28 hours and still not sleeping

So officially I did make it to London this morning - met up with Greg and he got me coffee and I did some exhausted exploring. To put my entire day into one thought I had this afternoon; (while walking along Queen's Walk along the Thames River for a few miles) 'Wait...what was i doing again? oohhh right: looking for Big Ben. Where the hell is that?'

As may be guesed, Big Ben is not all that big, but it is still pretty awesome. London itself is nice - not at all foreign feeling besides the accents, which is not totally jarring to me. I may just be really really tired though. I woke up at 9 AM MN time on Tuesday and have not slept. The flight was not exhausting enough for me to sleep at all, we caught up to daylight too quickly. I did watch Hotel For Dogs in english AND spanish though. I and my bag arrived fully intact despite much turbulance and I made my way sucessfully thoughout the city, along the river and found out that it's OK to run into people in London and you dont need to jump and freak out and apologize. If you do your just a midwestern tourist.

After seeing the river, the eye, the globe theater and all the other things along the way such as cobbled streets and bridges like london bridge, which is actually a lot lamer than the childhood song makes it sound, I crossed the bridge to big ben and the houses or parliment. Across the street, I found Westminster Abbey, which I decided to tour since I had time to kill and now I am not entirely sure if I should have left it till I was more awake. Don't get me wrong; it was beautiful and old and full of cool stuff like tombs, EVERYWHERE, but it was so crowded with sculptures and tombs and latin on the walls that it almost felt gawdy to me. I did light a candle and say a prayer - for good measure. I suppose thats what Europe is like in a way: overcrowded with monuments of a history someone decided should be remembered. And kings and scandel. I should be prepared for this.

Then I found a park nearby, got a glass of wine and a sandwhich - that had ONLY mushrooms and tomatoes in it, which surprised me till I remembered what everyone said about British cooking - and felt excellent and exhausted sitting in the rain, with a perfectly legal glass of wine which no one even carded me for, in London. England is just what one imagines it to be like, which is comforting. Greg's place is nice, and we went to dinner and found we had a lot more in common than I had previously thought.

But really now, I need to sleep. Like, REALLY. Getting up early to head into the country and meet the Browns.