So much to see, So little time!

The Tower Bridge, London, England

Top of the morning to ya! Sorry about the late blog post, but after reading this blog you might understand why I wasn’t able to post it until today! Brace yourself…This is a long one!

Last Tuesday Meg and I decided to go out of the EU up into the UK for the weekend. It was always a thought in the back of our minds to go to London, however, it was not a reality until Meg woke me up Tuesday morning yelling, “THERE ARE ONLY TWO AIRLINE TICKETS LEFT!”. Right then and there our minds were made up and we decided to go to London. Meg and I have a friend named who is doing her Graphic Design internship in London for the semester. She is staying with a host family in Kensington, London. The family told her that we could stay with her, which was such a blessing because Kensington is such a nice area and it is in such a good location. We later found out that the neighborhood we were staying in is the same neighborhood that David Beckham, Taylor Swift, and Led Zeppelins lead guitar player, Jimmy Paige, live. Well aware of how expensive the trip was going to cost us, Meg and I packed enough food to last us a century and left for the airport Thursday afternoon.

We arrived in London Thursday night. We decided to take an Uber to the house that we were staying. When the Uber pulled up Meg and I got so excited when we saw the Uber driver driving on the “passenger side” of the car. That is when it really hit us that we had arrived in London. The first day we decided to wake up early so that we could see the entire city at we could. When we were walking to get our bus passes, it was such a relief being able to read street signs without the use of Google Translate. When a big red double decker bus pulled up to bus stop I’m pretty sure Meg and I looked like two toddlers who just arrived at Disney World for the first time.  We were so excited that we ran to the top of the bus and sat on the front row. The bus ride was about 45 minutes to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery, but Meg and I could care less, we were having the time of our lives. Our first stop was Trafalgar Square (London’s City Hall) and the National Gallery. At first, I was not super excited about the National Gallery, but after spending about 20 minutes in the Gallery I never wanted to leave. Meg and I saw paintings by Van Gogh, Claude Monet, and Michelangelo. Never have I been so fascinated by art and paintings in my life. It was amazing to see paintings that you learned and replicated in grade school right in front of your very eyes. Short on time, Meg and I had to move on to meet Erin at Buckingham Palace.

The Trafalgar Square Monument 

Trafalgar Square View from The National Gallery

When we arrived at Buckingham Palace, I was disappointed to learn that the guards that stand outside

Me, Erin, and Meg in front of Buckingham Palace

the gate are no longer on the outside of the gate, but they are now inside the gate. Meg and I were so disappointed that we could not attempt to make the guards laugh and take pictures with them like typical tourists.  Once we met up with Erin, she was talking about this Afternoon Tea she had the week before at Bea’s of Bloomsbury. Wanting to do all the touristy things, Meg and I asked Erin if she would mind going again and taking us with her. The café that held Afternoon Tea was a small little modern looking teashop with a small loft above the first floor. The entire left sidewall of the café was made of glass, and if you sat against the wall you could sip tea and admire the Saint Paul Cathedral.  When we talked to the lady, she said that there was no way to do Afternoon Tea because we did not have a reservation and there were no open tables upstairs (which is the only place they do Afternoon Tea). It seemed like there was no hope for teatime, until I asked the lady if she would make an exception so that we could sit on the first floor. She said she doubted a table would leave anytime soon but if they did then we could sit and have tea. Right as she said that, I saw a table start to leave. I ran to the table and threw my stuff down. Shocked, the hostess had no choice but to keep her word and serve us Afternoon Tea.  We were very appreciative and I believe that she could see the excitement on our faces. When the food and tea arrived, we realized that we were in for a challenge. Afternoon Tea for three people was comprised of 3 gourmet cupcakes (vanilla with grapefruit frosting, chocolate with peanut butter frosting, and red velvet with cream cheese frosting), 3 pots of tea (we chose vanilla), 6 brownie bites, 3 white chocolate brownie bites, 3 fluffy strawberry marshmallowy things, 3 meringues, 3 scones with berry marmalade and clotted cream (which was like a heavy cream butter) and 9 sandwiches (3 different types). We sat, talked, ate, and drank for about 2 hours until we had finished it all…yes…we finished it all. We justified all that we had eaten with the 10 miles of walking we had completed each day. After tea, we decided to walk off some of the calories by exploring more of the city.

One of the "Paintings" in the
Tate Modern Art Museum 

Later that day we went to the Tate Modern Art Museum, and let me tell you something….If modern art is what is in that museum, I was a modern artist at the age of 2. I kid you not, one piece of “art” that was on display was a canvas painted completely gray, one color, all gray, that’s it... Another piece on display was a bed sheet placed on the ground...Really??? Come on, I do that everyday when I don’t make my bed! Needless to say, I was not impressed, however, what did impress me was the view from the 6^th floor. After exploring the museum for an hour, looking for something to explain to us why this was ranked one of the top five museums in London, I texted my friend Casey and asked him why he recommended it too us. He is currently studying an hour outside of London and comes to explore the city often. He told me that I was not suppose to explore the museum, but that I was suppose to go to the top floor café and look at the view. (Thanks for telling me that after I had spent an hour looking at “art”). When we arrived to the top the view was amazing. It was by far the most impressive part of the entire museum.  The sun was just starting to go down, and the light was hitting the St. Paul Cathedral and the river in a way that made the view even more beautiful. After taking in the view, we decided that the Tate Museum had redeemed itself. After the Tate, we walked around some more and explored. We walked along the Thames River and say the London Eye. We then explored “New York Time Square” of London (Piccadilly Circus) and went to SOHO. Shortly after, we found ourselves in China Town, and little did we know, but it was Chinese New Year. Everyone was out in the streets; it was decorated in Chinese lanterns and arches. There we street performers and giant panda bear costumes. It was really cool to see, especially since we had no intention of going there. At about 8:00pm we decided to make our way home. Not very hungry after Afternoon Tea and not wanting to spend too much money, we decided to make cheeseburgers and fries back at the house. It was the first American food I’ve had since leaving, and it was amazing.

