London Venture

It was very sad leaving L'Abri. We met some great people. We left Greatham straight from the local church with a very nice local man, William, who offered to drive us to the train station. We had time to spare so he drove us to two amazing cities, Petersfield and Portsmouth. The English would actually say Petersfield is a town, not a city because it does not contain a cathedral...just for the record.  Portsmouth, which is right on the coast of the English Channel, reminds me of San Diego but with much deeper history and sail boats that are actually hundreds of years old instead of being props for movies. William was an excellent tour guide and spending time with him was a perfect end to our L'Abri stay. We finally hopped on our train and took some subways to the hostel, Palmers Lodge Swiss Cottage. The building that the hostel is in is very old. It has been converted many different times from schools to hospitals to the hostel it is today. They have TVs, computers, lounge areas, a bar, basically everything. It is an amazing hostel. It is beautiful inside and out. It is very busy there, people in and out of the dorms, packing up at all times, day and night because they operate 24 hours. The crowd is very young and a very diverse people group from all over the world. The first day it was extremely hot and we were exhausted so we relaxed around the hostel and visited a couple charity shops (thrift stores) but that's about it. The second day we were tired but knew we had to make the most of it and we did. We got some tips from the front desk and set off. We shopped Camdem Town to it's limits but only found a couple 'cool enough for hipster shops'. Our favorite; a vintage leather coat store, where every jacket on the racks were 10€ (yes I did, it fits perfect), in the bowels of the crazy shopping maze. We spent 10 hours walking, bussing and taking the underground all over London. Buckingham Palace, Trafalger Square, Westminster abbey, Big Ben. We did well. Once back at the hostel we packed and went to bed at 12am only to wake up to catch a bus at 3:30am to catch another bus at 5am to catch a flight from London to Lyon, France at 7am. We're abusing our bodies for this trip but there is no question that it is worth it.