We got to England this morning at 9:30 here which, you guessed it, means that we had to sleep on the plane in order to properly adjust to the time difference. HOWEVER, Natalie and I were sitting next to a very smelly lady which contributed to the fact that we were unable to sleep all 6.5 hours of the flight. That being said, we are now completely and utterly exhausted at 10:00. In case you were wondering what the highlights of my day were I will tell you!

1. Learning that the English people ride on the left side of the road because when they rode on horses, in order to shake hands with the other rider or even fight him with a sword. For this reason they rode on the left side so it would be easy to do those things. We ride on the right side of  the road because when there were Americans expanding west in their wagons they would have to lead large groups of horses. The best way to control such groups was to sit on the back left horse and control from there. In order to have conversations with other riders they would have to pass each other on the right. HOW COOL IS THAT? I thought it was wicked cool but maybe that’s just me.

2. Gluten-free pasta with pesto sauce and a glass of wine (legal in England) with dinner and espresso for dessert. Is there a better meal that you can think of? The answer is no, there’s not.

3. MEETING CHRISTINA PERRI IN MY HOTEL! Ok, so basically I had seen that Christina Perri (who sings “Jar of Hearts”, buy it by the way she’s amazing) was going to England to record some music with Jason Mraz. She left a day before me, but low and behold the first person/place/thing I recognize while walking to the hotel is her in line to buy coffee. So I tell Natalie that I saw her and I think she might be staying at our hotel across the street. Maybe 15 minutes later she comes into the lobby and at this point I was sure it was her. Me and Natalie walked up to her and told her how much we liked her song and she was incredibly friendly and shook both of our hands and asked our names. She was super nice and thanked us for recognizing her and said that she was about to go record some music with Jason Mraz for her new CD. Now when we hear her song with Jason Mraz on her CD coming out soon we will be able to say that we talked to her right before it was recorded!

4. Fun facts about English people. They are more verbally polite than Americans, but more physically aggressive in crowd situations. They do not wear flip flops. They walk with purpose. They are all good looking and all wear awesome clothes. There is no generalization here…this is pure fact.

5. I learned tons of awesome stuff about Harry Potter and London as well and got to see where they shot Gringots and Diagon Alley and the Night Bus Scene. Wicked cool stuff, but hard to sum up in a blogish type way…pictures are coming soon though.

In any case, those were the highlights of my day and now I’m going to go read some English historical fiction until I fall asleep. That’ll be maybe 5 minutes or so. Goodnight!

*Originally posted on rachelynne.wordpress.com