I have posted some pics that I took at the Tower Of London and Buckingham Palace. You can see them on the Images tab. Right now I’m sitting in the lounge area of the hostel falling asleep. I didn’t get in until 5am this morning and had about 5 hours asleep but I’m still sleepy for some reason. Here are some random thoughts and my general impression of London so far:

• when crossing the street here make sure you look both ways!  For one, if you aren’t used to the direction of the traffic (they drive on the right side of the road here) and look for oncoming traffic the way you are used to you could end up as road kill.  People here drive fast and they WILL NOT stop for you by any means.
• People in London are nice in general but there is definitely social tension.  For example, they will not look you in the eye when you pass them on the street but if you initiate a conversation they can be some of the nicest people in the world
• The whole time I’ve been here I don’t think that anyone can tell I’m a tourist until I start asking for directions.  It’s funny but the whole time I’m watching out for other people (i.e thieves, pickpockets) I feel like they are watching out for me.  Seems like young, black men have a bad reputation here but I guess it could be a gift and a curse in my case since no one messes with me.
• Fish and chips, fish and chips, fish and chips…if you come here you must have it.  Oh yeah, and my new favorite fast food joint, Chicken Cottage:

• The hostel has fox that comes by to beg for food. They haven’t named him yet I don’t think but he comes by every night like clockwork.  I have never seen a fox up that close before so that was pretty interesting.

More later, for now I’m going to go crashhhhhhhhhh