LONDON! Feb 11-16

So this could quite possibly be the longest blog entry I’ve written… just got back from my 10 day vacation to London and Paris with Caroline and Lauren (why I haven’t update in forever, ahem BOBBY).  I’m going to try and leave out all the boring details, but we did SO much over these 10 days it’s incredible.. I’ll start on Friday, when we started our morning bright and early from Malaga, Spain (about a 2 hour drive from Granada) to London!

Us with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament

We got into London in the afternoon, but since we booked a cheaper flight, we were outside the main city and had to take a train to get to our destination, the Meininger Hostel. Oh yeah, and 2 transfers on the tube… which I might add is probably the greatest and easiest invention in the history of the world.  There’s pretty much a tube stop at every corner in the city and it takes you anywhere and everywhere you need to go.  We hopped off the tube at our stop, Gloucester, and walked onto our street in search of our destination.  The street was lined with gorgeous all-white luxurious buildings so we’re all thinking our hostel is going to be beautiful.  Well let me tell you, we were WRONG.  Our building was the ugliest brown building on the entire street, warning sign #1 for what we were in store for.  I’ll cut to the chase right away, we hated our hostel so much that it actually became comical by the end of the week.  It was extremely overpriced for what we actually got.  We stayed in an 8 person mixed dorm which means boys and girls share not only a room, but a SMALL bathroom as well.  Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to shower in an airplane bathroom?  Take a trip to the Meininger Hostel and you’ll find out.  That wasn’t the worst part either… the only bathroom on the floor was the one you had in your room and one person could be in it at a time.  Lauren, Caroline and I found a “secret” bathroom on the 1^st floor (we were on the 5^th) that we made convenient to get ready in… that is until the elevator broke day 2 and wasn’t fixed until the day we left.  On top of all of this, the staff at the front desk were complete air heads, they nickel and dimed us for everything and anything, and breakfast/wifi were not included in our outrageous per night costs.  Thank god we had each other, and like I said, we didn’t let it ruin our trip but instead laughed about it the entire week since it was that comical, nothing else could go so bad!  We did end up meeting 2 boys from Taiwan and Germany that were pretty cool and were able to put up with us being obnoxious.  There was also a creepy guy from Istonia (yupp didn’t know that was a country either) that asked us regularly if we needed help showering… good thing he was only in our room for 2 nights.

By the time we unpacked and everything it was pretty late so we grabbed something to eat close to our hostel.  Something else we learned about London very quickly: the food was horrible (they’re not known for anything either) and extremely overpriced.  A low quality sandwich at a café would probably be close to 6 pounds – aka about 10 US dollars!  We definitely went grocery shopping right after our first food experience to buy some things for breakfast so we didn’t have to eat out for that meal everyday either.  As we were eating, a woman heard our Chicago accents and started talking to us.  Long story short she was from Alabama and a professor teaching a few week course for study abroad students.  She was so generous and gave us suggestions on (better) places to eat along with her phone number and address in case we ran into any problems… before you think she was too friendly, you have to remember she was a professor living in the same building as a million American students!  We tried out some of the places she recommended which helped out a lot.  Everything closed pretty early so we walked around the city and headed back to our favorite place on earth – the hostel!!!!

Tower Bridge

Saturday in London was our big touristy day.  We started the morning off with a Big Bus tour – yes the typical double decker bus that takes you around the city and has a tour guide.  Probably the best money I spend in London – we saw literally everything and got a better feel for the city, don’t worry I probably took 1000 pictures!  We hopped off halfway through the tour and got off at Westminster Abbey to tour inside.  This is where Kate and William will get married in April and where Princess Diana’s funeral took place.  The church inside was gorgeous, but not as big as I thought it would be.  Also, I felt like it was pretty clustered with tombs of past kings and queens throughout the entire thing.  If I were Kate I’d want to get married somewhere else, but I mean I guess that’s what happens when you’re royalty – gotta keep up with tradition!  Fun fact we learned, this is also where Charles Darwin and many famous poets are also buried.  Can’t wait to watch the royal wedding to see if I recognize some of the things I saw!  After Westminster we hopped back on the bus for the remaining half of our tour.   We hopped off once again at famous department store, Harrod’s, and the shopping district.  Good thing I couldn’t afford ONE thing inside that store!  We even went to get ice-cream inside and it was 10 pounds for vanilla soft serve, seriously?!  It was probably one of the coolest stores I’ve ever seen though.  It has all the normal shopping stuff you can find anywhere, but go up a floor and you can buy a dog or a peacock.  Another floor up they have a 3 foot chocolate bunny or antique instruments.  Lauren picked up a hair clip (seriously looked like something you could get from Claire’s in the states) and it was 300 pounds!  Definitely an experience.

