Cheerio

Hey y'all,

So I arrived in London this morning at approximately 4:45. OOF. I slept for about four hours on the bus which is actually better than what I expected.

My bus from Lille to London stopped at Calais in northern France where we hopped on the Chunnel. However, before that, we had to get off the bus, go through French customs, get back on the bus, get back off the bus, go through British customs, and THEN wait an hour until the Chunnel opened up. What a wild ride. 

In my experience with British customs (albeit this is only the second time I remember) - they are a huge pain in the rear. Out of about thirty people on the bus, I was one of two non Europeans. So I waited in line for British customs, got to the front of the line and was then given a paper to fill out for foreigners. Then I had to get back in line. On the form you had to fill out your address in the UK. I clearly couldn't do that because I'm not even staying 24 hours. I had to explain all of this to the rude British customs lady. I told her it saved me from paying for a hotel. She did not seem to think it was a good idea. She said "well I need to see your bus ticket back for tomorrow." I responded "well I left it in the bus because I was told to only bring my passport into the office." And you know what? She made me go back out and get that ticket. What a pain. It was 2am and I was not having it.

Anyways, they finally deemed me fit to enter this country so alas here I am. Phew.

Maybe I'm uneducated on the Chunnel, but I assumed there was just a highway under water that we would drive on. Silly Sarah. Our huge greyhound size bus drove straight into a train carriage and we rode on the bus on a train all the way to the UK. That was wild. 

Below is a view of the bus driving onto our carriage.

 

I'm not going to lie. The Chunnel rode like a dream.

I spent approximately the next two hours after arriving walking around and exploring a little. Even at 5am, there were a lot of people out and it was light outside.

I headed down to Buckingham Palace to see Liz and then to the river

Thames and snapped some photos.

Since then, I've been bouncing back and forth between coffee shops waiting for the city to wake up so I can go see the likes of the Tower of London, St. Paul's cathedral and Westminster abbey.

That's all for now, folks.

Luv,

Sarah