London calling!

A view of the London Eye

Hooray for English! As much as I've loved being in Spain and working on my Spanish every day, I must say that it was a bit of a relief last weekend when we were able to get around, figure out public transportation, and order from bars/restaurants in English. We left late Wednesday night to go sleep at the airport for our 6:30 am flight. While this sounds a bit crazy, we were surprised to find tons of locals and foreigners alike taking the late metro Wednesday night to sleep at the airport! It wasn't exactly the Ritz, but definitely worth the more than 30 euro I saved by not taking a cab. 

We hopped on our flight Thursday morning and arrived in London around 10:30 in the morning. Since it was cheaper to fly into Stansend than Heathrow, we had to take a bus for about an hour or two to get into the city. Once we arrived to the city of London, we managed to find our way to the hostel and stored our luggage until we could check in later in the afternoon. My roommates and I started exploring and stumbled upon a place called the Borough Market--one of the oldest outdoor markets in London that had lots of food and drinks to try! We quickly found ourselves a pub called The Globe and got ourselves a pint. Come to think of it, I'm not really sure there was a time during this trip (both in London and Dublin) where I wasn't currently drinking a pint, had just finished a pint, or was looking for a pub in which to find said pint. I'd also like to add that I didn't mind!

Big Ben and a British cab!

Since we completely lucked out with the weather in London (it was in the mid 60's and sunny both days), we walked around Kensington Palace and the gardens surrounding this more "casual" palace where Will and Kate lived for the afternoon. I also visited Notting Hill, Big Ben, the London eye, and walked along the river as the sun was setting. We stopped in a cafe for some dinner and then headed back to the hostel to get ready for our first night out. Though the night life in Madrid is fun and all, the night life in London and Dublin is definitely more my style. We made friends with a Canadian in our hostel and went to a few pubs and had a great time. The only complaint is the British pound. The exchange rate for the pound right now is TERRIBLE. My wallet cried a little bit every time I had to buy something new...thank goodness I was only there for two days.

An artist painting the famous Tower Bridge

The next morning, I woke up early feeling a bit overwhelmed by all the sights I wanted to see, with only one day to see everything. So, my friends and I loaded up on the free breakfast at the hostel as to avoid having to buy lunch (very smart I must say) and set off to Harrod's, the famous everything store in London. Harrod's reminded me a bit of Marshall Field's in Chicago--something you just HAVE to see where the building and the experience is better than actually shopping. We saw the famous Egyptian themed escalators, the Princess Diana shrine, and the famous chocolate/sweets shop that made my mouth water. However, like many of the very high fashion and designer clothes--some of the food didn't even have a price visible, which I'm assuming means I can't afford it.

Classic tourist picture in London...

We then left Harrod's and walked through Hyde Park to the Wellington Arch to meet a free walking tour that I had read about at the hostel. A fun, quirky tour guide took us on a 3-hour free walking tour of all the major sights of London and had a lot of interesting facts/fun stories to go along with it. Outside of St. James' palace, we are completely convinced that we saw Prince Harry in his British guard/military uniform talking to some of the other guards--even our tour guide and the "super serious" guards were full of excitement! He was just walking around the corner in front of us with a hat and uniform on--obviously under the radar. After the tour was over, Kate, Maggie, and I went to a famous British pub for fish n' chips and..yep you guessed it..another pint. (Good thing it was Friday!)

We returned back to the hostel to meet up with the rest of our group of friends and when they weren't there at the proper meeting time, we decided to pop over next door to sample some local ales. We spent a few hours in this hole-in-the-wall pub, gazing at handsome British businessmen and chatting with some locals. The British people were all very interested in talking about politics with us. Just about everyone that we met instantly wanted to ask about the presidential election when they found out that we were Americans. They love Obama--many people just refer to him as "the main man"...I must admit I had no idea who they were talking about when they asked me if I was hoping the main man would stick around after this year. Later that night, we just hung out in the "chill room" of the hostel to wait for our 3:00 am departure time to catch another bus to the airport for another 6:30 am flight to Dublin.

We had fun with the guards,
but I wish they would have been wearing the fuzzy hats!

I loved London, and while I wish that I could have stayed there longer--I don't think my bank account could've handled it! Besides, I was very excited to get over to Ireland and meet Gerard Butler or pretend I was in a scene from P.S. I Love You as soon as possible!

Westminster Abbey was one of the most beautiful churches
I've ever seen...I wouldn't mind getting married there!

Rachel