I have been in Europe for 3 nights and enjoying the
sightseeing in Barcelona, but now onto my next city to explore. London! My good friend from high school, Anne, who
currently lives in Paris, France wanted to go on a trip; so why not London? We
did a lot of planning and decided to travel during the Opening Ceremonies for
the 2012 Olympics. And this is how our
trip unraveled.
My flight from Barcelona was at 6:00am on Friday, July 27th. I planned on leaving for the airport around
4:00am, just in case I ran into any more hiccups. So of course that meant I did not sleep at
all that night, a mixture of excitement to see Anne and nervousness because I
had such back luck traveling so far. I
was flying Ryanair and they are very strict on the amount of bags you can carry-on
and to check luggage would cost more than the ticket itself. Unfortunately for me, since I did not have my
apartment yet, I had to bring more than was necessary for this trip.
I got to the airport in plenty of time, but to my surprise
there were an abundance of people there also at 5:00am. I saw a bachelorette party- what is customary
to wear being the bride will be the sole reason I will not be getting married
in Spain! She had on a long, red and
black pokadot dress with what looked like sea coral in her hair. They had obviously not slept the previous
night and were drunk before even getting on the airplane. They were having a good time and throwing
bread at eachother… I guess that is normal.
So I get to the gate where I am supposed to deport from and
it turns into a mad rush when the airplane is boarding because it is first come
first serve for seating. I am waiting in
line to get my ticket checked and of course my bag is too big, Ryanair allows 1
bag, not 1 bag and your purse. So I had
to check my large backpack, I know for next time to bring my small rolling
suitcase and it will be fine. So we take
off and it feels like a small toy airplane flying through the sky, turbulence
galore. If I wasn’t so tired and slept
the whole time, I would have been freaking out.
So I make it to London just fine and meet up with Anne when
she arrives off her train from Paris. We
start to make our way to our hostel and find out it is more like a hotel than a
hostel. We stayed in a 22-person room,
which had privacy curtains, which was a nice perk. The hostel was ginormous, we thought that it
was probably aimed more towards people staying for an extended period of time
because there was a restaurant/bar and a bit farther than we wanted to the
city. So we arrived, dropped off our
stuff and wanted to go see London!
The buses in London are double-decker city buses, so much
fun! Just like in the movies. The only strange thing was they drive on the
other side of the road and other side of the car, so it looks like no one is
driving if the passenger seat is empty.
Crossing the street was always a challenge for us as well, because we
didn’t know which way to look.
First up, Abbey Road Recording Studio, where the Beatles
recorded! It was strange being at the
crosswalk where the famous four walked.
People wrote all over the gates of the studio with little messages to
the a legendary group, it was amazing to see how people still have so much love
for the Beatles, who are arguably some of the best musicians to date.
We then walked around Regent Street (like Michigan Avenue in
Chicago), and it all decorated for the Olympics with flags everywhere! It was very colorful and the city was humming
with excitement. We then stopped by
Shakespeare’s Head for a drink and some lunch, fish and chips of course! Shakespeare’s Head was located in the Soho
area of London (boystown of Chicago), with a bunch of little boutiques, bars,
clubs and very clean and cute. From
there we walked to Piccadilly Circus, which is a main center turnabout (similar
to Times Square in New York), it had the huge tv screens, shops, restaurants,
bars.
Our next site was Buckingham Palace. Luck must have been on our side since while
we were standing in front of the palace Prince Charles drove up; suddenly the
guards saluted and people cheered, Anne and I were confused. We then saw a trail of cars and a man waving
passing through the gates, I secretly wanted it to be Prince Harry. After all the commotion we went with a bottle
of champagne and drank on the Queen’s yard, it was very surreal sitting in the
gardens, drinking champagne with Buckingham Palace in plain site. Around this time the Opening Ceremony was
about to start, so why not go to a pub and watch it?
We went to a typical English pub that was very crowded with
people chatting about how the Open Ceremony was very interesting/weird/random,
but seemed to all make sense with Mr. Beans.
Anne and I did not get how Mr. Bean fit into the whole ceremony, but
everyone seemed to really like him included.
During the procession of countries filing out Anne and I wanted to start
a chant. U… S… A!!!! Well it happened
with a little help from some Ugandan man and an English man, to say the least
the rest of the bar was not happy about it.
Then once midnight struck, they closed the bar, just like that, before
Beckham even brought out the torch. We
quickly found out London shuts down all the bars at midnight and only the clubs
were open until 3-4am.
July 28th, Saturday
Today was going to be the touristy day, with a lot of
walking and a lot of café. We started by
walking to Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Cathedral and the Horse Guard. My pictures do not do justice for everything
we saw during this trip; the detail and architecture of the buildings were
astounding. The dates in which many of
these places were built are mind blowing, and the fact that they are still used
today for the same purpose many years ago is very intriguing.
