London!!!!!

Like I said in my last blog post, I waited to get back from London, England to update again. I just got back on Monday. London was absolutely amazing. I am pretty sure it is the biggest city I have ever been in even though I am coming from the USA. Although, I have to admit that the British do an awesome job when it comes to organization. When going up and down an escalator in the metro station, you have to stay to the right or the left, I can't remember. But anyway if you don't want to move and you would rather just stand there to wait to get to the top/bottom then you have to stand to the side so the people that are in a hurry can get past and move up/down quicker. The great thing was that people actually read and payed attention to the signs. I don't know why I am even talking about this, but it kind of shocked me while I was there. Even though London is so big, the underground metro is really easy to use so you can go pretty much anywhere in a matter of minutes. Since my host parents have a little daughter I was walking around and sight seeing by myself most of the time. I was able to see pretty much every major tourist attraction while I was there. I think the one thing I didn't visit while I was there was St. Paul's Cathedral which I'm sure is probably beautiful. The problem occurred though when I got off the metro. I am 16 years old, so therefore my sense of direction is absolutely terrible. Most of the time I would get lost, so I would just follow a group of people and I would wind up in an awesome place. An example of that was on Monday when I followed a huge group of people to Buckingham Palace where I witnessed the changing of the guards which was pretty cool. Even the times that I didn't follow a group of people I wasn't disappointed with the outcome. London is a beautiful city, so no matter where I was, I was fascinated with what was around me. England is known for their fish and chips (I think) but I didn't have any of that. I am going to sound like I am definitely from the States right now, but I ate at McDonalds twice while I was London. I did try to find other places to eat, but I just wound up eating there instead. I guess I missed that place. Anyway, I don't want to get sidetracked when it comes to food because those of you that read this know how much I talk about food. Before leaving the subject of food though, I have to tell you one thing. Pub food in England is probably the best food I have ever had in my life. It is also pretty amazing because even though London is so big and busy, Pubs are so relaxed and quiet. Okay so I will get back to the adventures. As I said before, I visited pretty much everything. That includes Big Ben, the Tower Bridge, the Parliament Buildings, and so many other things. I walked for 4 hours or more everyday because I was so excited that I was in a city like London. My host parents and host sister along with me stayed with a great family while we were there. This world is even smaller than I thought. The people we stayed with were some of Rosanna's good friends from college. I don't know about you, but I think that is pretty cool. I really enjoyed my stay with them for the few days that we had there. I do have to say that I actually spent some money while I was there. Normally I am so cheap and I don't buy anything when I go to places like that, but I did this time and I sure am glad I did. In a few days I hit the half way mark of my exchange. It is sad to think about because I am having so much fun here and I have some awesome friends as well. These 5 months (almost 6) have gone by incredibly fast. Although, I can't wait til I am home so I can share some the European culture with everyone. I do have a lot to look forward to for the rest of my exchange though, so for now, I don't want to think about returning home just yet. I have a Rotary weekend this weekend, so maybe I won't keep all of you waiting another 3 weeks til my next update. I will try to update again soon.