London, Day One.

We arrived at the Queen Victoria Station slightly dumbfounded.  So much happens in this place.  There are people everywhere, speaking every language.  We walked toward what we thought would be Belgrave Road, the location of our youth hostel, and after about thirty minutes we decided to ask someone for directions.  We asked a cab driver, and ended up just taking his cab to the Astor Victoria youth hostel, which was in the opposite direction.

So we were wandering past Grosvenor Gardens (there are lots of parks and gardens in this city—so nice!) and we saw these awesome sculptures of a cougar chasing a gazelle.  Nate and I thought it would make a great photo, so I mounted the gazelle and he climbed on the cougar.  We were trying to hurry so no one would tell us to get off the statues.  As I shifted myself forward to get higher on my steed’s neck, her mane took a toll on my pants. They caught on the metal and ripped.   “Guys, I ripped my pants!!” 

We must have been a very entertaining sight to Elena, from Germany, the only other person in the park.  The rip wasn’t so bad that I had to change – if you were standing on my right you wouldn’t notice a thing – so I wore them for the rest of the day, even to the theater.  But they are now in the rubbish bin of our tiny, perfect little room on the fifth floor of the hostel.  I’ll be wearing shorts, capris, or a skirt for the rest of our trip!

We also saw “Oliver” at the Theater Royale.  It was a good show, although we had to fight our drooping eyelids.  Needless to say, we slept like dead people last night.

-A