The Adventures of Flat Julia: London!

Last weekend, I traveled to London to visit Arielle, my good friend from home. It was an incredibly intense and packed three days, but lots of fun and well worth it.
On Friday, I took a train from the Netherlands to Brussels where, after a twenty minute interrogation at customs (seriously, it was that important you know exactly what subject I study?!?), I boarded the Eurostar to London. For those who don't know, the Eurostar is a high-speed train that brings you from Brussels to London through a tunnel going under the English channel (hence the "chunnel"). Supposedly, the trip takes just as long as a flight would. Of course, a flight to London from Amsterdam only takes an hour and costs the same as the train, while the Eurostar takes two hours. And thats only if you ignore the travel time needed to get to and from Brussels, which is just about another two hours, unless your connecting train times don't quite fit together, in which case you probably have four hours of travel outside of the Eurostar...but I digress...
Arriving in London St Pancreas, I found it incredibly easy to find the tube and get on the right line. Emerging from my tube stop, I realized that I had no clue how to get to my hotel. Trying not to freak out, I decided to walk around the block...at which point I ran into my hotel. Literally around the block. After checking in to my closet sized room, I proceeded to meet up with Arielle. First, we walked around Hyde Park. Then, we ate fish and chips (I ate fish!) and drank cider in a traditional pub. Finally, we finished off the night at an American club near my hotel. It was a great first night in London.
The next morning, I awoke at 8:30am to recieve some complimentary breakfast from the hotel...at which point I discovered it was actually 7:30am and the clock of neither my international phone nor my Dutch phone had switched. Yay. Meeting up with Arielle once again, we visited St. Pauls Cathedral, the Millenium Bridge, and the Globe theater. We continued on to a...strange...museum of modern art as part of Arielle's class, where we saw...rusty pieces of metal with dirty towels hanging off and pieces of concrete with trash sticking out... We left fairly quickly. After, we wanted to go paddle boating, but missed the opening hours, so we went to the science museum instead. I'll admit, I probably had too much fun there for any other self-respecting 20-year-old. After a delicious dinner of Italian food, we headed over to Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye, where I proceeded to take 892398742365987 pictures. Seriously. For all your sakes, I narrowed them down to 200 (link is later). We finished the night by taking a boat trip up and down the river Thames. This was a great way to quickly see a lot of London...plus, we got a glimpse of the filming of the newest James Bond movie!!
Finally, it was Sunday, my day of departure. Arielle and I began back at the science museum where we did a simulation of flying a plane, which we spent mostly upside down and backwards. Then, we traveled to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guards Ceremony, and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing. After a delicious burger at a place near her, I got back on the tube to St. Pancreas. Expecting another interrogation from customs, especially since I still don't have my residence permit, I arrived half an hour early for my train...which I promptly spent sitting around since customs barely even looked at my passport. Awesome. After hours of travel (some of which was in a train that looked like Eurotrip), I finally arrived back in Leiden.