London

Despite the best attempts of the TSA and the British security forces to terrorize me into being too afraid to travel, I was not intimidated and made it to London without incident. After several security checks, document checks, and walking down innumerable airport corridors, I found myself in England. As such, I attended to the second most important task for the day: finding a place to sleep that night. (Britsh Air ensured that the most important item was taken care of: that I was well fed).

I took the train to London, the tube to King's Cross, and wandered my way over to the Ashlee House hostel. It seemed nice enough (and provided free breakfast), so I checked in for three nights.

It was still early in the morning, and I needed to make sure I didn't go to sleep for another twelve hours or so, to minimize jet lag. The difficult part was that my body only had two hours of sleep out of the last 24, and I still had 12 to go. In other words, lounging around the hostel was not allowed.

Lunchtime was quickly approaching, and I had a lunch date with a friend, so I took the tube to Holborn, where I met Tim and had a great time catching up with him. I then took off for the outer reaches of London, where I met up with a couple of MTW missionary families and helped them out with some computer problems. Afterwards, they took me out and paid for dinner at a local pub. We each thought we got the better end of the deal (they got free computer work, I got a free meal). By that time it was late at night, so I took the long tube ride back to my hostel and allowed myself to crash.

Potential Hostels:

The Ashlee House +44 (0) 20 7833-9400
Near Kings Cross tube stop, free luggage storage

Astor Hostels
- Museum +44 (0) 20 7580-5360
- Quest +44 (0) 20 7229-7782
- Victoria +44 (0) 20 7834-3077

Palmer's Lodge +44 (0) 20 7483-8470
Near Swiss Cottage tube stop