*Revised plan for real!* I just took Riss to Heathrow airport, and she's probably going through all the security craziness as we speak, and then heading back to boston. As for me, I'm staying in London til next wednesday, and then going to Paris and starting my europe train pass from there. I'm super excited! I packed the essentials into just my backpack, and I'll find somewhere to leave my suitcase in London, and then head out to wherever I end up. The giant is staying in London for the same time as me, and then we'll both head to Paris on the same train, and maybe do parts of france together but then probably split up because we want to do different countries. (and after knowing this kid for 4 days, who knows how i'll feel about him in 4 weeks . . . i've been known to be a bit fickle every now and then!)

Anyway, yesterday was me and Riss's first day of being tourists. We started out at Buckingham palace and then went to the Queen's gallery, which has lots of portraits and jewels and random furniture from various royaltys' houses. Then we had a long lunch at a pub (p.s. I love that it's completely acceptable to drink beer at 2 pm on a wednesday here . . . even the old women next to us were!), and then met up with the giant for the afternoon. Oddly enough, while walking past Buckingham palace, I ran into Matt Seiler from wash u., and he's just travelling through Europe with a friend this summer, so we traded contact info and may meet up to go to the beaches of Croatia, which I've heard are unbelievable. Small world, I guess! Now that I know I'm only in London for another week, I'm kind of feeling like there's not enough time to do everything I still want to do. Tonight I'm going out with the Jewish girls we met a couple days ago, so they said they'll show me more cool spots. And tomorrow the world cup starts, and this country is ridiculously obsessed with soccer and I love it! The paper released a survey that said that 28% of Londoners are planning on calling in sick to work when England has games. Every ad and store window and pub sign is about the English team, entire newspapers are published everyday just with more soccer news, it's absolutely crazy! And I think I'm going to take a 1-2 day bus trip to Bath too, which has stonehenge and hot springs and apparently a lot of other stuff that I'll find out when I get there. and there are a couple major tourist sites I have to hit before I go, so I'll probably be running around like crazy between now and my 4 am train to Paris next wednesday. That's all from here . . . I'll give you all the revised life plan as it changes, probably tomorrow it will all be completely different!