England.

So I was thinking back and I know that I said I would tell you about the non-Beatles part of Liverpool but the truth is it was a pretty much all Beatles.
Getting to Liverpool was terrible. We had planned to leave Edinburgh sometime in the afternoon but when we arrived and asked the lady at the ticket booth she said that the next bus left at 9:30. We then asked her loads of questions about discounts etc. She said nothing. We left to spend the rest of the day in a park where I got separated from the girls, went to sit in a park and meet them at the bus station at 9 or so. Little did I know the girls were freaking out a bit and spent about half an hour each searching for me. Lynds said she was on the verge of calling the coppers and even worse...my dad. Who would have been on a plane within minutes, I'm sure, armed with a machete and tear gas. As I was lounging by very nice tree I sat up for a moment and heard my name. Turns out the girls were sitting about 50 meters from me and were taking shifts looking for me. I walked over and was greeted by a hard slap from Lyndsey. We are still arguing over who's fault the separation was.
When we arrived at the bus station the ticket booth was closed. We asked one of the workers and he said you had to book the tickets in advance! We were enraged that the woman said nothing. After speaking with one guy he said he knew the driver personally and so they were all making calls to try to get us on the bus. Eventually we did get on but had to change buses at Manchester. After forever on that one bus we got off at Manchester at 4 am and had to wait until 6:15am to get the bus to Liverpool. After asking another worker about tickets and him giving us no information we assumed we just paid the driver like every other time. We then kicked our feet up and tried to sleep. It wasn't long until a worker came over and told us to say it a sitting position... at 4 in the morning. For the next 2 hours we were all very awkwardly hunched over our backpacks trying to keep our feet on the floor and trying to sleep at the same time. When the bus finally arrived we walked up to the bus driver and asked how much he wanted- he then told us that we had to buy a ticket in advance- again! He told us to grab an electronic ticket that took Lynds less than a minute to pay for and as we ran back he was pulling out and telling us with a smile not to worry because there was another bus in two hours. I wanted to cut his tires open. Turns out that only one hour later another bus came to carry us to Liverpool. When we got there a hour later we got on a bus and, since the bus doesn't announce what stop is coming up, we asked the driver if he could let us know when to get off. He answered with a flat "No". It caught us off guard and so we slowly walked into the bus. Since the road signs are placed on the sides of some building and are hard to see we would have been totally and completely lost if a nice old man who overheard us hadn't told us where to get off. This little experience has almost made me lose faith in the transportation workers if it weren't for a few kind people who had gone out of their way to help us.
Understandably we were dead tired and sore when we arrived at the Hostel but unfortunately we couldn't check in until 3. I called Rod who picked us up and had taken us out for a cheap breakfast. He then took us around Liverpool, told us some history, went to the docks, the cavern and then took us home. Then we slept, a lot. The next day I already explained in great detail and now I'm in London.

We arrived in London pretty late and had an adventure getting to our hostel. We had written both the phone number and address down wrong so after walking for about an hour at night decided it didn't exist. We started getting a little snappy at each other and eventually, with hesitation from Kylene and me, caught a cab. After less than a minute in the cab and 3 pounds later we were at the Hostel and went to sleep.
We have been sightseeing the whole time- not much else. First day we started in St. Paul's Cathedral, it was nice. It was at St. Paul's where I learn't that I have slight anxiety about walking up long stretches of spiral staircases. It's like a corner you can never turn! The thought didn't sit well with me. Plus, the passages were so narrow one shoulder would touch one wall and the other the other wall. We saw a nice view of London and the Whispering room and then left with me feeling pretty tense and nauseous. Next was Tate Modern and walked around for a while. Impressed, amused and confused were the three main feelings surrounding Tate. We were pretty hungry by that point so spent less time in there than we should have. Food. Shakespeare's Globe Theatre was our next destination point and that was super cool. It was an exact replica, right down to the way it was built, of the one where Shakespeare first debuted his plays. We would have gone to a performance but the season doesn't start until April 23rd. Standing tickets are only £5- pretty good. Next was a closed London Tower and then home.
Day 2 started at...wait for it, Abby Road!!! Mmmmmm more Beatles.. We walked to the cross walk and got our pictures taken strolling across it just like 20 other people. It was a pretty busy intersection and I felt for the cars that might have to cross it daily with soooo many tourists trying to imitate their favorite Beatle for the camera. Right beside it was Abby Road studio. Everywhere they have touched is now covered with pen markings and messages of love. Got a picture on the steps. The studio is pretty small from the outside, I was kind of surprised. After that we visited Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, St. James Park, Parliament, Big Ben, attended a service at Westminster Abby as public viewing was not open that day, the Eye, then some London wandering and again home(home = wherever our backpack is).
We unfortunately didn't get to see much of Westminster Abby. They shuffled us in and out pretty quickly. We took the long way out and did get to see the Coronation Chair- and the hole where The Stone of Destiny used to be. We were pretty excited since we had just learnt the long history of the stone in Edinburgh. Over our shoulder we saw a tomb that we like to believe belongs to Elizabeth I or Mary Queen of Scots. Would have been cool to see Jane Austin's grave or Shakespeare. Too Bad.
Today we were supposed to leave to Belgium but because of the Volcano incident all of the couches were booked. So today I went inside London Tower and the girls went to Kings Cross to take a picture with half of a grocery cart. London Tower was so cool! Saw the court Yard where Ann Boleyn was beheaded among others, the church where she was buried, the Bloody Tower where those two young boys where murdered, the stairs where they found their remains. I saw all the crown jewels, the old armor of the old kings, the dungeons and torture chamber. I was a little over excited and again spent too long there and so we missed getting to The Royal British Museum. Oops. Had some fish and chips as our last English meal- pretty good. We tried to go out last night to meet up with some people for the Hostel but got lost, so we will try to go out again tonight. Maybe to a comedy show- maybe a bar, maybe a club. Haven't decided yet- but I'll let you know soon! I'll try to keep these shorter in the future, there is just so much happening!