We are Safe: July 15, 2006

Hello Everyone,

We made it to London safe and sound although a bit frazzled from stupid stuff like Kristina spilling milk all over herself and Kimberly having too much damn luggage and it falling all over London!!!! We had extreme jet lag and did not mean to not call, we were too stupid too figure out our calling cards (haha-plus it was all in Spanish) we tried for arond 30 min on a pay phone and we just couldn't get them to work. We would have wrote e-mails but we didn't have any change and the front desk was closed. We did not mean to cause any harm to any of you and understand from talking to my Mom and from many of your e-mails we did cause a lot of grief. But we are perfectly fine and safe, just a little stupid and tired!! London is great, but VERY crowded and high paced. The subway is insane but we are starting to get the hang of it. We ask questions about every 30 secs as to not screw things up and I don't think the English appreciate it, haha! Yesterday, after arriving exhausted and Kristina very dirty, we went out and first went to the Tower of London where unfortunately it was very hard to enjoy because we were insanely exhausted. After that we went on a river cruise on the Thames and afterwards saw Big Ben and went on the London Eye-both very cool. We were supposed to also go to Westminster Abby, but couldn't because we were too tired and knew we wouldn't enjoy it, so will do that in August. JENNIFER-THANK YOU FOR THE ITINERARIES-WITHOUT THEM WE WOULD BE ROYALLY SCREWED AND PROBABLLY WOULD BE LOST IN LONDON!!!! About every 30 secs on the subway we are like what would we do without these things?!?! London is overwhelming, but was better today on more sleep. We went to Windsor castle today--which was absolutely amazing!! It took us forever to figure out the tube today even with J's instructions, but made it there fine eventually. I spilled red gatorade ALL OVER my WHITE skirt at the very beginning of our day in the middle of Victoria Station--a HUGE train/subway station because my water backpack sprang a leak or something, needless to say it was everywhere and I had to wear a red polka doted skirt around London today, so we have both been dirty looking haha. We have three Australian roomates (1 guy, 2 girls) and a Mexican guy here at the hostel, which is actually really nice!! We have both decided after only the SECOND day that brining food here was pretty much the most stupid idea EVER!! Kristina is already going to throw all of her 30+ mac an cheeses away haha! So all of you who said we wouldn't need the food-were right!! I carried one backpack on my back and one on my chest and rolled a suitcase around London yesterday with great difficulty as Kristina cracked up the whole way as everything kept falling. Oh well you live and learn and realize you shouldn;t bring food on vacation. Did you know they have grocery stores here?!?! Haha! Tomorrow we are going on a bus tour around London, going to some museums and are sleeping on a bus all night long on our way to Paris!! We will be sure to CALL now that we have figured out our calling cards-it was hard! But we do apoligize and did not mean to cause any harm or distress to any of you and appreciate the concern from you all-it is nice to know people are thinking and worrying about us. So far we have been un able to upload our pictures to the internet because we haven't found internet cafes and the computers in the hostel are weird and don't have any things to plug our adapters into. Oh and we forgot: our travel alarm clock, Kimberly forgot her adapters, batteries and charger for her camera (thankfully Kristina has extras) plus a bunch of other stuff. We will try and upload when we find an internet cafe, but we have looked pretty scrubby the past two days haha!! We love you all and are so sorry, but we really did try very hard for over half an hour to figure out the calling cards!! Talk to you all soon, we will write again in a few days!!

Love always,
Kimberly and Kristina

P.S.: LONDON SMELLS BAD!!!! THERE ARE NO GARBAGE CANS SO THERE IS GARBAGE EVERYWHERE!!

P.S.S.: Typing on European computers is VERY difficult as they are different-so sorry for any errors we don't have enough time remaining to spell check!!