On the plane, I definitely knew we were headed for the UK when I heard the flight attendants come around asking for “rubbish”. Just imagine it in the accent. “Rubbish? Rubbish, sir? Rubbish, anyone?”
We finally got our passports stamped at the Stansted airport!!
We missed the last tube (that’s what the metro is called in London) by 2 minutes, so we had to take a night bus and walk the 5 minutes to the hostel. But I didn’t mind the night bus- we got to see the London bridge and a glimpse of the London Eye and Big Ben by night!
The next morning there was free breakfast at the hostel, but it turned sour quickly- my roommate Carly, who has a very severe nut allergy, ate two flakes of a cereal that apparently had an almost glaze of some sort, and after panicking a bit and taking some Benedryl, (no epi pen was needed, thank goodness) she decided that she had to go see a doctor. The doctor down the street wouldn’t treat her because she wasn’t an EU citizen, so we had to take her to St. James Hospital. Just for precautionary purposes, after the initial drugs that stopped her allergic reaction, she had to stay in the hospital. So, while poor steroid and anti-histamine-full Carly slept in a hospital bed, we went and explored London. We saw Parliament, Big Ben at noon!, the London Eye (but we didn’t go on it because it was expensive and a long wait), Westminster Abbey, Picadilly Circus, St. James Park. Oh my gosh, it was all SO SO BEAUTIFUL!! And it was the first I’ve actually seen of fall since I’ve been here- in Perugia there is no grass and no trees therefore no visible proof that it’s autumn. But in London the leaves were falling, and that sweet fall smell was in the air. And the best part is that we had a most brilliant blue sky- no rain in sight for our two days in London! I guess the rain got sick of following us around in our travels. So in St. James Park we shuffled through the leaves! And that lead us to Buckingham Palace where we saw the famous guards. At one point they started very officially pacing back and forth. It wasn’t all it’s been cracked up to be, but it was still pretty wicked. I kind of wish the palace looked more like a palace, though. Its looks more like some official government building. Which I guess it is technically … We also found ourselves near some other parks whose names I cannot remember. One was right behind the Parliament building. It was a big open grassy area where there were all kinds of people we’re around. Some guys were tossing a rugby ball back and forth, a friendly soccer match was happening, and people were just strolling along. It made me realize how long it had been since I had seen a big grassy area. It was just so gorgeous- the grass was a rich green and the sky was perfectly blue and the sun was wide and bright. We chilled there for a while.
Other general highlights of the day: In St. James Park, we overheard the most hilarious conversation. I wrote down the quotes immediately in my notebook to make sure I’d get them exactly right. Again, the effect of the accent is very important- two men in their 30’s or 40’s were bickering. One very angrily said “There’s no whipped cream in society anymore. We’re in a recession- there’s no more need for whipped cream and frothy milk!” His friend annoyingly responded “Oh, shut up!” Okay it doesn’t sound funny now, but it really was hilarious.
Ever since London I’ve been trying to think of the perfect adjective to describe it. But I can’t put my finger on it. “Beautiful” just doesn’t cover it. There’s a whole other element that the entire city encompasses that gives it its charm and sophistication and class. There’s gotta be a word that means all of those things … someone with a good vocabulary help me out here. Especially if you’ve been to London (Brittany & Brynn, that’s your cue).
So after doing the sight-seeing in main street London, we picked up Carly at the hospital, got turned around trying to take a bus back to the hostel (thank goodness people there speak English or we never would have found our way), and got ready to go out for dinner and then a show! Carly and I, who had already seen Wicked, were off to Spamalot when the rest of the crew went to Wicked. First, SARAH HIN met us for dinner and we had what I had been craving of London for weeks- French fries and an enormous, juicy, hamburger. It was so delish. Spamalot was so well done- funny and a fantastic cast. The other girls of course could not stop raving about Wicked- they even got to meet the cast after the show! After our London musical experiences, we met up with Sarah again with her friend and she took us out to a popular club near Picadilly Circus (one of the main city plazas). Sarah was a sweetheart and bought us all a round of drinks and we stayed and danced for a while! Jess, Elisha, and I, who stayed the longest, got back to the hostel at 3:30 by the time we found the right night bus to take. Went to a club in London- check.
Day VI
I got myself up at 7:30 am to meet up with the one and only Alyson with a Y for breakfast!! The original restaurant at which we planned to have breakfast was closed (even though it’s a breakfast food restaurant ..?), so we just walked around and talked and found a café where I got some English tea and a real English breakfast with hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, beans, a think hunk of bacon, and toast. It was so fun catching up with my favorite name twin! Our date was sweet but all too short since I had to get back to the hostel for our last day of sight-seeing and she had class, but our hour together was definitely a highlight of the week!
We headed to Notting Hill (yeah, like the movie! No, I didn’t see Hugh Grant) for the market but it wasn’t as exciting as I was anticipating- first of all, we were all low on pounds so we could not buy anything, and everything was so expensive that we couldn’t have afforded it anyway. But Notting Hill itself is an adorable part of town. Jess and I decided that we’re buying a flat there. And we met a super cute English guy in a coffee shop who told us how to find the market who we wanted to take with us. That was mostly what Notting Hill offered to us, but I’ll take it. English men. Yummy. I dunno if it’s just me, but it seemed to me that everyy English man has searing eyes- most of them were blue or green. It was incredible. And hard not to stare. At some points during our wandering, even if we were pretty sure we knew where we were going, we found it necessary to stop a man on the street to ask for directions just so we could listen to him speak.
After Notting Hill we stopped for a quick lunch before going to the National Gallery Museum. However, we never got to the museum because Jess went next door to use the bathroom while we were stopped for lunch, and never came back. For 3 hours. We started worrying and waited there for her for the whole time. Carly and her friend went to the museum to look for her there in case she went to the museum without us, but with no avail. While the rest of us sat there, confused as to how this happened. We decided to go back to the hostel in case she was waiting for us there, and within 5 minutes of us arriving, she walked in the door. She apparently had walked two feet into the place where we were having lunch, didn’t see us, so went to the museum just thinking we would meet up later. So unfortunately while the rest of us sat there confused and starting to worry, she was able to make it to the museum.
England: check.
After we talked about never getting lost like that again haha, we took the tube to the airport for Greece! We had the gate to ourselves for a while, so we had a picnic for dinner on the floor and played cards until it was time to get on the plane. Carly’s boyfriend Nick, who was our host for Athens, picked us up at the airport and we took the bus to his apartment. We crammed ourselves in his apartment and all cuddled on the floor on top of a pseudo mattress made of the contents of our bags.
the London Eye and a blue sky, Me & Sarah jumping for joy
holding up da Big Ben, Out on the town with Hinnie
1 comment:
Day V:How about 'splendid'?
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