London, England

We're in London! Ahhhhh!!! The flight was good, albeit a little sketchy. Our pilot was so painfully Italian. He kept up a running commentary with us whenever we were landing or taking off. Sometimes he just talked during dead space. Even when he had no idea what was going on. For instance, we ended up stuck on the ground in Calgary for about an hour. His commentary went something like this:

"sooo, 'elo folks, we zeem to, uhhhh, have zees problem, ahhh, zee 'ead count we deed, uhhh, does'eent match zee, ahhhh, pazzenger leest, uhhhh, we don't know why. Ummm, we don't, ahhh, really know what to do? Maybe we just count zee, ahhh, 'eads again? I don't know..."

Totally the experience I was looking for.

and there's nothing like experience...for instance, the experience of our hostel. I am currently sharing a room with 12 guys (yup, the only girl), most of whom have limited English and seem to think that practicing their slang on us is a good plan. The basement smoking room appears to be some sort of area between buildings where they forgot to put a roof. A glorified chimney of sorts. With lots of garbage. Dick Van Dyke's dump. And the black mold on the shower room roof leers at me whenever I'm in there. I think it has more personnality than some of the front desk clerks.

And I couldn't be happier! The people are wonderful and funny. London is a quirky little town for what we've seen so far. The tube is as ridiculous as I remember it. Crowded, suffocating, and soooooo humid. You think that someone would have told the British about air conditioning by now. We met this one Hungarian gent at the hostel who is learning to speak English by watching the new James Bond film. Brilliant.