Bloody Hell It's Cold in London

London. Well we've only been in London for a day now but I already love it. This may or may not be because the owner of our hostel gave us free beer to welcome us to London. I'll get to that story later.

We arrived late last night and were greeted with a loud "ELLO!" We went straight to bed, but mind you we share a room with 6 other people so we were woken up early to people packing to check out. They were an Australian and a New Zealander though so if anyone is gonna wake me up at least they had awesome accents. Luis is baffled by my love of accents but Hannah Grieser, I know you understand. We got to talking and boy was that conversation interesting. When I told them I was going to Hyde Park today the New Zealander got really excited because there are squirrels there. I may have offended her slightly with my blank stare. Who knew squirrels were exciting?

Anyway somehow I accidentally convinced her to visit the United States. She admitted that all she knew about the United States came through movies and politics. I told her not to judge us based off that, but I neglected to tell her I studied film in college. (catch that past tense? Studied. So weird.)

Our conversation was short, maybe five minutes, but enlightening all the same. One of the first things New Zealand  asked me was why it's such a big deal that Obama announced he was pro equal marriage rights. Her question surprised me, both because I forget how much other countries know about US politics, but also because I realized that it shouldn't be a big deal at all. Then she asked if I went to one of those crazy Christian schools that taught Creationism and that somehow came around to "do you know any Scientologists?" It was rather like 20 questions.

So that was interesting. Later I read and meandered through Hyde Park, which is the Central Park of London and watched a game of cricket. It was a scene straight out of The Wedding Date. I spent the rest of the afternoon walking the streets of London and listening to Coldplay. Kind of perfect.

Hostel life is slightly different than I'm used to but damn is it cheap. And the staff are really nice as well. Solid sleep is pretty much out of the question when you're sharing a room with six other people, but when the owner heard we were thinking about finding a hotel he subtly gave us a free round of beer and said "welcome to London." Needless to say we are staying.