Wow, it has been forever since my last post! I guess I’ve been a little busy (and also probably a little lazy). The last few weeks here have been absolutely amazing! I can’t believe I just have one more week here-the time was gone by so fast! I want my blog to be updated before I head back or else I know I’ll never do it, so here it goes….
London could possibly be my new favorite city. I just loved it there, and it is now in my top three favorite cities (New York City and Paris being the other 2). About a month ago, I was talking with my friend Cassie from back home about how much I wanted to go to London, but didn’t really have anyone here to go with, so she said she would meet me! It was great to see a familiar face, and I was so happy we were able to go there together! I flew in on a Thursday evening and spent the night in the Heathrow airport. I was not looking forward to this, but it was really my only option since Cassie wasn’t due to arrive until 7am the following morning. Sleeping at Heathrow is doable, but I wouldn’t exactly recommend it. I had borrowed my roommate, Lauren’s, sleeping bag, so I found a little spot on the floor-did a little reading, and then went to “sleep”. I can’t really say if I ever actually fell asleep because it was just so loud and bright that it was even hard to just concentrate on sleeping. I was woken up around 3am to a man saying “Excuse me miss, we need to clean this wall.” THE WALL?? Did he seriously need to clean this particular WALL at that very moment!? So I wasn’t too happy about this, but I guess they gotta do their job. He recommended that I go upstairs into this café that had some couches. They were all taken, but I found a café that was closed (with the lights off!) so I curled up under a table and slept for a couple more hours. The coffee shop opened at 5am, so I was up again and went down to check my friend’s flight. It had been delayed until 11am when it was supposed to be in at 7! So I hopped on the Internet, booked a room at the Yotel for 4 hours, and headed over to another terminal to get some actual sleep. It was quite expensive (about 40 pounds), but it was soooo worth it! It’s this “hotel” type place that has these little cabin type rooms that you can book anywhere from 4+ hours. The bed was so comfortable and it was pitch black! (Even had a fan noise J) So I slept for 3.5 hours…took a shower…and then headed back to meet up with Cassie.
We got to our “Bed and Breakfast” (we received fruit baskets in the morning, so I guess this qualifies as a b&b) which was the tiniest room I had ever seen. So we didn’t have a lot of room to walk around and only one bed that we shared, but it wasn’t really a big deal since we were really only there to sleep. We lost over half our day with Cassie’s flight being delayed, so we didn’t do a whole lot the first day. We found our way down to Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Parliament which ended up being my favorite part of London. Just looking at these made me really feel like I was actually in London J We then headed over to this cute little Christmas market that was going on which I just loved. They had lots of booths filled with food, jewelry, scarfs, and other unique items. Music was playing and it just finally felt like Christmas to me (even if it was only a week before Thanksgiving). We finished our first night by riding the London Eye (giant ferris wheel type thing that has great views of the city) and seeing all the great lights of London by night.
The next morning was spent waiting an hour in line for front row tickets to see Wicked that night which we got! They release 24 front row tickets every morning for only 25 pounds and waiting only an hour to get them was definitely worth it! This was my absolute favorite thing I did in London! I have been dying to see this show and I’m so happy I FINALLY got to see it. (I have since became addicted to the soundtrack-I’m secretly hoping that when Emilie and I potentially go to NYC this spring, I can see it again!) Afterwards we headed to Portabello Road in Notting Hill which just so happens to be one of my favorite movies. I looked for the travel book store that Hugh Grant works at in the movie, but never found it. But Portabello Road is a giant street market that goes on forever-antiques being the majority of the shops. I didn’t buy anything, but it was fun to just walk around and grab a bite to eat. The rest of the day we walked around Picadilly Circus which is basically just an area for shopping/dining/theater. We saw Wicked that night and then ate at Hard Rock Café afterwards. Sidenote: First Hard Rock began in London. They told us the table we were sitting at was where the owners used to sit because they could see the whole restaurant and it was this very booth where the whole thing began.
The next day we walked to Buckingham Palace (was hoping to at least see the Queen’s Corgis but sadly we did not….guess that was probably a long shot), Trafalgar square and then headed to the British Museum. This is the oldest museum in the world-wasn’t really my type of museum, but did see a few cool things such as mummy’s, Rosetta Stone, and one of the statues from Easter Island. We then headed to Harrods, the famous department store in London which I just loved. I have never seen a bigger department store (well maybe Macy’s in NYC) and I just couldn’t get over how expensive things are. For example-there was a pet store inside and one of the cats was selling for 1200 pounds! They even have a souvenir shop inside basically just for tourists. It was all decorated for Christmas and just so pretty inside! It has so many different restaurants and cafes as well. Cassie and I split a 14 pound sundae, and it was delicious! I don’t think I have ever spent that much on ice cream, but I felt like it was well worth it.
Our last day in London was spent touring Westminster Abbey, watching the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace (where Cassie may have gotten into a small fight with an angry lady who wanted her whole family to be closer to the gate), St. Paul’s Cathedral (where Princess Diana got married) and then ended at the Tower of London which used to be a fortress, palace, and a prison. Here there is a museum with many of the crown jewels which was pretty neat to see. Right next to the Tower of London is the Tower Bridge (everyone mistakes this bridge as the London Bridge-the London Bridge really isn’t all that cool) which I didn’t get the chance to go up. We took a boat ride down the Thames, walked through the Christmas market one more time, and headed back to the hotel to pack up for the following day.
Enjoy the pics below-more are posted on Facebook if you want to check them out.
I'm SO stealing this picture of Harrods!
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