DAY FIVE

I didn't mention yesterday that my dorm has 8 beds. This means that there are 8 girls staying in a room with one sink. It's kind of cool- I think there's someone from every continent save Antarctica. Two girls from Australia, a girl from Brazil who is living in Ireland (yeah, her accent is a DOOZY), sisters from somewhere else in England, a girl from Japan, and then me and another girl from the states. It's also kind of insane- one of them came in at four in the morning sobbing HYSTERICALLY, and someone is always trying to sleep so it's always this awkward half-dark-trying-to-be-quiet thing.

Despite the middle of the night hysterics, I woke up early and went to the zoo! I managed to A) Get to the tube station B) Figure out what line I wanted and get on it and C) Navigate from the tube station to the zoo ALL WITHOUT GETTING HORRIBLY LOST. It was a little touch and go for a minute there, but I FIGURED IT OUT.

The zoo was SO cool. It's one of the oldest zoos in the world (it's been around since before Montana was even a state!), and one of the best funded- the Gorilla enclosure alone cost London over 5 million pounds. I saw a fish bigger than my dog, and a baby monkey smaller than my pinky. All the employees thought I was pretty funny- the zoo was almost TOTALLY full of school trips, and there were a few couples, and then there was me. All alone. They do this thing, where they take a picture of your group as you go in- so I put on my sunglasses and did a badass pose. If it hadn't cost 20 pounds, I'd have it to show you- but anyway, all the employees recognized me all day as 'that one girl with the shades', which was pretty funny.

It was a lovely experience, right up until the end- the day had started out without a cloud in the sky, so of course I didn't have my rain jacket, and it started POURING right as I was leaving. Whatever, it was atmospheric.

Then I navigated BACK to the tube, soaking wet, figured out my line, and went to meet Sam! Who was so LOVELY, even if I totally got turned around coming out of the station and was totally late to meet her. We went out to a beautiful dinner in which I had the TASTIEST lasagna (I think it might have been my first non-stressful meal of my whole trip) and like, hours of awesome conversation. Then she showed me the London Bridge and the Globe and St. Paul's. THE GLOBE, YOU GUYS. It's so unreal. I mean, Paris was awesome but- I've wanted to be in London my whole life. And I'm- HERE. THE GLOBE.

Tomorrow I'm going to find somewhere I can get actual internet, this is driving me up the wall. Also, somewhere else probably wouldn't have this seriously bizarre British version of MTV on all the time.