Wow! Sorry I haven't written in so long. London was very busy and the internet in Paris stinks! Then we finally got to Amsterdam last Thursday but there was a lot to take care of with checking in, and then Andy, Claire and Tina were visiting! Anyway, I will do all of my updates now.

London was great. The only thing I didn't like about it was that the culture was very similar to the U.S. If someone told me I was in America I would have believed them. We did a lot of sightseeing like Buckingham Palace, Westminster and St. Pauls (unfortunately neither of which we were able to go in because of weird schedules...they both close early in the day!), Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Eye (but didn't go up...too long of a line and too expensive). Probably a few other things but I can't remember. We hung out at our hostel a lot too since there was a bar underneath. The second night we went to a bar called Two Horses or something like that which is in the Piccadilly Circus area. We met Lindsay and some of her friends there. It was extremely expensive so we didn't stay too long. Our third night there, we watched the Euro Cup at the bar under the hostel with a bunch of Europeans. Lindsay came for the game too. When Spain won, all the Spanish people in the bar went crazy. Some of them had flags and things like that and everyone was singing "Ole, ole ole ole...." over and over again. It was cool to be in Europe for something that they get really excited about. Reminded me of the Superbowl. :) I was glad to leave London when we did just because I was tired of spending so much money on food, and I wanted to experience something different.

We got to Paris on the day of June 30 after a hellish morning. Caitlin and I originally thought our flight to Paris was out of London Gatwick but it was out of London Luton. We tried to get a train from London Bridge Station, but the only one that would get us there in time was leaving in about 2 minutes. Of course we found that out after Caitlin had already bought her ticket. We ended up having to get a taxi that took around an hour and 20 minutes to get to London Luton Airport. The cab fare was painful. Nonetheless, we got there. The Parisian Metro station was difficult to navigate both because my French is a bit shaky and it's not as organized as the London system. Also, it smells like piss and there is a lot of trash and many homeless people. It was my least favorite part of Paris. It took us a little bit to figure it out, and a little bit longer to find the right direction to walk to our hotel, but we finally got there. Chad had already been there awhile because he took a train.

To be continued...