I think I gained 5 pounds and I'm not talking about British currency, London Part 1

I only wish I were joking.

My urge to blog on a daily basis so I wouldn't be forced to attempt to tell you everything at one time was marred by our Holiday Inn's insistent demand that we pay 50pounds for the week.
50pounds ain't cheap.
50pounds is approximately $80.
For internet.
For 6 days.
So unsurprisingly, my cheap ass would just walk to the nearest Starbucks and use their FREE WiFi without shame.
Why wouldn't I take my computer with me?
Because it is heavy.
And I am weak and lazy.

SO
I've been trying to figure out the most efficient and interesting way to tell you about my week if you are, unfortunately for you, interested in hearing about it.
But trying to figure this out is seriously turning out to be more work than actually writing a blog entry, so I'm just gonna start writing and just stop when I feel like it.
BECAUSE I CAN.

Last Friday night was spent in wine-induced giggles and girl talk with Samantha, Callie, Louise, and some of her Danish friends.
Saturday was a day of Christiania visits, a struggling hour commute home after the trains quit running north [I learned later it was because a boy committed suicide by throwing himself into the path of an oncoming train], and another sleepover at Brooke's house so my 6am commute to the airport would be that much easier. [I'd like to publicly recognize that after our cab driver cheated Samantha and I out of 30 Kroner it was Brooke, who is shorter than Callie, that went head-to-head with him on our behalf while I silently watched the altercation and wondered when I should just pay him the too-high amount and run away from the confrontation. sorry Brooke!]

And then our alarms went off at 5:45am on Sunday morning.
Poor Brooke had delegated herself to the sofa after my snoring became unbearably loud [I truly feel sorry for the poor sap who decides to spend the rest of their lives with me, and for the second time in this blog entry, sorry Brooke!].
We get to the airport at the required 6:45am meeting time where I proceed to check in for my flight and leave my essential DIS Study Tour Guidebook on the kiosk.
STARBUCKS. And the assholes won't take my Starbucks card [thanks mom!] because it's airport owned. But it's okay. Every other Starbucks in London would.
I set off the security metal detector despite the fact that I am, in typical Smaki traveling fashion, dressed head to toe in cotton.
We board the plane that is occupied with either DIS or Danish students.
I doze off against the window and awaken to see not one, not two, but three sheep farms passing below me.
We are in England.

We are guided to a charter bus where we enter on the left side and promptly pass out as soon as it starts moving.
We are chillin' at the Holiday Inn in Kensington and arrive within 2 hours, but as we, and other DIS groups, are demanding our rooms at approximately 11am, they are not ready and we store our luggage with the hotel and wander to Earl's Court to get a chicken sandwich for lunch.
[Fun Fact! My little family stayed in Earl's Court once upon a time when we traveled to London. We frequented the McDonalds and Burger King in the area and stayed at the charming Lord Jim hotel. And by charming I mean quaint. And by quaint I mean basic. And by basic I mean...cheap. Hole in the floor, questionable bed pads, a television with uncontrollable volume stuck on a spanish soap opera, and a shower without a functioning design concept.]
After our lunch we take the tube to meet for a guided tour of the Olympic grounds.
Did I mention that it's approximately 35 degrees and pouring down rain with hurricane-like winds?
Oh I didn't?
Well it was FABULOUS!
And the tour was more of the path where the spectators would be walking to get to the event locations. All of which are not going to be finished until 2013. Subsequently our tour guide would occasionally stop along the path and point at a building in the distance and inform us that the small, unfinished, impossible-to-see building waaaaaaaay over there would be where basket-ice-swim-floor-dance-ball would be held.

Cold and wet despite the hot chocolate break, we proceed to take the tube to the London Eye.
But we only make it to the London Eye AFTER our academic advisor Søren, who is absolutely brilliant in the PR field, asked for directions to the giant, looming, hard-to-miss ferris wheel three times...
But we made it! And all thirty of us got into the moving car and tried to take the same picture of parliament from every single angle as the wheel went round and round at the pace of a 87 year old driving grandmother.

