know that we were about to embark on one of the worst hosteling experiences of our lives. Nowhere on their Web site did it say that we couldn't check in until 11, but that was understandable, so we sat in the waiting room for an hour so that we could put our stuff in our room. And once the hour passed, the girl behind the counter decided that was the perfect time to tell us that we needed to go to an ATM to get cash for our £20 security deposit on top of the cost of the room. Frustratedly, we went to the ATM down the street and came back to pay our way.

Once we waited from the end of the line that we were in front of before we had to go get cash, we got to the counter and stared at a man who was at the desk until we asked him to help us. He nodded.

Then when we handed him our card to pay for the room, he told us that there is a 5% charge for using a card. I went American Girl on his ass and asked him to waive that fee because we were not given this information and we just returned from the ATM. He shook his head.

So as not to make a scene, we paid it. Later, we found out that there is no way to lock your belongings without paying more--probably in cash--with a deposit----UGH! It was also soaking wet with chlorine-water mopping residue and completely confusing to find our room.

This, needless to say, is the WORST experience we have had so far, and we have stayed in about 4 hostels now. Nothing we have seen so far has been so horrible.


HOWEVER!

We decided not to pay a huge sum of money to take one of the double-decker tours, but instead, we took a map of the monuements and decided to give ourselves a walking tour!

It was pretty confusing, and we definitely got lost a couple of times, but in the end, we saw EVERYTHING we wanted to see in the little time we wanted to spend in such a costly destination.

We still have until tomorrow at 3:15, when we take the Chunnel to Paris, to see what is left to see in London.

We had a great walk, ate at a cute little place with terrible burgers (no one does it like we do), and bought a bite for dinner when we got lost in Waterloo.

We have been budgeting really well and are happy with how resourceful we have been. Already this has been a phenomenal experience, and we can't wait to see what's next!

Thanks for reading! We'll update you soon!

Collin and Whitney