London

Aaron, Steven, Skylar and Johanna in front of an entrance to Trafalgar square:
The Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace:
The famous red telephone booths, they are everywhere:
Big Ben Clock:

I think this is still Big Ben:
Johanna, Me, Aaron, and Steven on a lion in trafalgar square, it was really hard getting up there, I've never felt so un-athletic :)
I don't remember where this is but it's a tight pic:

This is a government building, that I would know more about if I had gone on the tour:
The scary bird that flew in front of our picture and me beginning to freak out about it:
London Bridge:

Johanna and Skylar showing off their muscles on London Bridge:

Steven and Aaron on our last leg of the journey to our hostel:

Johanna and I:
We road the underground EVERYWHERE, we need systems like this in America:

London was a lot of fun. I went with Johanna, Jenny, Skylar, Steven, and Aaron. Jenny had a friend there so I didn't see much of her the entire trip. We, being Johanna, Steven, Aaron, and I (the others left on wednesday cause they didn't have class on thursday) arrived late friday night. My first glimpse of London was a little blurry seeing as how I couldn't keep my eyes open on our super-comfortable bus. We arrived at our hostel around midnight London time, 1:00 am maastricht time, and 6:00 pm texas time. Steven booked the hostel rooms (so far anytime a man has booked the rooms funny things have happened). So we get there to find out that he booked the girls in a coed dorm and the boys in a male-only dorm... why you may ask? I have no idea. :)

So Johanna and I go to our room, it turns out to be one of the coolest hostels ever. For those of you who have seen Finding Neverland the whole hostel looked like the boy's house. We were n full size sturdy, wooden bunk beds with off-white linen curtains that went all the way around. Each bed had it's own little light and there was a soft center light in the middle. It was really peaceful and charming. The guys ended up being in a not-as-charming room that had a distinct man-scent. So it all worked out. (Except there was one guy who was snoring louder than I have ever heard in our room, but hey that's what ipods are for right? {thanks, mom})

The first day we eat breakfast at our hostel and set out into the city. Aaron and Steven caught p with Jeny on their free tour while Johanna, Skylar and I went to buy a few cheap tickets for a west end show. After we bought the tickets we tried to catch up with the others via text message and ended up a site behind them the entire morning. :) I tihnk it was stressing Skylar out a little bit but Johanna and I were completely enjoying traipsing around London and seeing all we could see. We ended up stopping for a cup of coffee and relaxing until they were done with the tour. We all met at the river side of Big Ben, poor Aaron and Steven were freezing because Skylar told them they didn't need their coats but had forgotten to factor in the wind-chill of the Thames.

Side-note: Johanna and I had already decided we were going to go to Hillsong London.

We're walking along all together now, heading towards food, when Steven goes, "hey, you guys wanted to go to Hillsong right? those guys back there had some kinda badges on." I spun around and headed to find them, here was how the conversation went: (They're in italics)

Hi

hey are you guys here for the women's conference.

no, but if we had known abot it we would have been, we were wondering when your services are tomorrow.

oh, good timing our services are at 10:30, 3:30, and 5:30 but you should come to the 10:30 service cause we're recording our 3RD LIVE CD and dvd about our church and our vision... where are you guys from?

At this point Johanna and I are so excited we are nearly jumping up and down and the men had to take over the conversation.

We finished talking to them and planned to be at the Dominion theatre the next morning at 9:30.

We got to eat lunch and every pub is pretty crowded, so we walk for a bit and come across a huge demonstration of the Serbs against England recognizing Kosovo's independence. It was pretty crazy, we took the long way around. People were waving flags and banners and all were in red, white or blue. Some had a banner that called the US the UN and the UK the fourth reicht. That was strange, but they weren't really mad. It seemed like a lot of friends getting together for something they believed in.

We finally end up at this pub, it's around three and our stomachs are telling us we need to eat. So we walk in, sit down, and order. Johanna and I ordered the crazy things, like meat pie and chicken and curry. It really was one of the best meals I have ever had. (Although I think I have burned my tongue on every meal i've bought so far).

After lunch we walked around and visited buckingham palace, scotland yard, and several other random but significant places that I can't remember right now. :( I think I'm going into way too much detail on this post, sorry.

Anyway, we went to see Stomp that night. It was pretty stinkin amazing and a ton of fun. Later we walked down Camden street and got a bite to eat, all the club places were pretty crazy, every single one of them had a bouncer, intimidating. We went back to our super-comfortable hostel and prepared to wake up early the next morning for church.

Hillsong London was AMAZING. Johanna and I were both a mess afterwards, we had already talked about how we cry in church on a normal basis, when you add that we hadn't been in church in a while and God showing up in a powerful way, well let's say we went through a lot of kleenex in the best possible way. It was incredible to hear about all God has done and is doing in London and the world via Hillsong. We spent the rest of the day going to Abbey road and taking a Beatles pic and shopping. We had to leave around 5 to get to our flight in time.

And there's more:

So we were taking a really cheap airline which meant there was a limited number of options as to when we could fly back and the airport was a little out of the way. All in all I searched for an hour and a half trying to figure out how we were going to get back to Maastricht from Brussels... end result? We could get as far as Liege, which is a good hour train ride from Maastricht, but the trains stopped running as soon as we would get there. Our options were, take the train to Liege and rent a cab for six people home, rent a hotel room in Brussels (which would be about 20 euro a person and we would only be in for about five hours), take the train to Liege and sleep outside, stay in the Brussel's train station, save money, and leave on the 6:24 am train. We chose the last one. Yes, I slept in a train station. We were pretty glad the guys were with us around 2 in the morning, well actually probably all night because there were several drunk men coming around. They weren't mean or dangerous or anything just drunk and looking for someone to talk to. It was cold, but the girls snuggled together and got a few hours of sleep. All in all it was fun and I'm glad we did it but hopefully, never again.