London! (and our challenges getting there)

I have not faced many challenges since being in France. Aside from the usual adjusting to college life and missing home living abroad this semester has been quite easy. The most eventful part of this experience has been this past week.It is Thanksgiving break and we all had a week to go off and do whatever we chose to do. Gregory, Dave and I decided to go to London. Not one of us had ever been before. It started off horrible and turned into one of the biggest adventures of my life. We arrived in London without a knowing where where we were going to stay. We knew about a few hostels but foolishly never got around to actually booking one. That was the big mistake of the trip. Our flight got in at around eight and then we had to take an hour and a half long bus ride into London proper. We were having a great time just knowing that we were in London. When we arrived at the train station we had dinner and relaxed after our travels. London looked absolutely gorgeous all lit up and sparkly. After about an hour or so of admiration we decided it was time to look for a place to stay. Not only did we find a hotel or hostel,found street after street completely lined with just hotels. We thought it was are lucky night. Oh, on the contrary. For ever single hotel, inn,or bed and breakfast had signs stating 'no vacancy'. After three or four hours wandering around with all of our bags I began thinking that this trip was a bad idea. We had been in London for 6 hours and still had no place to stay. Finally at about six in the morning we found a nasty over priced flea bag hotel to spend the night. It was horrible but I suppose much better than outside in the freezing rain.
The next morning, semi-rested we found a Internet cafe and spent a few hours searching the Internet. We finally found a place that could actually accommodate us. It then took us three hours of walking around to find the actual address. It is above a bar and it is the coolest hostel any of us had every stayed in (well it is the only hostel any of us had ever stayed in). It was a huge relief having a place to stay, we could finally relax and enjoy London.