The all-seeing eye was followed by my first ever Indian cuisine.
And I ate every. single. bite.
And then the remaining bites of my overstuffed neighbor's dessert.
And the leftover Indian bread that I can't remember the name of right now but could seriously eat baskets of.
I then rolled myself back to the hotel where I proceeded to pass out by 11pm.

I swear I had just shut my eyes and started to snore on the exceptionally firm mattress and pillow when my alarm went off again and it was time for the hotel's complimentary buffet style breakfast! [they could afford to give me neverending hashbrowns, apple juice, and bacon but god forbid they splurged for internet.]
We, as a mass of 30 students, then proceed to the London School of Economics via the tube for a lecture on mass media and politics.
After doodling through the 2 hours, I follow Mary Ann (our positively tiny and wise intern) to Picadilly Circus, which is in the approximate location of our next academic visit.
We eat lunch at a french themed cafe and I eat a strawberry tart that was so delicious that when I'm 50 years old and telling my grandkids that "once upon a time I went to London with my class before you could teleport anywhere and you chewed your own food..." I will still be talking about that strawberry tart.
We visit the PR firm Edelman [responsible for the Dove beauty campaign, among others] and I try to keep my eyes from going crossed due to sleepiness.
A group of us (Megan, John, Hannah, Stephanie, Mike, Meghan, Mariel, and Chris; if you're interested in the names and/or are one of those people and want blog name recognition] post PR visit go to the nearest Starbucks for coffee and free WiFi.
After a caffeination and Facebook exploration of the best kind, we walk by Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and over the bridge where we each take approximately 1000 of the same pictures and almost get blown off of the bridge due to wind.
It was your cliche, dreary London day. [for those of you luck enough to be my friend on Facebook, which is probably how you got stuck reading this blog anyways, check out my pics!]
After this sightseeing excursion comes powernapping, and dinner at a delightful little place called 'Fish and Chips' where I, Jack, and Chris all order shawarma.
Cultural immersion? That's for tourists.

After dinner I purchase the ever-classy pint of Smirnoff and two RedBulls so I can stay awake AND be pregaming.
Not to mention feel similar to a crack addict the next morning when I still have caffeine coursing through my veins.
Once everyone is socially lubricated via alcohol, we venture into the night to find the club Moonlighting.
We lose one to hard pregaming and sleep.
We lose two on the tube.
We lose two to another club promoter.
We lose two on our powerwalk to Moonlighting.
Ultimately only two of us made it there together, after asking three times for directions and being told by two charming Brits that asking where Moonlighting was we were implying that we were hookers.
And only one of us made it home. [the other was safe and in love.]

Once inside the club and ultimately alone, I find Samantha [and Brooke and Francesca and Brenna and Taylor and others] and we dance and dance and dance and dance.
And I sweat more on that dance floor than I sweat during cross country practice in Virginia in August at 4 o clock in the afternoon.
And I really don't understand why people kept dancing with me when I looked like I'd been hosed down. [another Fun Fact! I re-wore those jeans that I sweat in at the club that night a few days after they'd aired out. what can I say? I had a limited clothing supply and a high demand for pants for London.]
Samantha, Taylor, and I leave around 2:45am and we find a taxi to take us home (sadly, the tubes stop running quite early in London. you can't 'mind the gap' after 11:45pm.)
Samantha manages to bust her ass getting out of the cab that we have drop us off four blocks from the hotel because we don't want to pay anymore and we know the area, but we manage to make it back in one piece, plus just a bruise on Samantha's knee.

Wanna know more?
Is the answer no?
Then you're in luck!
Because I'm done for now.
AND lucky for you, even though I got home on Friday night, my weekend has been adventure-less other than actually going for a run for the first time since November.
Holler at ma sore legs and nothing to blog about!

9:31pm Denmark
3:31pm USA [wait, is it still 3:31pm? The US sprang ahead but Denmark doesn't spring ahead until March 25....damn time zone differences.]