 

Picadilly Circus

We woke up bright and early on Sunday to head to the Tower of London or where the Crown Jewels are housed.  With your admission ticket you get a free guided tour by a Yermon Warder, or a “beefeater”, around the tower.  These men (there’s about 40 of them total) are literally in charge of guarding the tower and escorting the queen where she needs to go.  They live with their families in houses around the tower and have a very prestigious job.  The queen herself selects these men from the military; they have to have 18 straight years of service in the military without making ANY mistakes and have held a superior position in the military at some point.  Our tour guide was hilarious and loved to pick on us for being American.  He showed us the exact spot where Queen Anne Boleyn was beheaded by her husband, Henry VIII.  He also told us about other historical occurrences such as the two young brothers that lived at the tower to be guarded for one of them was to be king since their father died.  The boys went missing from one of the towers and were never seen again, until their bodies were discovered under a set of stairs centuries later.  We were able to go inside where the boys lived – kinda eerie!  Lastly we visited the Crown Jewels which were incredible and under large amounts of security.  I was bummed that we weren’t allowed to take pictures but this stuff will actually be used if William becomes king!  After Tower of London we took a boat cruise back on the River Thames closer to our hostel.  It was pouring rain and cold so we went back to plan the rest of the night.  We decided to go to Piccadilly Circus at night which is the more theater and modern part of London.  Think of it as the Times Square of London.  Our German roommate, Sebastian, recommended an Irish pub for us to visit so we decided to go there.  The second I order my drink and turn around I’m practically pinned in a corner (exaggeration, but Caroline and Lauren escaped) by an Irish guy who screams above the music in horribly bad breath “YOU’RE AMERICAN AREN’T YOU!”  Now all of you reading are probably thinking I’m so conceited saying all these boys come and talk to me, but seriously it’s only the creepy ones haha.  I asked him why he knew just by looking at me and he said “British girls wouldn’t be out and Irish girls wouldn’t be having fun.”  I even tried to brush him off and be slightly rude so he would leave me alone, yes living up to the American stereotype, but instead he took that as me flirting and said he’s never had a girl stand up to him and proceeded to ask for my number.  Gag me.  When enough was enough, and Lauren started getting hit on by creepy boy #3829473, we headed back to our hostel!

Tower of London

Since we had a good amount of time in London we decided to take a day trip to Windsor on Monday where Windsor Castle is; the queen’s second home when she’s bored with Buckingham Palace on the weekends and in the summer.  The castle was exactly what every little girl dreams about a castle looking like, both outside and inside!  We got to tour rooms that are still used today by Queen Elizabeth when she has visitors, but we weren’t able to go into her living quarters or anything although she wasn’t there.  I guess sometimes she has large dinners/parties where she invites important people to actually stay over at the castle in one of the bajillion rooms.  Life goal right there, although Caroline, Lauren and I thought about hiding in curtains in one of the dining rooms.  We headed back from Windsor, about an hour train ride, and decided to treat ourselves to the Titanic exhibit at the O2 since it was Valentine’s Day and all.  When we walked in we were handed a “boarding pass” that had a name and story of a real passenger that was on the titanic.  I was a second class passenger from Italy who was traveling with my husband on our honeymoon after recently getting married.  The things they pulled up from the ocean were so interesting; things like money, personal items from passengers, purses, etc.  The exhibit also told the story of many passengers, the captain, etc.  Seeing the movie I was able to picture a lot of the things they were talking about.  We even got to touch part of the hull of the Titanic!  At the end of the exhibit there was a large board with all the passenger’s names and whether they lived or died.  My passenger made it into a life boat but it was depressing to see the long list of those that didn’t.  Later that evening we met up with Karrah, Audrey, and Kelly back in Piccadilly Circus who are also on our program in Spain but were in Paris first. 

SMALL part of Windsor Castle

Windsor Castle again

Tuesday was our last full day in London!  We started the morning off by going to one of the many discount ticket stores that sell half price musical tickets the day of the show.  All of us decided to get tickets for Dirty Dancing that night.  We made our way to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace (where the Queen lives and Kate and William’s wedding reception will take place, jealous!).  They have this elaborate ceremony complete with a parade, police escort, band, etc every other day for an hour JUST to switch out the intimidating guards in front of Buckingham Palace (you know the ones with the tall black hats).  Don’t they know that could be a 30 second process?  I’m going to try and post the video I took because it was incredible how together all of their movements were.  That had to have taken a TON of training.  The weather took a turn for the worse, typical London, so we packed up all of our stuff and went back to rest.  At 5:00 we headed to St. Paul’s Cathedral for an evening song ceremony.  The church was breathtaking and absolutely gorgeous.  I wish we would have been able to spend more time there, but the acoustics from the choir were amazing echoing throughout the church.  After St. Paul’s and dinner, we headed to see the musical Dirty Dancing.  I’d never seen the movie but I enjoyed it a lot.  It was something different to do instead of all the typical tourist things, our tickets were cheap and our seats weren’t bad at all!  One of the best ways I’ve spent my money in London as well.

Buckingham Palace

Changing of the Guards

 On Wednesday we checked out of the hostel and invited Sebastian and the boy from Taiwan (I have zero clue what his name was) out to breakfast at our favorite restaurant, Café Forum.  We headed to the airport by bus for our flight to Paris!  Since England’s currency is pounds we were able to spend the remaining money we had (although we planned it almost perfectly) on things at the airport.  As we were joking about how we were boarding the plane with NO money (I had 5 cents left) 2 men from Ireland overheard our accents and asked where we were from in the states.  When we said Chicago, one said he was moving there with his wife in a few weeks.  We asked whereabouts and he replies “DOWNERS GROVE!” I couldn’t believe it!!  What a small world right?  I asked him where in the DG and he said by a river… Dad, do we have a river?!

Overall our trip to London was amazing!  I’d say my only complaints in London were how expensive it was, our hostel, and the dreary weather.  My favorite parts of London were definitely the Big Bus tour and the evening song at St. Paul’s cathedral.  I’m so fortunate I got to see the city, but I don’t see myself returning there soon; there’s too many other places I want to visit first!  I’ll post pictures when I have internet access at school – it takes too long from home!

Stay tuned for Paris…