London Contiki

Wake up early the day begins; I can’t wait to see my Contiki friends.

I make my way to the lobby where I am treated to a wonderful continental breakfast with three kinds of eggs (hard-boiled, poached, and scrambled), ham, toast, coffee, bacon, and warm tomato, an English/Kiwi breakfast item of which I’ve grown extremely fond of.Breakfast, as I’ve learned in my travels, is a great time to catch up with everybody and see what they were up to the previous night.While I told them about my wine adventures in the park, they told me about their voyage to the gay club.Hey, different strokes for different folks!

A little later in the day Contiki takes us on a bus tour around a beautiful day in London.From the luxury of the coach we are treated to all of the breathtaking sights of London including Big Ben, the London Eye, the House of Parliament, and London Bridge.Our tour manager Pete also unloads on us, via the microphone, a wealth of information about the city, and he even hands us maps so we can go explore it on our own.

And that we do.The coach drops us off in the middle of the city and soon a group of us (including Liz, Molly, Aaron, and Kelly, my friends from the previous night) begin roaming the local streets.Naturally we head back to Piccadilly Circus, this time hoping to ride the Millennium Wheel.Unfortunately the wait for it is far too long and the cost is far too high, so we decide on an alternative, the carousel.Before you go and bash me, a 21-year-old male, for riding on a carousel, just know this.It was a carousel in London!When else are you going to do it?If I’ve learned anything in my travels it’s this: do everything, try anything.You don’t travel halfway across the world to look cool, put your ego aside and just do it.

After the exhilarating carousel ride we carry on until the London heat gets to us.We spot a huge water fountain that everyone’s playing in and a few of us decide to go for it.Aaron, Molly, Ricky and I run through it thinking we’re going to get just a little wet to cure the unrelenting heat.Little did we know just exactly how strong the pressure of the fountain was, we were soaked from head to toe! My clothes clung to my body and my hair was drenched.But we were cool and it was totally worth it.

It’s a little later in the night, Contiki throws us on the coach, and we are treated to a three-course English dinner at a famous London restaurant.The 40 of us take over the lower-level of the restaurant and we are given our menus with such fancy choices as stuffed mushrooms, Shepard’s pie, and tipsy summer pudding.The dinner was a great way to taste traditional English food and ale, and a great opportunity to converse with one another.

Just when I think the night is over and we’re heading back to the hotel, Contiki drops us off at a local pub because they’re hosting a battle of the bands event.The place is packed, locals are interacting with travels, and bands are rocking out in the back of the venue.I order myself a local London brew and head with the rest of the Contiki crew to go watch the bands play.The music was hard rock and a lot of the bands were from down under.Before announcing a Kiwi band as the victor, the MC gave a shout out to Contiki and we reveled in our glory.Brittney, Justin, Megan and I take a cab back but decide to have one last beer in the lobby pub before hitting the hay.