As soon as we arrived in Minneapolis, we learned that the flight to London was possibly overbooked. The airline was offering $750 per person to give up a seat AND a hotel room for the evening. That meant Dealta could possibly be paying for our next vacay… partially. Unfortunately the airline didn’t need our seats so we couldn’t spend the evening drinking margaritas and the day thrifting in Minneapolis planning our next trip.

Day 2
As soon as we got on the plane, we were handed UK arrival custom cards and of course we didn’t make reservations at a hostel yet so we couldn’t fill in where we were staying. David wanted to make up some ridiculous story about how we were meeting a friend in London who he had met at a conference and had been talking to over the internet. I immediately made it clear I wouldn’t do that and that I just wanted to tell the truth. David somewhat agreed… probably because our story needed to be the same. The first customs officer lady wouldn’t listen to us because we didn’t have our forms entirely filled out. So we moved down the line and found someone who would let us in. There is not even a phone book at customs to look up addresses so I’m not sure how we were expected to even find a place. The second customs officer man asked us a bunch of questions. First he asked, “How long will you be in the UK?” To which I replied, “Two months. Kinda….well actually I know we put two months but we’re also going to France and Germany so not really two months.” Next he asked, “Do you have a return flight?” “Yes we do. Its on September 22nd.” “Do you have the flight itinerary?” - “No.” - “You didn’t print it out?” - “No…” - “Are you two studying at the university?” - “Yes!” - “You will be returning to school?” - “Yes in the fall (a small lie on my part).” He finally stamped our passports. I forgot to tell him I wanted it stamped in the next box so it looked nice and neat. Of course he didn’t.

Our flight to London was supposed to arrive at 7 in the morning. We arrived at 12ish. I think Delta changed our flight ten times without letting us know. Getting our bags was funny because they were so duct-taped and trashy looking. We were waiting at the baggage claim with both of our backpacks waiting for our boxes. We turned around and there they were, both on a luggage cart for us! Also next to our boxes was a duct-taped coffee maker box that had been opened to be inspected. We got coffee at Starbucks and put our bikes together next to the coffee shop…. for the next three hours… and by we put our bikes together I mean David mostly put our bikes together. I helped by holding things, retrieving things, inflating tires, and unpacking things!!

After putting the bikes together we rode off into London! I’m already freaked out because Londoners drive on the other side of the street and I’m just afraid in general that I’m going to get hit by a car. Not even two miles away from the airport and David needs to stop because he found blackberries and wants to eat them. We rode around for awhile making our way to Central London. We were riding on the bike/ pedestrian trail next to the road which was dumb because the road would have been much faster. We did have the trailer and we weren’t sure of the proper biking etiquette. We made it to this village area that could be compared to Upper Arlington and got food at this mini mart type of place. Pita bread, cheese, water, and a can of split pea soup. Quite good actually but I’m sure we looked homeless eating it in the park.

We got coffee and internet at a café and tried to find a place to stay. No one was answering our couch surfing requests so we tried to find a cheap hostel. A double was £40 average. At this point we are getting quite fussy with each other. We were passing by a pub that had some people standing outside drinking so we decided to ask them where a cheap place to stay would be. The one guy, Victor, we met works for a mobile bike assistance company. We started talking and met his boss Rashid who told us we would be able to camp by the river for the night without anyone bothering us. As we were leaving the pub, Victor offered us a room at the place he lived, and convinced us because it was going to be much warmer than staying by the river. It was about an hour to an hour and a half ride to his house and he took us all throughout London. It was pretty cool and really pretty seeing it at night. Also, we got more acquainted with riding around London. The bike Victor rides is ridiculous. It is a very aggressive and speedy recumbent bicycle apparently for time trials. When he is on the bike, he is only three feet above the ground and with the way he rides I can’t believe he hasn’t been hit by a car while on it… although hes only had it a week. Turns out, Victor is from Poland! I was a little excited about that.

Day 3
The next day, we didn’t get up until 3:00pm because of jet lag and we were just exhausted. There was a note from Victor saying we could meet up with him at some point and that we were welcome to stay at his house for the time we are in London.

We spent most of the day biking around trying to find free wifi and getting food. We found this cute open market (Burough Market) with a bunch of fresh bread and fruit and cheese and flowers. We had lunch in a park again and laid there for a bit in the sun. The weather has been beautiful, not rainy at all. Also, I discovered my fork was getting loose, the first attempt of David’s to kill me. Yes, we were still fussy with each other… for most of the day. We crossed the Tower Bridge, took some photos, and watched the bridge go up for a sail boat like the one David wants to go sail across the Atlantic in. Then we went to the Tate Modern Museum of Art. The Museum was interesting and free! We didn’t finish looking at the Tate because we were so hungry and still had no coffee! Somehow we made it through the day without coffee and if anyone knows us, you know we both need our coffee or don’t fucking talk to us.














I (David) am now commandeering this blog post because Alyssa fell asleep writing it. We somewhat unenthusiastically left the Tate and walked along the south bank of the Thames to where we could see the huge bicycle wheel-Ferris wheel, Big Ben, and the House of Parliament. All were super touristy but still pretty impressive. Even though by this time it was late, we were super hungry, and the lack of coffee and, unbeknownst to us, what I now think to be jet lag was setting in, we made our way past Westminster Abby towards Buckingham palace. That was agreed to be a little unimpressive and very under landscaped; there was brick, and absolutely no grass. Anyway we eventually made it home where we talked to Monika, who is Victor’s girl or ex-girl friend (we were told that it was hard to tell right now), and we discussed making breakfast for her since she was leaving to go to Oxford to perform for money as a street entertainer. The breakfast she described, from what Alyssa and I could gather after the conversation included sandwiches, nuts, and lots of milk… We didn’t know what that meant so we got ourselves an assortment of food for the evening and waited for Victor to come home in hopes he could translate, which he was too drunk to do; he only laughed, and said that we would go together in the morning.