London (Happy Birthday Mom)

First Off just a quick Birthday shout out to my mama! Love you and miss you! 19 days till I see your face!

London! London was somewhere I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into besides the Big Ben, The London Eye, and fish and chips! But again, this was a trip I was a little nervous for because my one teacher warned us how expensive the city is! She told us to always check menus before sitting down to eat, and eat as much street food as possible if we are planning on going in museums because those were very expensive! My parents were in London a few days ago and had mailed me 95 pounds that they had left over… so my goal was to get by on those 95 pounds so I wouldn’t get slammed with the exchange rate at the ATM or an exchange place!

We arrived on Saturday evening, and just like Paris, London is filled with trains and metros, so we had directions on how to reach our hostel once again, but we weren’t sure the best way to purchase tickets. BUT unlike Paris, London speaks English so I walked right up to a man near the ticket kiosks and asked for his opinion. He told us to buy an Oyster card, which is a metro pass that you just put money on in the beginning, then you can always add more, and if you don’t use it all you can collect the rest of it at a kiosk when you leave the country! It works on all the trains (the over ground and underground) and the buses! He was super helpful and I enjoyed him even more because he had the most adorable accent! So, from here we hopped on the train and went straight to our hostel where we met up with our friends from Kent. The one girl LOVES Indian food so she was told of a great Indian place that was pretty cheap. So, we headed there for dinner and it was packed! For the 4 of us to get a table it was an hour and thirty minute wait, but since we were already here and it was pretty late we decided to wait it out. The wait was definitely long but they organized it that you got some free chai tea and mint tea, then talked to some workers who job was just to control the amount of people entered inside so they could control the capacity of the restaurant, then moved you inside to the bar for some drinks to wait for your table. But honestly the wait was well worth it because our meal was delicious. I ordered the Ruby Murray which I only picked since it had my last name, and it was a chicken curry that I got with some rice! We finished our meal at 11:15 and hustled back to the metro to make it back to the hostel before the metro stopped running! We made it back in time luckily but when we got into our room of the hostel we were VERY surprised by how loud it was, we are above a pub that has outdoor seating, and it being Saturday it was packed! So the bar didn’t close till 2 am so the live band AND people were VERY loud until about 2:30 when everyone finally left!

Saturday, we got up and hit the road because we had a list of what we needed to see! We started by going to platform 9 ¾. (Which is from Harry Potter for those of you who are like me and know NOTHING about those books or movies) Anna loves the movies so we made our way there then waiting in a long line where there was a little luggage cart that looked like it went through the wall, as if you were traveling to Hogwarts like Harry Potter. There were people running the area one of which was a photographer, and they put a scarf on you (replicas from the movie) and you grabbed ahold of the cart and took a picture to look like you were moving through the wall! Then right next to this was a huge store of harry potter stuff! It was filled with people! From here we left and grabbed some 5 Guys burgers and fries for lunch! It was nice because it felt like we were home again! Here we sat and planned out our route for the rest of the day! All of our locations were about 20 minutes apart by foot, so we decided to walk it instead of taking the underground so we could see more of the city! We were going from the London Eye > Big Ben > Westminster Abbey > Buckingham Palace > Winter Wonderland! So we took the underground to Waterloo and started our hike for the day! Let me add here that it was cold! It was 40 degrees and WINDY… which made the cold 10x worse, but we haven’t experienced cold like this yet in Florence so we were freezing! The London Eye was packed and the line was filled so instead of waiting in line for forever we decided to buy a ticket for the first ride at 11am the following morning, from here we walked right across the bridge to the Big Ben. It is beautiful and big, but was a little disappointing because its currently under construction! Since its finally the low season for tourists all over Europe all of the major construction on tourist attractions has begun. Luckily, we could still see the clock and the top of the tower with its elaborate decoration! We kept on walking and we hit the Westminster Abbey which is a building we have learned a lot about in classes, but since it was Sunday it was closed and only able to be entered for worship. Anna and I really wanted to see it and it was about 2:45 at the time and a service started at 3 so we decided to continue being the good girls that we are and stay for the hour service so we would get to see the interior! The service was honestly amazing, there was a choir which conducted 90% of the service, so it was beautiful to just sit and listen. Then the sermon at the end was one of the best I have ever heard. It was very prevalent with what is going on society and addressed with all of the insanity and pain going on in the world its normal that people question where Christ is. It went on to talked about how the US and North Korea threaten nuclear wars, how kids are starving all over the world, and how someone loved one lays suffering from cancer, and how these are the moments we need to sit and ask for Christ to come, and wonder why he isn’t/hasn’t come. It was thought provoking for myself and I thoroughly enjoyed it. After the hour was up we headed over to Buckingham palace where we got some more pictures, and then to the Winter Wonderland which was in Hyde Park. This is a Christmas market which is in London right now. It reminded me so much of Oktoberfest, there are rides everywhere, little shops, and most of all street food and bar after bar. Some of the bars were on carousels so they would spin! We also were here at about 5 o’clock but it was already dark at this point so all the lights were on and shining. It was so much fun, and I bought a ring, bracelet, and ornament! But it definitely got me in the Christmas spirit! We headed back to our hostel where we got dinner in the pub downstairs because we got 25% off our meal there! I got some fish and chips with mushy peas because how could I not get fish and chips when I’m in London, and we were quickly off to sleep considering it was fairly quiet in the streets that night and we had little sleep the night before!

