I See London…!

This weekend was the first weekend my friends and I split up
and traveled in smaller groups.  My friends and I really wanted to visit London because we had never been, and the other half of my friends that had been to London before decided to visit Seville, Spain.

A couple of “note to selfs” I really should’ve taken note about before embarking on my trip to London: 1. Just because “Luton” may sound a bit similar to “London”, and “LTN” seems like an appropriate airport code for London, it is absolutely no where near London.

Learned that the hard way when we touched down in London town and had to buy a ticket for an hour long bus ride to Kensington, London.  Also the Luton airport flat out just sucks.

Too many people, not enough space!! Hate Luton airport with a passion

— benny* ✳️ (@BennyHawes) October 23, 2016

2. That bus we took, well we shouldn’t have.  Although the bus schedule said the bus would only be twelve minutes longer than taking a more expensive train ticket, it was wrong.  Not only did we forget to factor in traffic, our bus driver decided to take his sweet time arriving and waltzed into the bus bay forty minutes late.

3. London is cold really fucking cold.

When the weather app reads fifty eight degrees, it’s lying to you – it means thirty…at most; do you know what it’s like waiting outside Luton airport, an hour away from London, for forty minutes, in the freezing cold, without a jacket?  It’s not fun.

4. If you decide to ride the Tube or Train, don’t lose your ticket, you won’t be able to leave the station.

The train stations in London require you to scan your ticket a second time, just to exit the station.

5. The pound is a hell of a lot more expensive than you think,
especially when paying with a US debit card.
My forty two dollar dinner ended up being ten US dollars extra due to the conversion and exchange rate with the British pound.

Anyway, besides all the things I should have known before going to London, I think this might have been my favorite trip thus far.  The first day we had in London, we walked around Trafalgar Square and looked at all the cool fountains, statues, and buildings around us.  All of the architecture here was so impressive and aesthetically pleasing to observe.  Our itinerary for the day consisted of hitting Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, the London Eye, and London Bridge.

Buckingham Palace was beautiful.  We didn’t get to go inside, but just walking around outside was awesome.  From there we took a stroll through St. James Park and found our way to Westminster Abbey.  Another note to self I should’ve mentioned – looking up the times places open and close.  We got to Westminster Abbey and it was just closing so we couldn’t see inside, super disappointing, not over it.

After we went to Big Ben and it wasn’t as big as I thought it would be, but it was huge nonetheless.  I loved this area of London being able to look over the bridges and see parliament and a bunch of history in all of the buildings, it really was an amazing place to visit.  It started getting really cold and cloudy so we nixed the London Eye and saved it for the next day (also such a go to when you go to London), which turned out to be even better because we got an areal view of London and could see all of the places we had visited the day before.  Instead of going on the London Eye, we decided to visit the National Gallery, which was an unreal museum experience.

This was really cool for me because 1. I love art museums, and 2. I got to see a number of paintings in person that my art history teacher has mentioned in my classes.

The next day, we were pretty lazy and just walked around a bunch.  

We got a bus tour of the city and got off at Piccadilly Circus to explore that part of town – so cool.

 

The majority of this day we spent treating ourselves and eating an absurd amount of food, so worth it.

 

 

The last day however, was super action packed and we fit a lot in.  We first went to the London Eye, after that we walked across the water to Tate Modern Museum.

This museum was so different from the National Gallery and had such extraordinary and unusual art that I’ve never seen before.  Afterwards we walked to Tower Bridge and around the London Tower which was pretty neat considering the night before we watched The Other Boleyn Girl.  Finally, we took the tube to Abbey Road and walked the same crosswalk The Beatles once did.

I was sad I didn’t get more time to spend in London and I unexpectedly fell in love with the city.  I traveled to an amazing city with great friends and I definitely need to travel back to London again in my life!