Viva La Vida (Live the Life!!)

I apologize for the delay in writing about all my travels, but I've been a busy girl, as you will see in my next half dozen or so entries!! So let's start with my trip to London... Not all of you may be familiar with the English alternative rock band, Coldplay, but they were the reason I was on a plane to London! Andy Chen, the other Robert Morris student studying in Rome, asked if I would want to see them in concert in London. Considering I LOVE going to concerts in general, and this would be the end of Coldplay's world tour in their hometown of London, I thought it would be an awesome trip. Plus, who doesn't want to visit London, one of the biggest cities in Europe?

We arrived at the Stansted airport in London and took a bus to the Liverpool Street station, one of the many train stations in the city. The bus ride took almost an hour- I didn't realize the airport was that far outside the city. London was the 3rd European city I would be experiencing, and at first glance, I knew I loved this city. I'm not sure if it's the fact that everyone speaks English, compared to Danish in Copenhagen or Italian in Rome, or the interesting architecture or just the fact that it has been such an important international city for so many years in history. Whatever the reason, I knew right away that I wanted to return to London again. When the bus droppsed us off at the Liverpool Street station, I needed to find some food. They didn't feed us on the plane and I hadn't eaten since breakfast. We decided to try the McDonald's in London- this would be my second McDonald's experience in Europe (I had tried it in Copenhagen and I thought it was mostly the same as in America). No, this was not the case in the UK. It seemed like the English don't really favor Big Macs or Quarter Pounders with cheese because they're not on the menu! I decided on a chicken and bacon sandwich with mayonaisse on it. I was so excited about the mayo because it's really hard to find in Italy. The fries tasted the same as in America and Denmark, and of course, they sold Coke products. After our lunch, I bought a cardigan at a shop in the train station- I forgot that it was the fall season up in England and the windy weather was going to be a little chilly without a light jacket (which I forgot to pack, of course).

Next, it was off to find our hostel. We had some trouble finding the right address, but luckily, everyone speaks English, so it was easy to ask for directions. We were all checked in when we decided to walk down to the LONDON BRIDGE, which was not even 5 minutes away from our hostel. The bridge gives a nice view of the River Thames and is not far from the famous Tower Bridge of London. Soon, we were on the Underground (aka Tube or subway as Americans know it) to Wembley Stadium, where we were going to the Coldplay concert. It took about 45 minutes on the Underground to reach our destination. Wembley Stadium is HUGE and will be one of the places where the Olympic Games will be hosted in 2012. We were meeting my roommate in Rome, Lizz Wilkinson, and her roommate at Chatham, at the stadium. Our seats were in the first row of the nose bleed section, but we were center stage, so it was a great view for the concert. Jay-Z, a rap artist, opened the concert for Coldplay, a rock band from London. These last two concerts, on Friday and Saturday, were the last two shows in their world tour. Jay-Z and Coldplay have a song together, titled Lost, and they performed that song. My favorite song of the night was "Yellow" when they released yellow balloons on the audience and the lights onstage and all over the stadium were all yellow. It was a great performance of the song. I also loved "Viva La Vida", which is another popular Coldplay song on the charts. I have lots of awesome pictures, mostly taken by Andy, of the concert that I can't wait to share with you. The Underground was obviously very, very crowded on our way back from the concert, but I forgot to mention that Coldplay gave everyone in the audience a free CD as we left Wembley Stadium! Pretty cool, huh? Once we arrived back at the hostel, I was exhausted and fell right to sleep.