my lord london is way too busy for me to keep up with writing!

monday jan 16: so i woke up and had breakfast with an italian guy from my hostel at a nearby french cafe. it was my first cooked breaky in a while! so we were chatting, and he told me i looked 15! i hadnt heard that one in years, lately its been 18! and i also told him about my italian heritage and yada yada, at some point he saw my name written down (maybe on my debit card?) and told me i spelt it wrong, cause thats a mans name in italy! and i said, no i spelt it right, one L michele's are  rare but still female names in america! so after breaky i checked my email and no word from david. a lady i messaged in rumsford got back to me though and said that tuesday would be better to host me. so when i got back to the hostel i booked for monday night. the receptionist then told me i looked 15/16! i couldnt believe it!  a double whammy in the matter of an hour!  and he turned to the receptionist next to him and asked her opinion and she said 16/17. funny though cause the other day at the charles dickens museum, school students get a steeper discount than college ones, so when i purchased the ticket, the girl said student? and i said yes, but she gave me the uni one. so i guess i cant fool everyone! but anyway, at 11 am i did a walking tour of london. we met at the wellington arch and first went to the changing of the guard. my god was that popular! i could hardly see anything! and the cops were real sticklers, well just one really, she kept yelling to keep walking and not block the entrance, and for people (like myself) to not climb the gate walls! i had a decent view from up there but once on the ground i couldnt see squat. but after that the tour group met up again and the guide told us more about royalty (it was a "royal london" tour) and she said that the duke of wellington is the male with the most pubs named after him. queen victoria is #1. didnt take me many guesses to figure that one out! and the guide also told us this story about how in the 1980s buckingham palace wasnt as secure as it is today, and some drunk irish homeless man managed to sneak in and decided to go for a snooze in one of the bedrooms, and which does he choose? but the queens! so him and her are having a chat for about 10 minutes before she calls her guards and they finally kick him out! but he didnt get caught when he snuck in cause he ran around all the rooms on the first floor, setting off all their alarms simultaneously, so the security guard on duty thought if all the alarms are going off at once, then there must be a problem with the system. so he just shut them all down to reset them! and im sure he hasnt been able to find another job since. so then we walked thru the park a bit and went to a few more royal buildings. we went to another one with guards. you used to be able to get right up to them but apparently a few years ago some colombian student tried to force feed one of the guards a sandwich and the guard punched him in the face, so now they stand behind a barrier! when i went to that veggie convention in liverpool i got handed a flier about how those hats the guards wear are made from black bear fur, so i asked the guide about that and she said yes, but some of the hats are well over 100 years old, but the new ones are still made from their fur, but the london royal guard hat makers company has an agreement with some national parks in canada that if a black bear dies of natural causes then they are allowed to use the fur for the hats. so that didnt make me feel so bad, but still, i prefer synthetics!! so the tour lasted for 3 hours, we passed thru trafalgar sq and she told us about how the metal plaques with the depicted war scenes on the nelson column are from melted down cannons (or maybe cannon balls?) that were captured from enemy ships. and how when nelson died his crew preserved his body in a barrel of rum so he could get a stately funeral, but when they opened the barrel on land there was a lot less rum in it and they found small holes that were filled in, so the sailors were drinking from it! tasty! then we went to horseguards parade. and this is where the beach volleyball for the olympics is going to be played at!  we learnt about the churchill war rooms, and apparently churchill hated women, the lovely fellow. one night some lady said to him after he had been drinking a lot "sir you are drunk" and he said "and madam you are ugly. but in the morning, ill be sober!" charming guy. and then we went to the house of parliament where our guide talked about the failed gunpowder plot by guy fawkes. there was some looney protestor walking around with a megaphone talking about some political antics and the guide asked if he could stop for a few min so she can tell the story. and the whole time he just stood there listening to her and when she was done it was the end of the tour so we clapped for her and he was saying 3 cheers for [rachael??] and something about giving her a big tip lol. so then after the tour, you could go with her to a pub and buy discounted tickets to attractions, so i went and bought a ticket for their city of london walk to use for a later date, and also for their pub crawl for that night. and i also had lunch in the pub with people from my tour, 3 aussies traveling together, 1 canadian,1 aussie and 1 kiwi, all solo travelers. and since i had been in london for a week and they all had just arrived, they were asking my advice on things to see and they showed me a map and asked how to get there. i felt like a local!! and with the few times ive been to london prior, i always used the underground so i didnt actually know how to navigate the streets that well. but since ive been riding on the ground all week long, what a difference it made! i could actually picture london in my head now, instead of just the tube map! so i told them about the pub crawl, and the canadian and kiwi said they would try to come. and the solo aussie said probably not cause he went out the night before. so after food, we went our separate ways. i started walking back towards the horseguard parade area cause they had a changing of the guards ceremony at 4 pm and it was after 3 by now. i was walking by westminster abbey when the aussie guy tapped me on the shoulder. so we talked and walked for a bit more, i was trying to persuade him to come on the pub crawl cause he was a real cutie! and he said maybe, so i was hopeful!!  