Where is Nam?

Touchdown London town! It was a quick 2.5 hour flight from Iceland to London, I pretty much passed out the plane the entire time.

Those of you who have read my previous post prior to me leaving to Europe, I mentioned that I might get heckled when I arrive to England....well it's true. As I approached the customs lady I was drilled with a TON of questions

....I immediately went into interview mode:

Where are you from? I was born in Riverside, California, but am currently living in Portland, Oregon (Proceeds to show Oregon license)
What are you doing here? It's been a dream of mine to backpack Europe and explore the different nations within Europe to become more culturally diversified.
How long are you in England for? I plan on staying here for about 7-10 days.
Who are you staying with? I have a friend who is studying here in London and am staying with her for the time being in Balham.
Why are you in Europe? To travel.
Where do you plan on going after England? Flight up to Sweden, which I have yet to book. Then train down to Denmark, then I'm going with the wind after that.
How long do you plan on traveling Europe? Potentially 2 months, more or less.
Why don't you have a return ticket back to America? I don't know where I will end my trip so I have not purchased a return ticket.
Are you trying to live here? Honestly, if the right opportunity, the right time, and the right place align, I would not be opposed to it.
I still don't understand why you do not have a return ticket? .....!!!!! I'm backpacking through Europe to explore and expand my horizons....

At this point I was getting a bit irritated, so I decided to butter her up by asking her a few questions...

How long have you lived in England?
Are you originally from here?
Have you been to America?
Where have you traveled to in Europe?

She finally started to not be so hostile towards me...and I remembered my Eurail pass! I pulled that out and showed her the potential route I was taking. She then examined my Eurail pass and was surprised I got it so cheap! Finally she stamped my passport and let me thru....after 15-20 minutes!

I picked up my backpack then went to buy an Oyster card (an electronic public transportation card) hopped on the tube (subway in London) to meet my friend in Balham. About an hour later, I was very excited to see my friend, Jagoda Sekular (Jagi for short)!

To my surprise, she gave up her room for me to stay in and she would share a bed with her sister. It was extremely nice of her to do so and I greatly appreciate it; nice warm bed to sleep on!

I stayed in London for 9 days, the first 3-4 days was VERY tough for me. I could not, for the life of me, get over JET LAG. I would constantly sleep at 8:30 and wake up at 15:30. Luckily those days the weather was bad - rainy and cold. Plus I saved money by not going out to eat or taking the tube in the city.

When I started to get the hang of things, I would meet Jagi after class and she would take me around London and be my personal tour guide! It was awesome, seeing the local's perspective, doing what they do and just learning the little gems hidden in London.

London

What can I say....London is absolutely B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. There is so much character and history to this city! Every turn I took was something new and exciting! The buildings were old and exactly how you would imagine it would be, just like the movies. I would constantly be "wowed" every where I walked. London, to me, is very diverse...there are so many different cultures from all over the world bundled up into this city. The suburbs, markets, and neighborhoods in London were all different, you would be walking in this nice posh area of London then all of the sudden you would approach an area where it is very old and rustic filled with old pubs and mom & pop shops.

Public transportation is phenomenal here. I never once had to wait more than 3 minutes for a train, they were quick and easy. I thought living in Melbourne, Australia the train/tram network was good, boy was I wrong. London's train network is HUGE, I can see why most of my friends here don't own a car here.

It is EXTREMELY crowded though -- roughly 8 million people. Taking the tube into the city at peak hour is extremely overwhelming. People pushing and shoving each other to get to their destination. If I were to compare London to any city back in America it is quite similar to New York. Everything is very tight, small, and fast paced. It was go, go, go! In addition to the very populated city, there are SO MANY TOURISTS. Tourists from all over the world, pushing and shoving to take pictures with their iPads. Some were quite rude and not mindful of others. I guess that's why some British people weren't so nice to me when I asked for directions or tried to spark up conversations.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time in London. I would need more time/money here to cover everything. Despite the beautiful buildings and architecture, the city itself felt like "home" to me; I just felt like I was in America, but with a British accent. I was thinking maybe it was because Jagi was such a great host and made me feel very welcomed. I basically had my own room and place to stay with a key and all....I cooked dinner and went to the local pubs.... All I needed was a job then it felt like home. Although, I can say it is very "city-like" there wasn't much nature -- not many trees, hills or mountains; not as green. But then again, I'm probably spoiled with that living in Portland.

Markets

London is filled with TONS of markets. Food markets, clothing markets, hand made markets, vintage markets, knock-off designer clothes/bags, etc etc. All of them were very unique and held their own special cultural feel to them. My favorite ones would have to be the Camden Market and Brick Lane Market.

Camden Market was similar to walking around New York or LA and seeing tons of street food and fabricated designer brands. It's very interesting to walk around and see how much American media and pop culture has on people. Seeing "SWAG, YOLO, HYPE, YMCMB" and other slang printed on hats, shirts, beanies, etc. But there was this one particular area of the market which I enjoyed the most was all the local handmade stuff. Getting insight on the creative side of Londoners and what kind of products/art they produce was fascinating.

Brick Lane Market reminded me a lot like Portland. Tons of street food from all over the world and just had a rustic-heritage-hipster feel to it. Lots of young people around sampling food, street performances, and the shops here carried a lot of urban street wear clothes.

Windsor Castle, Roman Baths, and Stonehenge

After spending 7 days in the city, I wanted to venture out to the country side of England and see something else besides London. Renting a car was very expensive and taking a train would kill most of my day, so I booked a tour via goldentours. It wasn't too bad, about £32 ($51).

Our first stop was the city of Windsor where the Windsor castle is. This nice quaint little city was of course filled with tourists, but the castle was unbelievable. Windsor castle is one of the official residences of the Queen and is the largest occupied castle in the world! The tour guide lady said that we had about 2 hours here and we had to be back on the coach to head to the next destination. I was thinking to myself, do I really want to pay £18 ($29) for only two hours? I decided to skip the admission into the castle, have a look around the city, and get a coffee instead. I'll save Windsor Castle for my next trip to London where I can spend more than a 2 measly hours there.

Next stop was the city of Bath. This is another small city tucked in the country side of England. The tourist attraction for this city were the Roman Baths. It's basically a Roman site for public bathing. The fundamental part of the Roman Baths is the sacred spring. Hot water at a temperature of 460°C rises here at the rate of 1,170,000 liters every day and has been doing so for thousands of years. Since the water passes through lead pipes this makes it unsafe for bathing.

Last stop was one of my favorites, the mysterious Stonehenge. I got extremely lucky with the weather and the weather cleared up and there wasn't a single cloud in the sky as I got to this historical site. Perfect!