July 23, 2002: Broken Tubes and Lost Hostels

I woke-up at 7:00 and washed my hair and took a shower. I put on my makeup and finished putting everything in my bags. I took off all the linens and took them down the hall. After that I took all of my luggage to the lift and went downstairs to eat breakfast. I put all my luggage in the conference room and ate breakfast. After flag we waited for Greta to check the group out of Pax Lodge. We left Pax Lodge at 10 am and walked to Belsize Park. When we got to Belsize Park the lifts were shut down so the station was closed.

We had to walked, with our luggage, to the next station which was at least 3/4 mile away. We took the Tube all over London, getting lost and carrying our luggage up soooo many flights of stairs. We finally found the right Tube stop and walked another 1/2 mile to Holland House. We checked in and went up another 3 flights of stairs to our room.

The bunk beds are stacked in threes. I am on the center bed. We stayed at Holland House for a little while because Kathy wasn't feeling well. We stayed at the hostel for three and a half hours until Kathy felt well enough to let us go eat lunch/dinner. Jennifer from Pax Lodge came with us to Holland House on her day off and she was our 2nd adult for dinner.

We ate at McDonald's down the street from Holland House. I had french fries. After McDonald's we had an hour to look around then meet back at the Tube station. We took the tube to Notting Hill Gate and looked for the gate from the movie "Notting Hill". After walking around for an hour we gave up and went back. We took the Tube to Paddington Station and I waited while some of the group went to look for a Paddington bear.

After the rest of the group came back we got on the tube again and rode to Picadilly Circus. We walked around for a few hours then ate dinner. We took the tube back to High Street Kensington and walked back to Holland House. We had to walked through a very scary park with creepy men everywhere. Greta had us stay together. We got to our room, got ready for bed, and went to sleep.