so i walked around the horseguard area a bit more, saw the changing of the guards which was nowhere near as crowded as the one at the palace!! then i went to the park where the palace is (forgetting the name) cause lance was parked at the wellington arch. but i was enjoying a leisurely stroll through the park when some guy on a bike comes up to me and just starts talking. i was reading a sign about the pelicans in the park how they were a gift to the king who commissioned the park to be there, and about the water in the park, but he thought i was looking at the squirrels so he came over to me and lured one in with food, and it jumped right on me. then as soon as i started talking he said oh youre american. and the convo started from there. he got talking about cambridge and oxford unis and how they were real good and i said what about leeds? and he started laughing! but then he was like, oh you studied in leeds didnt you? and i said yeah and then he quickly changed his tune, saying oh leeds uni isnt that bad, its gotten better over the years!  then he tried to guess what i studied, and he said well by the looks of you, it sure isnt business! and he said you kind of look like a hippy, so it must be in the arts! and i said no so then he said finance (isnt that similar to business!?) but he never guessed anything to do with nature/ the environment so i just told him. he seemed aware of environmental issues and he said humans are the worst species on the planet cause weve destroyed it so badly, so at least we had one opinion in common! but after a little bit i started to walk away to just get back to lance and get to the hostel and change but he was following me, telling me about the rare duck species in the pond. and then he told me there was a fox with cubs in the park, and he told me where her den was, so i was finally able to escape him by saying ok im going to look for the fox now! but yeah i couldnt tell if he was just a nutcase or a lonely guy looking for someone to talk to.  so after a quick attempt to find the fox (but by now its real dark and i couldnt see anything), i headed back to the arch and picked up lance and rode back to the hostel to shower and get ready for my night out. on my way to the pub crawl, i went out to a pub with that italian guy again (in the kensington area), i had a quick dinner there and then left for the pub crawl in the soho area. for £1 you could buy a pub crawl shirt and everyone is given markers for them to sign your shirt, but i didnt want to spend the extra money so i didnt get one but everyone else did. so at the first pub i meet a guy from belarus who has been living in manhattan for a while, so we got on well. and another guy from NZ. so i spent the whole first bar talking with them. NZ guy had gotten friendly with this hot brazilian so i tried talking to him but he was more interested in hanging out with people who spoke his language, and ditto for the cute french guys =(  and no one from the walking tour came!! so that was a pity for me. at the second pub  i met 2 aussie guys from melbourne who were traveling together. they were quite funny. one was named elia but i kept forgetting his name so i was calling him leroy and elroy. so when i signed his shirt i wrote down all the nicknames i created for him that night.  so at each pub i became more and more friendly with belarus guy andrew, kiwi whose name escapes me and one of the melbourne guys (cant remember his name either..but i think its leo). at the 3rd one, i got talking to a spanish group, and when i told them i was from NY i was a real hit. a shame they were all females though!! then i wrote on all of their shirts and took the marker and wrote property of michele on "leo"s forehead and down the side of his face. the guy who was running the pub crawl was quite cute so i got talking to him, and what do you know, i cant remember his name either, but his background is cambodian but he was born and raised in france but most recently was living in montreal (before working in london). so hows that for exotic!! but at the last bar he left us on our own so nothing became of that!  but at bar #4 everyone was starting to get drunk. you get a free drink at each one, but it was always sambucca so that was gross. luckily i didnt even get tipsy that night! but at this bar was where leo and an aussie girl on the crawl hooked up. im going to refer to her as sandy. she and some other guy on the crawl then started writing on me with the marker since i had no shirt. i dont even know what it said cause it was all around my neck. but sandy kept writing on all the guys shirts sandy <3 ---> which pointed to you know where. but i dont think she did that to me! then at the 5th and final one it was a club. it was really bumpin. i wasnt feeling the music too much though, and i was with kiwi and andrew again. there sure were some lookers there with some nice revealing outfits! but cambodian/french guy said that this was a student club so i felt a bit too old for the crowd, so i didnt bother to ask anyone to dance. sandy went off and hooked up with some guy she met at the bar not on the pub crawl and leo was alone in the corner. this guy also had a white shirt on, so she wrote her same romantic message on his shirt too lol. then she kept saying i should hook up with kiwi guy and was like egging me on to do it, but i wasnt particularly attracted to him. he wasnt that bad looking, but he was a druggie, alcoholic and a smoker and he lit up on the walk between every bar so that was quite a turnoff. but she was like pushing us together to dance closer (at bar #4) and putting his arm on my shoulder and stuff.  