Many people think Big Ben is the clock tower, however it is
actually the bell within the clock tower.
It was beautiful and exceeded my expectations. Parliament was exquisite; the detail on the
structure was something I have never seen before. We were not able to tour Parliament, but if
am I lucky enough to visit London again I will put that at the top of my list
of things to do.
Westminster Abbey has so much importance to England’s
history and worldly history as a whole.
I did not know Kings/Queens and other important people were buried
here. It is not only used as a church
but a burial site. It was interesting to
learn that when people died they were then put at Westminster, Anne and I could
not understand how so long ago after the building was built they buried someone
deep within the ground or walls. The
cathedral must have gone through a lot of reconstruction.
Next up, Saint Paul Cathedral, which reminded me a bit of
the White House; only a lot larger.
Saint Paul had amazing stained glass everywhere and everywhere you
looked there were outstanding sculptures and decoration. Saint Paul was gigantic, very open with high
ceilings and a ton of seating. A humble fact about Saint Paul Cathedral is when
September 11, 2001 occurred many people gathered to pray for everyone affected
by the horrific catastrophe, and to this day they still gather yearly on the
anniversary. English people are very
warm and kindhearted people; I did not have one bad experience.
After a long day of walking around Anne and I were craving
sushi. The day before we saw this unique
sushi restaurant, Yo Sushi and we were on the hunt to find it. It was not your typical, little sushi bar;
the sushi came by on a motorized belt and you just grabbed what you wanted and
at the end the different colored plates corresponded to different prices. After too much sushi we went back to the
hostel to shower and get ready for the night.
By the time we actually left the hostel it was about 11pm, thinking the
bars would be open longer than until midnight we did not rush.
The first bar we went to was an ice bar. I have never heard of an ice bar before, but
we found out really quick when they handed us a cloak and gloves. The bar was
made completely of ice, except for the ceiling and floors; it was like standing
in an icebox. It was an experience where
20 minutes and 1 drink were long enough.
After that the bars were closed.
So we went walking around to try to find a club, that didn’t cost 20pds
(about 38$) as a cover charge. People
were walking all over the street trying to get us to come to their club but we
refused to pay that much entrance free, so we ended up getting in for
free! The first bar was a little, dark,
crowded club; it had all the mainstream music.
We stayed for a bit there, but then it got so crowded we could not move;
time to move to the next bar.
Gem Bar was next and along the way we met Diego, who had
just gotten to London and none of his friends wanted to come out. It is crazy in Europe you can be 18 years old
and legal to drink and go to the bars. I
am pretty sure Diego had just turned 18 years old. So we told him he could come with us to the
next place and adopted him as our little Spanish brother, haha. Gem Bar was exactly what we were looking for,
similar to many bars in Chicago and Wrigleyville area (think John Barleycorn). We ended up losing Diego and met two other
guys who we hung out with the rest of the night. Once it was about closing time, around 3-4pm
we were trying to decide where to go next, the decision took so long that we
all ended up just walking around London until about 6:30am. The sun was up and much sleep was needed, I
don’t think I was over my jetlag yet and somehow my body was running.
July 29th, Sunday
Once it was morning we headed back to our hostel to get some
sleep and then go back out sightseeing again.
We woke up around 11am and went to see the Tower Bridge and the Tower. We were able to go on a tour in the Tower
Bridge and see how there were many other ideas of how the bridge should be
built, until it was settled on the current structure. Then we walked over to the Tower and saw the
Crown Jewels. I want to be a Queen!!!
The crowns were unbelievable with so many diamonds and precious stones. After the Tower we decided to go back to the
hostel and take a nap before we met up with the guys from last night for
dinner.
The nap turned into a 20-minute catnap, and then it was time
to start getting ready for dinner. A
friend from Iowa was actually in London the same weekend and we got in contact
with him and he met up with us for dinner and drinks as well. We met up at an Aussie bar to start out and
wow Australia has awesome rum, no mixer needed!
Next we needed to find some food, why not Mexican?! It was one of the restaurants that was still
open and had outside seating. We called
it an early night since everyone was traveling the next day and we said our
good byes. One of the guys said he would be traveling through Barcelona in a
few weeks and hopes I can show him around, since I should be comfortable with
the city by then.
July 30th, Monday
We went to see Shakespeare’s Theatre, since the day before
when we went to try to go on a tour there was a show being preformed. The current Shakespeare’s Theatre is actually
a replica of the original, which was located a few blocks away. The Theatre burnt down due to the cast lighting
a canon for sound effect, and since the roof is thatch, it went up in flames
very quickly but somehow no one died!
After that we went and got lunch at Coal Hole pub and needed to get
ready to leave. It was sad saying bye to
Anne, but we had an amazing trip and I wouldn’t change a thing.
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