Spit spot. Right-o.

Written 7/25

July 21

It was a long day. I managed to get all my museum viewing in. Breakfast of eggs, toast and some yummy English sausage. Then tubed to the Transport Museum (where I spent the entire morning. The essence of nerdy.) I walked to the British Museum grabbing a BLT on the way *It's BACON* Bacon in Europe does not always mean bacon, even in BLT. Sometimes it just means strips of pork. In this case it meant ham. *It's BACON* I spent a couple hours at the British Museum. They have a TON of...stuff. Definitely one of my favorites because there was so much more than paintings. But in terms of the paintings, it made me realized how awesome my trip has been. As I walked through the museum, I recognized cities that I had just left in the paintings. It was a surreal feeling to look at a painting and be able to see the real thing in your mind's eye, especially when they are places like Rome and Venice that you have wanted to visit forever. I managed to make it to the British Library just in time to see the map exhibit, which was the reason I went to the library. Pretty cool.

During my walk between museums, I did a bit of souvenir shopping since it would be my last day in the city. I spotted a bag that I wanted and figured that I would get it after I had gotten my dose of culture. Turns out, the shop was closed by the time I had filled up on classical art and the like. CHINATOWN. Chinatown has everything. They were bound to have the bag (It was one of those touristy bags that said London and had the flag on it). Turns out I overestimated London's Chinatown. NYC it is not. They lacked in London souvenirs and I gave up my search and accepted that those 15 pounds had a greater destiny.

Another round of fish and chips for dinner. And off to the hostel to finally check-in.

As I was unpacking my bag, someone walked into the room. I looked up and saw a familiar face. It was one of the ladies from Rome. Backpacking at its finest. We caught up on our trips since last we spoke and chatted about other things. It was great bumping into her again. She called her mom and I went downstairs to do the same on skype. As I was in the common room interwebing, a black girl sits next to me...That's right, it was the only other Black girl I have met the whole trip. We shared a laugh about the coincidence of ending up in the same hostel and I told her about how I seemed to keep running into people I knew today. We caught up on the last couple of days and after a quality session of hostel booking and travel arranging I called it a night.

*green* Both of the ladies I remet were going home the next day. As crazy as it may sound, I was so jealous. By that point, I really just wanted to go home. Don't get me wrong, I was having an AMAZING time and a big part of me still wanted to go on and on and on but I missed (and miss) my friends and family. And for some reason, in London, I was really feeling the ephemeral friend lows. But don't feel sad. Spain is pretty great. I'm quite happy to still be traveling right now. *with envy*

July 22

I woke up early since my bus to Stonehenge left at 9am and with the tube, there is no telling how long my trip to the bus station was going to be. I made it on time and got on the bus with our right proper, white haired tour guide Trevor. We journeyed to Windsor Castle, Bath and Stonehenge. Each stop was impressive. I don't know that my pictures will do them justice (whenever I finally post them) but I know my words won't so I'll make this a short post.

I ended up sitting next to a German girl on the bus. In my lethargy of making new friends, a part of me didn't even want to do as much as ask where she was from but we hung out most of the day, taking pictures for each other.

It was of course another long day and I had to wake up even earlier to catch my 8:30 flight on the 23rd. When we got back to the city at 7:30, I went looking for a grocery store to get breakfast and dinner. I grabbed some snacks for the morning but decided to have Indian for dinner. DE-YUM! I got some vegetarian sampler platter and some sort of chicken kebab.

High off the yum, I went back to the hostel, packed and went to sleep.

July 23

I woke up so early, did my last minute routine and went to catch the 6am bus to Stansted Airport. Regular airport proceedings...a two or three hour flight (I slept through it and there was a time change so I'm not sure really how long it was)...and I was in Madrid.