I landed in Heathrow on Tuesday. It was a pretty uneventful flight, I met a londoner on it though who wrote me about 2 pages of travel notes and invited me to stay with him in London or with his friends who are throughout Europe. It was a good start. I hopped on the tube after trying to figure out London's somewhat complicated subway system. They have zones, zone 1 is the middle of London, it is the haps, 2-6 make concentric circles outwards. You buy a ticket based on what zone you are in or which you want to go to, I still don't really get it, £4 seems like a lot to go about a quarter of a mile.

About 4 hours after I landed I left for Paris, taking a train through the chunnel. There wasn't much to see, mostly black. After arriving in Paris I made my way through their subway system which I find to be pretty well organized and maintained. I arrived at my hostel and promptly fell asleep. I was grumpy throughout most of these 24 hours or so of travels.

The next day (and pretty much every day since then) I woke up at 6, ate a breakfast of cereal, bread and jam and about 4 cups of coffee then headed out. My hostel in Paris was out where the boonies were, if Paris had any, so the trip into the touristy area involved a few lines of the subway. The first 2 days I was there I subway'd to Gare du Nord, where I had arrived from London and walked my way to the river (Seine?) and walked down it, taking pictures of anything that I liked (which I will post when I find a computer with a USB port). I made it to the Eiffel Tower and was greeted by 2 deaf mutes on at 2 different times who had petition/fundraising sheets asking for money. I started signing the first deaf-mutes sheet then saw she wanted money. I looked at her and noticed she had four gold teeth, which the other deaf-mute, as well as many self-proclaimed Bosnian refugees had. Thinking this through I decided to walk away, deciding that they were in some sort of begging/gypsy club. I later found out that I was correct in this assumption.

So I hit up all of the major tourist sites in Paris, I sat by the Seine for a few hours each day and read my book, I ate cheese and salami way too much, and I attempted to buy a Eurail pass. The Eurail pass (basically, a pass which allows me to take any train at anytime without paying) I had ordered at home came the day after I left, it's a long and frustrating story, so the plan was for me to buy one at the conveniently located Eurail aid office in Paris which, to my knowledge, does not exist. I was unsuccesful, so my plain to head down to Madrid or Barcelona was put on hold so I could meet one of my Daddyo's business associates in London, where I write this, to pick it up from him.

I took the train back through the chunnel, booked a room in a happenin' hostel near Russel's Square in London, and obtained my Eurail pass. I arrived here on Friday and am staying here until Tuesday.

The day I arrived I strolled through the British Museum, a nice museum which is free and about 200 yards from my hostel, then went to bed at about 7 pm. Yesterday I headed to the Thaimes, waited in line to buy a ticket to go on the London eye for about 10 minutes before deciding I'd come back alter, then headed towards parliament. I saw all the government buildings, as well as a nice statue of Honest Abe outside of the supreme court I think, then made my way to the hotel to pick up the Eurail pass. The hotel which I got it from was right outside of Hyde park so I waited there for a while, reading and strolling, snacking on salami as usual, when I saw a barricaded off road. I asked a friendly bobby (cops to you folk back in the US) what was going on and he told me the pope was coming through to a vigil in the park. I grabbed my pass and decided to wave to the pope.

I then waited about 5 hours. I read, drank red bull, ate crisps (chips to you folks back in the US) and bummed around the park. I have to hurry with the description a bit now, I am running out of internet time, but the wait was long and I was tired and the pope arrived in his popemobile. I waved, he waved, I took a picture, he did not.

Today I went to regent park and read and relaxed, I ate a sausage (the highlight of my day so far) and then made my way back here. I'm heading to Barcelona, hopefully, on Tuesday. I'll try to post a few times a week. Sorry for any poor grammar/misspellings, I'm about 5 beers deep. I also had a picture ready to put on this post of the pope but this computer is of some wild operating system that I don't understand.