The View from the Top of
The Tate Modern Art Museum 

Fish and Chips! 

The Tower of London
Guard didn't Think I was Funny

The next morning, we accidentally slept in a little to late, however, we were still determined to see everything that was left to see. Erin decided to skip her Stonehenge tour with her program and spend the day with us. Our first stop was Kensington Palace and Hyde Garden. From there we went to the Borough Market. Because it was a Saturday afternoon, the Borough Market was crazy, but it was cool to see London’s take on a market. At the Borough Market, we decided to once again be tourists and have fish and chips for lunch. We all got the special, which was Hake and chips. Although the presentation was questionable, with a little bit of salt and vinegar, the food was amazing! I was a happy tourist, and so were Meg and Erin. Because we were running late on time, we quickly finished and made our way to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. The first thing we saw were the Crown Jewels. Seeing them up close was incredible. The size of the diamonds and gems and the amount of gold used was unbelievable.

Tower of London

Kensington Palace

Tower Bridge

My Typical Tourist Picture with Big Ben

After, exploring more of the Tower of London, we decided to go see the iconic Big Ben. The entire weekend, Meg and I had been talking about how all we wanted was a touristy picture of us in a telephone booth with Big Ben in the background, and that is exactly what we got. When we arrived at Big Ben the sun was going down, and the first place we went was the telephone booth. If we had not looked like tourists the entire weekend, we definitely did at the moment. I’m pretty sure that telephone booth because the background for our photo-shoot. We each took a million photos before deciding to get a closer look. After finishing our photo-shoot with Big Ben, we made our way across the street to Westminster Abby. Unfortunately, the church was closed because it was so late, but it was still beautiful to see from the outside. After Westminster Abby, Erin wanted to take us to Harrods to see some of the most expensive and ridiculous items in all of London. Harrods department store was bigger and more expensive than I could have imagined. You have to use a map to get from place to place.  In the toy section of Harrods I found a toy car for 39,000 Pounds…that is 58,500 dollars! We also found an iPhone that was solid gold with diamonds for only $98,000…that’s pocket change right??? After Harrods we went to dinner and had plans to go back out into the city, however, we were so tired that we came home and went straight to sleep. 

The next morning Meg and I did not want to leave. However, we were worried about making our connection Zurich. Meg and I had a 30 minute connection with a passport check from the time our first plane landed to the time our second plane took off. I would not have been worried about missing the connection if I did not have a presentation to give at 12:00am the next day and if our flight weren’t the last flight out for the day. We arrived to the airport 2 hours early. Once we got through security, we looked tried to find out gate number but it said that it was not going to be posted until 1:00pm (our flight boarded at 1:45). We burned sometime in a café and split a London chicken and bacon pie, which was incredible. At 12:45 Meg and I checked the screen again to check which gate we were, at that moment, we found out that our flight had been delayed an hour. Realizing this meant there was no way we could make our connection we ran to the help desk. The lady told us that the only flight we could take had also been delayed, but it left in 15 minutes. The lady quickly printed our tickets and we ran to our gate, getting on just in time. We then sat on the plane for about 45 minutes until the plane took off, causing us to be on the same schedule as before. Once our plane landed we ran through the airport. When we got to passport check, our plan was to look frantic so that they would let us through quickly, and it worked. We then discovered our gate was on the other end of this giant airport. We grabbed our stuff and ran through the airport once again. Luckily, we made it to the airport just in time. Meg and I were so happy that you would think we had just received first place in a marathon. We got on the plane, ate our complementary chocolate and drank our complementary wine with a huge smile on our face. When we finally got back to Florence we could not be happier to be home! Overall, the trip was a huge success!

So, sorry for the extremely long post.  Since it was so long I didn’t read back through it so hopefully the grammar and spelling wasn’t unbearable. So much happened this weekend that I wanted to make sure I got it all down. This weekend I learned quite a few things, as I always do. I learned that you should always pack two pairs of dark blue jeans when studying abroad, because when you get a huge hole at the seam of your only pair, you will have no other jeans for the rest of your trip. I learned the importance of having a lens protector on your DSLR camera, because when you drop a nice lens, it will shatter, and the lens protector will be your only saving grace. I learned that in London, when you think something is inexpensive, multiply it by the conversation rate ($1.52) and you will be shortly proven wrong. Lastly, I learned when traveling, always check to make sure you have a connection that is humanly possible to make, or else you will be running through multiple airports all day. Alrighty then! That’s about all! Next weekend I am staying in Florence so the blog post will not be nearly as long! Miss and love you all!