So we finally got a taste of real London weather: miserable, windy, wet, and cold. We woke up around 9, had awesome omelets courtesy of Sam, and then headed out to watch the changing of the guard. It was pretty interesting, but would have been a lot nicer if it wasn't raining. Anyway, it was one of the last things we wanted to do in London before we had to go to the airport.
We walked from Buckingham Palace to the Science Museum, but there was a fat line all the way around the corner. It didn't seem reasonable to spend half an hour waiting in line for something on our last day in the UK, so we kept walking.
We ran into the Imperial College, a science and engineering school in central London. It was pretty cool inside. They have a pretty good mechanical engineering department:
And it was pretty funny because the engineering students looked just like engineering students in the U.S. You know what that means if you're an engineer. I guess engineering is the same everywhere.
I'm really considering going to school in Europe in the future now. I'm stuck at Stanford for my M.S. degree (5 quarters), but I really want to come to Europe to work on my Ph.D or M.D. It's funny. I graduated from Berkeley and I'm still on the fence, career-wise: Engineer or Doctor?
After we toured the Imperial College, we passed by the backside of the Science Museum and surprise surprise, no line! We walked right in, and saw the main entrance where people were still piling in. Hah. I guess we got lucky. Anyway, I wasn't that impressed with this museum. It was free, but not hands-on enough. There was one floor of exhibits where the kids could actually touch things (expectedly, it was also the most crowded), but the other floors were full of exhibits behind bars/glass cages. The Exploratorium is soooooooo much better.
It was getting close to the time we had to leave for Luton Airport, so we stopped at a small cafe for a quick pastrami sandwich, and then to Sister Ching's place to pick up our bags. We left them there because her place is close to the train station, and we didn't wanna carry our 25 pound packs all day.
I had my first (and last) slipup at the Tube station! I lost my pass after getting off the metro, and was kinda mad at myself because I didn't want to buy a new one for 7.20 pounds, but this nice old lady tapped me on the back and told me she saw me drop it before the escalators. I ran back, and it was still there! Felt touched by an angel.
I'm on the rail right now to Luton Airport, and nodding off. We're taking Easyjet, a discount airline, to Paris CDG Airport. I'm gonna miss my London friends, but I'm really excited for Paris.
This is a reminder for myself: Sam likes spicy food, and he misses cheetos from the states. They don't have them in London. Stefan really likes college t-shirts. So...get a fat thing of flaming hot cheetos and Cal/Stanford t-shirts to send to them!
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