The Underground

So we took The Underground, or The Tube, or The Subway for you non-euros out there. End of story. I hope you weren’t expecting much more, how much do you think I could write about a train?

Josh and I established, and stuck to, a few core rules of the trip:

1. No McDonalds! We did not come 4000 miles to have a Big Mac and Fries.
2. No undeclared guessing! That means, you can’t say “Oh the hostel is this way…” unless you really know for sure.
3. If it says “in the world” we will see it. If it’s the largest, scariest or smelliest, we want to experience it.
4. If at any juncture, physical or otherwise, Josh and I do not know which path to take. Paper Rock Scissors will decide for us.

A few first observations about Europe:

1. Not only are the cars on the wrong side of the street buy PEOPLE keep to the left as well. That means we keep walking headlong into people in the halls, stairs, and its especially dangerous when turning corners and such.
2. Traveling with Josh is really cool, he’s the best friend ever. I really mean that, on a scale of one to ten, he’s super-great.
3. I definitely did not write #2, Josh did when I stepped away from the computer. If you ever read anything from me that sounds anything like #2, I can tell you right now it’s a lie and Josh wrote it.
4. Josh is still playing dumb games… still calling me “Face” and I’m gonna judo chop him in the throat.
5. I definitely did write #4, if you read future reports from me sounding like that in the future, assume they are real.
6. My new $300 cell phone that I bought, just so it would work in Europe, doesn’t work. Curse you Cingular!
7. Buildings: Old. Statues: Huge. Accents: Thick.

Not knowing what else to do, we went to Trafalgar Square. Mainly because it was clearly marked on the Underground Map, and we’d heard of it before. It was here that I first started to really understand how young America really was. Everything we saw was old; old and huge. Everything we saw was representative of London’s history. Well, except for the Conceptual Art project that was on the square at that moment. There were two people in a glass room reading off years. It was called “Million Years,” and here’s a news paper article about it, from the same day we were there (The Wonders of the Internet, eh?) We soon found our first Internet Café, so I could send an email home. It cost 1.60 Euro a minute which… was a bit expensive, so emails were short.

Now we’re off to meet up with our London Host, Rachel Chapman.

I know it's not much, but I included a few cell phone pictures of our leaving. I figured this might tide you over 'till tomorrow. This is Josh and I in Jerseyville getting ready to leave for the airport.

The Safety instruction from our St Louis - Chicago plane.

This is the plane that was struck by lightning. That wheelable stepladder cart thing is what the mechanics where using to assess damage under a removable panel.

The Tube!