The American's are coming, the American's are coming!

Yummmmm, thanksgiving dinner
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As you all know, thanksgiving was a little over a week ago and since I could not spend it with my biological family in Texas, Gen and I decided to cross the English Channel and spend Thanksgiving with our southwestern family in London.  We have quite a few friends in London this semester because our school has a program called the London Semester (go figure) where SU students and 2 faculty members go to London and have lots of London-themed classes.  So a lot of our friends are living in teeny-tiny dorm rooms in South Kensington and attempting to be British.

Everyone needs a picture like this.
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Gen and I managed to get discount tickets on the Eurostar train, aka the chunnel, so we set off at about 5:15 from chez nous (our house) for our train to London at 6:15.  Riding the Eurostar was a completely different experience from the other train I've ridden, the Thalys.  On the Thalys all you had to do was show up and get on the train, but that's not how the British work.  We had to go to the top floor of the train station and get our bags scanned, go through metal dectectors, and in my case get questioned by customs.  Gen and I were both standing in a line with our passports out, waiting to get it stamped by the little woman behind the counter.  No one had been getting asked any questions, she would just scan your passport, look at you, and then send you on your way.  For some reason when I got up there she felt the need to question me.    "Are you traveling alone?" she asked in a very proper British accent.    "No, I'm with my friend" I countered back trying my hardest not to do a fake british accent even though I really wanted to.

The Texan in me couldn't help but get my picture infront of the Texas Embassy where they serve over-priced, poorly prepared food.
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"Have you ever been to London before?" she said while staring at my passport.    "No, I haven't" I replied back.    "Well then, how long are you going to be there?" again said with that overly-proper british accent.

"3 days" I said, starting to wonder what it was about me that compelled her to ask all these questions.

"So just on holiday then?"    "Yes, just on holiday" I said back.

After that nonsense she finally scanned my passport, stamped it and allowed me to proceed.  The rest of the train ride to London was uneventful and when we got to the station our friend Rob was there to meet us.  We went back to Ken House  (their dorm) and put up our stuff then quickly went to a pub for our thanksgiving dinner.  Unfortunately we missed the thanksgiving dinner all the other students had gone to at the Holiday Inn, so it was just the three of us, but it was still fun.  We all three had fish and chips and it was delicious!  Even though England is known for having bad food, we ate pretty good the whole weekend because our friends knew where to take us.  We ate at pubs quite a few times - a welcome change from food in france.  Once we finished dinner we went back to Ken house and meet up with a lot of our "mates" and had a "jolly good time" (haha, I can't help but add in things that I think British people say).

It's hard to see, but this is the Lion Statue.
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The next morning Rob, Kristin, Gen, and I all got up at 9, ate breakfast and went to the Tate Modern Museum.  It was so amazing - all the exhibits were really interesting, but the best part was the "interactive exhibit" in the main area.  The reason we went there so early was so we could get the free tickets to it because they normally run out of tickets by noon.  You're probably wondering what this exhibit could be and there's no way you'll guess it so I'll just tell you - it was a 5-story slide!  Haha, that's right, a very very large slide.  It was so much fun and you can't help but come out of it smiling and giggling.  It seems a bit strange, but it was great.

Camden Town.
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After that we met up with our friend Brantley for lunch at a pub where I had a great burger and then we went back to Ken House for a bit.  I ended up taking a nap for about an hour while they went to the park.  After my pleasant nap I got up and went to the Sports Bar with Rob, Gen, and Brantley to watch the UT vs. A&M game.  During half time Rob and I went and walked around the area that we were in and ended up climbing onto this huge lion statue.  I should clarify that by "climbing" I mean Rob easily getting up there and me struggling and laughing, then finally throwing as much of my weight as I can over the top and Rob dragging me to safety.  From our lion statue we could see a lot of London and it was dark out and very pretty.  After that we went back to the sports bar, but Gen, Brantley and I ended up leaving before the game was over.  Once again we ended the night at the Ken house with all our friends and a good time was had by all.

Original Dr. Marten's store.
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The next day we once again woke up at 9 and went with Brantley and Rob to the Camden Town market.  This place was so cool.  It's like any big market in a city with people everywhere but this one is where the british punks are and it's also the cheapest.  We spent few hours there looking at all the stuff and at one point it starting pouring rain so we ate there too.  The food was good (again) but the cool thing was that you could get pretty much any type of food you wanted at the market.  Our choices were a little limited though since we had to stay out of the rain, Gen and Rob got Indian food while Brantley and I got Chinese.

Random bubble-maker-man at the market.
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After the market we went back to Ken House for about an hour and then set out to find Abby Road.  Unfortunately none of us knew where it was and also unfortunately, it gets dark in London at about 4 o'clock in the afternoon.  We spent a while looking for it, then gave up and walked around the Thames and saw Westminster Abby, Parliament, Big Ben, and the eye of London.  All very very cool.  We came back around 6:30 and gen left to go to an art exhibit while I decided to stay and get some dinner.  Caroline, Anthony, Rob, Brantley and I all went to a pub called the Queens Hands where I had fish and chips again and they were excellent, again.  After that we went back to the Ken House and I ended up going to bed semi-early because we had to be downstairs to meet our cab at 6:45 am to catch our train at 8 am.

I have arrived.
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*Interesting fact about London:  There are camera's everywhere - down alleys etc, Big Brother is everywhere.

London was definitely a blast, but I have to say, Paris is better :-)