London Calling

I have been in London now for five days staying in the worst hotel that I think I have ever stayed in just to give you an idea of how bad it was, I purchased a room with a shared bathroom which all in all wasn't that bad. Immediately after checking in, I went to use the restroom and it looked like it hadn't been cleaned in months. That was probably my first sign that I should have left asked for a refund. It was then that I started to think that this portion of the trip was a bad idea. So I decided I would give them the benefit of the doubt and just assumed that they hadn't gotten to it yet. I went into my room and sat on the bed and realized this was the most uncomfortable bed I have ever sat on let alone would have to sleep on, I stood up only to hear a loud boing, the springs on this mattress apparently hold their kinetic energy only to release it seconds after you get up instead of gently as you are rising.  I decided to tough it out since it was the cheapest hotel I could find in London acutally, 10 miles outside of London so I would have a 30 minute train ride into the city, not a big deal except for the weekend when they shut trains down to work on them which sucks because everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere it 

My first morning, I woke up took the Underground into downtown London and visitied the London Tower, Tower Bridge Wellington Arch, and a myriad of other places. For some reason the thought of the hotel didn't really comfort me. In the evening I went back to the town where I was staying and decided to go to an Irish pub. The people were extremely nice and I decided this is where I would come in the evenings to hang out which turned out to be the best idea. I had booked a tour to see Stonehenge, Windsor Castle and the town of Bath. Unfortuneatly since it was a Sunday, the Underground was not running from the town I was staying so I had to bus it I ended up getting on the right bus only to go in the wrong direction. Because of the time table, there was no way I was going to make my destination in time but relentlessly I continued to try and get there to no avail. Finally, after the specified time I just gave up and went back to the town that I was staying in. I decided I would just do laundry and hang around the town.

The Laundrymat is a wonderful place indeed, I made friends with some of the locals and they asked me what I was doing in Harrow, and I told them I was on vacation and where I was staying and they told me to get out of there. They proceeded to tell me which I had discovered for myself that the place was dingy and not at all worth staying. So after leaving them I decided to check out. I found out I was an hour too late to check out and would have to pay for that night so I decided I would stay there one more night. At that point, I didn't know what I was going to do with the rest of my day. So I decided I would meander around the town I was staying in. On my journey, I found out that there is a famous school in this area that Winston Churchill attended and two of the Prime Ministers of Brittain.After about two oclock, I decided to go to the Irish pub and have lunch by this time I had gotten to know the staff by name and had great conversations with them. As I walked in there were these two older Gentlemen who were standing outside smoking I walked by them and walked up ordered my meal and sat down. After a while I realized these two gentlemen had an Irish accent so I started talking to them about Ireland I ended up spending the next 10 hours with them and it was the greatest night of my trip yet. It turns out they are part of a band called Dance to Tipperary. We talked about music, life, love, politics and everything in between. It's times like that I love. Learning about new people and their history and way of life it's times like those that mke life worth living.