Leicester Square

Sad news -- 3:30 in the afternoon is apparently too late to get cheap theater tickets. We looked up Les Miserables, Avenue Q, Equus, Wicked, and The Mousetrap, and all were more expensive than advertised because it was too late in the day and all the cheap ones had gone. Oh well. We are bound and determined to try again. We have decided that we're definitely going to try to see Les Mis, Equus (ha we just want to see Daniel Radcliffe do something besides Harry Potter), and Wicked. "We," in this case, is Michael, Max, Lauren, Robin, and me. We all hung out this afternoon and spent some time exploring the Leicester Square area of Covent Garden. It was great hanging out with them cause they're all generally very chill and conversational people.

Leicester Square is basically a shopping district. There are mall-type stores (we saw a Nine West, Guess, H&M, etc), an outdoor market, and various pubs/restaurants/cafes. Pubs are my new favorite place to hang out. The atmosphere is really nice and cozy, mostly because they're very comfortable and generally quiet, which makes for good conversation and people tend to take their time whereas at bars...that doesn't always happen. :) One cool thing about Leicester Square was that there were a lot of musicians there, mostly fiddlers/violinists, trying to make some money so there was live music almost everywhere you went.

Michael knows London pretty well, or seems to anyway. His family was here last Christmas and it was his idea to head down to Covent Square. The five of us stuck together for about two hours, but then it became hard to keep track with the crowds, plus we really all kind of wanted to look at different things, so Max and Michael went off together and I went with Robin and Lauren, planning to meet up at 6:30. After that, we went to a pub called The White Lion with four other kids from the trip: Greg, Mason, EJ, and Jenny.

Today we experienced typical London weather: rain. Lots of it. My jeans are still a little wet. We're all pretty tired, mostly from walking around all day, but I think also because of the rain. And trying to figure out the tube system. We finally got our Oyster cards which allow us to go pretty much anywhere in London for the entire time that we're here. Very exciting.

So highlights of today were enjoying pubs, getting to know a few people a bit better, seeing all KINDS of cool London sites, and starting to plan for the rest of the trip. Robin, Lauren, and I are going to sit down tonight or tomorrow and plan out where we want to go. We have lots of ideas, so we're going to narrow them down a bit.

Oh, and Robin and I found another girl for church on Sunday. :) EJ is also an Episcopalian-turned-Anglican girl. She's from NY and her church split off last Nov/Dec-ish.

Time to head back to the flat. Good night, y'all!