Sunday, we got up and were out the door to go to the Eye for our 11am ride! My mom thought I was crazy when I told her that’s what I was doing because she said its WAY TO HIGH! Which was true it was VERY high but it was an amazing view of the city! It took about 15-20 minutes to go all the way around so it was well worth your time. From here we went to the London Tower. Now that was an EXPENSIVE ticket, but there was a lot to see in there. It’s a big museum on history. We saw the Crown Jewels, the defense animals over the years, the bloody tower, the torture chambers, and all the armor! This was another place people and could spend HOURS if they really took their time. After this we walked back to our hostel! It was only a 20-minute walk and along the way we got to cross the London Bridge. Anyone my age would want to see the London bridge after listening to Fergie sing about it! So of course, I played London Bridge by Fergie as we walked across it! We then came across this market that was full of outdoor food vendors, so we took a walk through, and it made me sooooo hungry because everything smelt soooo good. But we relaxed and did some homework before we went to dinner! We had an early dinner again just in the pub downstairs because we had purchased tickets to see Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theater! So we had to leave for that around 6:30 to get there by 7 to pick up our tickets for the 7:30 show! We ended the night here because our flight this morning was at 6:15 and our hostel was about an hour from the airport and we were worried about having issues with possibly having to check our luggage so we decided to uber to the airport at 3:30 because the trains don’t even start running till around 5 am.

Tuesday- just thinking about this day our entire week was causing me stress. Instead of flying from London to Florence (or Italy) we did two round trip flights. A flight from Bologna to Paris and Paris to London. We knew it was going to be a jog through the airport to make the flight but I never expected it to be this bad. We had to change terminals AND since London isn’t apart of the EU we had to go through border control. But to or surprise we also had to go through security again! We got off the plane at 8:30 and had 25 minute until our gate closed for our next flight. CDG is a huge airport so running from our arrival gate to the security alone took us 5 minutes. I walked right up to a worker and explained that our flight was leaving in 15 minutes so she took us to the front of the security line, but right after security was border control and the worker there was not offering us any help. Even though the line was only 20 people deep and moving fairly quickly that extra 5 minutes would’ve saved us. So a few people heard our situation when I explained it to the woman and let us go in front of them. Then we literally sprinted through the airport to our date. We managed to get there 4 minutes before the gate closed and boarding must have started a bit late because there was still a line of people waiting to board. So praise the lord that we made our flight, and shoutout to the awesome people that helped us along the way! Well that’s it! Thanksgiving break is over and I’m just sitting here on the plane waiting for a cup of water!

Happy Birthday to my mamma!