London!

report: london is buena! fantastic! all good!
we traveled via airplane: departing very very early from schönefeld airport in east berlin on monday morning. i was so cold on the way there that i had to shuffle my feet and skip, sort of like a penguin. phil laughed at me, but my feet were less frozen, so i did not mind.
we arrived in stansted and took a national express 'coach' to london- approximately two hours of driving (on the wrong side of the road, alas). & to see all the pride and prejudice houses in the countryside: quaint!
our hostel, the globetrotter inn, was really fantastic. i wasn't really sure about hostels previously- we had stayed in a few before, but only for a night or so, and always in our own room, so i didn't know what to expect. we shared our room with four other people- everyone had a very awesome fortbunkbed with Secret Curtains. mine was like a treehouse fort. it was the best. one of the guys in our room left after the second or third night to go back to brazil, while one of the guys was living in the hostel (from austrailia). the other two girls were in their gap year, from finland, backpacking for awhile before starting their university studies. the hostel experience was le bien; everyone was super friendly, and aside from having absolutely freezing girlbathrooms (showers were almost difficult- the water was warm, but i thought i was going to die of frostbite during the gettingin-gettingout part), i am all for this hostel.
being around people who spoke english was also nice, for a change. my german is good, and i can understand almost everything that is going on in berlin, but it is nice to let one's brain relax for awhile. phil was super excited about being able to read the signs.
the london underground is very strange. their subway systems (and streets, mostly) are very clean, unlike berlin, where people seem to think it's ok to throw their trash on the tracks. however, after a few months of german efficiency, i think i was sort of spoiled. the socalled tube is crazy! first, we were on our way to the show, and the train skipped our station (for a good reason, which we found out later, but still) and didn't tell us! we thought it was us, so we got out and went back the other way, and we still missed it, at which point we realised it wasn't us, but rather the train. then, the next night, phil swears it said "service delays on the line due to a person under the train," which is also crazy. finally, we're on the train going in one direction and it suddenly stops and announces that it's switching directions. everyone got off. so weird.
the show was really fantastic, although i'm not as crazy about the band as phil. they played all four of their albums over four nights, in order. waiting in line was dreadful, especially since we decided not to wear our winter coats, because carrying them around at a show is never fun. after the first night, we found out that there is a coat check at the astoria, but the line is so ridiculous that we decided to keep to our original plan. although i stopped to get hot tea at a corner store before waiting in line for the rest of the week. all the kids in the audience were super geeky about the band, which makes sense, i guess, because it's not really the sort of thing you'd go see if you were just vaguely interested. the second night (when the train skipped our station) someone got electrocuted while working on the road (apparently, he/she drilled through a main power line, ick) and knocked out the astoria's fire alarm system (as well as the underground signals for the tottenham court road station). alas, the show was rescheduled to friday. it wasn't terrible for us, because we had already planned on staying til saturday, but a lot of kids in line had also come from far away (germany, spain, northern england) and had train/bus/plane tickets to leave on friday. there was a group of german girls in line behind us who had come over just for that night and the night before (their favorite two albums). c'est la vie. phil and i hung out behind the astoria and he ended up meeting the band as they came out after the show was canceled, which was neat. i did not let him follow them to dinner (creepy).
london has so many fabulous buildings. i knew it had a lot of history, but i was unprepared for so many elaborate structures. we saw so many things! we have pictures of it all on our picasa page.
we saw the tower of london, the tower bridge, kensington palace, hyde park, portobello road, the marble arch, some other palaces, buckingham palace, big ben, the parliament building, the science museum (SPACESHIPS!!!), the natural history museum (DINOSAURS!!!) and many other interesting londoney sights.
british english is very funny! there were a couple of times when i had no idea what people were saying to me, and a few times when older people couldn't understand phil. this guy at the show tried to teach me some british words, but i have now completely forgotten them. it was very loud (at the show), which made it difficult to think.
london is so, so, so expensive!! we didn't expect it to be that much more expensive than other places, but it is very unmanagable for poor kids like us. we ended up eating a lot of asian food. . . one night phil made us spaghetti in the hostel (excellent), but cooking in the hostel was sort of impractical if we wanted to see anything in london and be on time to the line for the show.
altogether, i really enjoyed the experience! i have now actually been to england (not just to the airport), which is buena. . . i really liked the city. it's very interesting, and diverse, although i think i'd have to make a lot of money to live there without starving. both phil and i got sick when we got back, probably from eating too little and not wearing enough and being super exhausted from the show. however, it was definately worth it.
xoxo! mand