but in vain.  he was sweet though, i was getting paranoid about leaving my sweater at some random table because there was a sign saying if any jackets are left unattended they will be removed, and one of the spanish girls had one of her things go missing, so kiwi every so often would go check up on my stuff to make sure it was still there. so i left pretty early, around 12:30 am and andrew left as well,  and i had forgotten my oyster card so i said i was going to walk back to earls court and he said i could piggy back on his oyster card, but the tube was closed! and i thought london had it all! so i ended up walking back anyway!  i felt real bad about waking everyone in the room, cause they were all asleep by the time i got back at 2am! ok tues jan 17: so spoke to the lady with the room being fixed one last time for a good while when i first woke up at the same time i was packing. i then went to the bathroom, and suddenly remembered when i looked in the mirror that there was orange and blue writing all over my body!! luckily that came right off. so as im packing the maid comes in and she doesnt speak english very well, and i had lost my key but i saw one on the table so i guessed someone else from the room found it and put it there, but just to be sure i asked the maid if that was the key she used to get into the room. she had no idea what i was saying and picks up the key and says "reception" and then leaves, even after i tried to tell her that was my key. i had to pay a P10 deposit for that key so i was going to be pissed if i couldnt get that money back. so i went downstairs and explained the story to the guy as i was checking out, and another worker came in with the key the maid handed him, so i said oh thats mine, so disaster averted =) and then i left to do a hamleys tour.  when you do the big bus tours, included in your ticket price are 4 walking tours, so i brought moms ticket and was going to try and go on the hamleys tour which started at 12.  the tour wasnt running in december and thats when mom and gma did the bus tour so if the tour guide was going to give me a hard time about the ticket no longer being valid for the tour i was just going to kick up a fuss and say its not fair that i pay the same price as everyone else and i couldnt get to go on this walking tour cause it wasnt running when i did the bus tour! but as i was riding to hamleys i saw a ticket agent for the bus tour and i quickly asked him if my ticket would still be valid. and he said the hamleys tour was only running in the summer and that my ticket shouldnt be valid for any date other than the one i used it on. thats when i realized i had the wrong bus tour company. they all look the same!  so i just rode to hamleys and arrived a half hour early (for once!) and waited around for the tour to start. one of the workers  came over to offer me help but i said no i was waiting for the tour and he asked where i was from and i said NY and he said he was  going there in a few months and i said oh then you have to check out FAO schartz, its NY's equivalent to hamleys!! and he had never even heard of it, so maybe its not as famous internationally as i thought!! so we were talking but then the tour started soon, and i nearly had my own private tour again, when 4 chinese girls hopped on at the last minute. and apparently this is a tour that hamleys does on its own for free without collaborations with the bus tour companies, so i didnt need my ticket anyway. so the guide told us the history of hamleys and the original toys where all doubles, so like a noahs ark theme. and the origin of legos, but ive forgotten it now. i think its danish and it translates to "build" or something like that. then she took us around for a few toy demos. one in particular was a guy who was writing with "magic markers" that change color.  he wrote our names and made designs with them. i told him i was from NY and he said he loves going there but he always gets pulled out for a search, cause his name is Mohammed Mohammed. and after the tour i went to a section where they were selling olympic merchandise. they were selling mini taxis with different olympic sports on them so i was going crazy looking for fencing, when some (cute) worker comes over and asks if i need help. and i said im looking for fencing and he looked at me weird, and he said oh you mean like the sport? and i said yes and he said oh i thought at first you meant for your house! but i didnt think i needed to explain myself that well, i mean after all i was in the olympics section, and this was a toy store, not home depot!!  but he said he couldnt help me cause that wasnt his department (so then why ask??). he started asking me all kinds of questions though about where im from, where i studied, the usual chit chat. unfortunately, "whats your #?" wasnt on his questions list. and he then got the guy whose department that was and i asked for the fencing cab but he said they were sold out, and they only had fencing 50p pieces (for P3.50!?) but he said i should check john lewis cause they are the official olympic merchanise merchant. but i didnt bother in the end cause i had to be on my way. ok that will be it for tonight, lets hope i can knock out a few days tomorrow so i wont be 2 weeks behind anymore!