Spring Break I: London

3 girls, 3 countries 9 days

First page of the Itinerary I made for the trip. Just in case you care.

Travel: The flight to London would be my first experience with the notorious Ryanair, famous for chaos and inconvenience but damn do they have cheap flights. Teague and I would be traveling to London together and Jules would meet us there. In order to get to our flight which took off from budget airline hub, Pisa, we had to take a bus from the train station. This should have been simple and fool-proof since we had already purchased tickets, yet Teague and I managed to start the trip off WRONG. At 3:50pm on the day of our departure, I casually said to Teague, "our bus leaves at 4:30 right?", she checked the ticket and replied, "oh my god, it leaves at 4". That gave us 10 minutes to finish packing and run to the train station which is roughly a half mile away. When I say we ran to the train station, I mean we sprinted, using our giant backpacks as a street clearing weapons. Never in my life have I yelled, "GET OUT OF MY WAY" to someone on the street, but I will admit that on that day, I did because missing the bus would royally screw up our trip. I was starting to see spots and feel light headed by the time I saw the bus but somehow we made it and the rest of the trip to London, long and arduous though it was, went off with out a hitch. I should mention here that I realized quickly that Ryanair means what they say about only allowing one carry-on item per person. I managed to sneak my camera case onto the plane by hiding it under my coat, allowing myself to feel like i won, but this luck would not last...

Accommodations: For our first two nights in London, we stayed in a private room in a hostel called YHA London Central. It was modern and clean and had pretty much everything you need from a hostel. Since London is so expensive, we decided to grocery shop and then make and eat breakfast in our hostel kitchen both mornings. For the third day, Saturday, I hadn't been able to book a room for us in YHA because it was full. We decided to book a hotel room near the train station we would depart from on Sunday. We knew it wasn't the Ritz, but figured it would suffice for one night. WRONG. We were already a little nervous about the situation because we had only booked for 2 people in an attempt to save money, and had left Jules waiting outside to sneak her in. Teague and I walked into the hotel to check in before going out to dinner with Teague's dad and the guy at the front desk says, "we overbooked the hotel and don't have room but come with me". Teague and I were slightly confused but proceeded to follow him around the block as he asked every single hotel around if they could accommodate us for the night. They were ALL full. However, one hotel was nice enough to offer us a dirty room with one single bed that we could have if we cleaned it ourselves, no thanks. After about 15 minutes we realized we weren't going to have anywhere to stay and that we needed to figure something else out. We started screaming at the guy that we needed a room and we needed it now. He then suspiciously led us to his "friend's" "hotel" next door to the original hotel where we were given a truly scary room in the basement. It looked like a place you would bring people you wanted to kill. There wasn't even a door handle, just a padlock on the door. It took a few pints of strong beer to work up the courage to stay there that night, and I still spent much of the night devising escape routes and searching for available weapons for when the men from "Taken" came to get us in the night. The best plan I worked out was to throw the already broken TV out the window and escape onto the street. Somehow we survived and got the hell out of there at 6 am to catch our train for Ireland. As we were sitting in the train station discussing our night, we realized that we had set ourselves up for the perfect murder: no one knew where we were staying, we never showed ID to the hotel, we paid in cash. They could have murdered us and all the while our families would have thought we were in the hotel I wrote in the Itinerary. Anywaysssss we learned some valuable lessons that night. 

note lack of door handle 

Activities: Jules, Teague and I were sight-seeing champs in London. We woke early, went to bed late and did not nap EVER. The first day, we woke up and found the closest Starbucks. Italy has amazing espresso drinks but there is just nothing like a big cup of coffee to go. Go ahead, Call me a conformist capitalist consumer.

We bought something called the London Pass from our hostel for 50 pounds which allowed us to visit almost all tourist attractions in London for no extra cost. Our first stop was the Westminster Abbey. I really enjoyed this as we got to see the tombs of notable monarchs such as Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots. Also in the abbey were the tombs of Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton. We found this interesting as this shows one of the many differences between religion in England and in the United States. Many in our country find it controversial to find Darwin in a school book, let alone a church. 

Later that day we walked around the city and saw Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the London Bridge and   several other must-see locations in London. After lunch, we went to the Tate Modern which is a modern art Museum. After wandering around the museum for a bit and giggling at some of the more outlandish pieces of art, we worked our way over to Shakespeare's Globe Theater. This was a bit disappointing as it is a replica and the tour didn't include much we couldn't have seen on our own. 

life imitating art 

The Globe Theater

After a long day of sight-seeing we met our friend from school, Emily for dinner and drinks at a pub. I got fish and chips, thus eating my first fried food in 2 months. One of the most notable differences between our lives in Florence and our lives in the UK was the food we ate and how it made us feel. Many would think that studying in Florence would make someone like me, who loves to eat, fat, but I have never eaten healthier in my life. My spring break diet on the other had consisted mostly of fries or "chips" and various other friend and breaded dishes, and of course copious amounts of beer. This lead to a noticeably less robust sense of physical well-being, that made me miss the simple deliciousness of Italian food. 

After dinner we decided to go to the Cinema. We saw a slow but well-made film called Archipelago, and then dashed home before the tube closed. 

We rose early our second day in London because we had A LOT of sights to see. We made a failed attempt to see the changing of the guard, but once again arrived late due to our tendency to underestimate the time it takes to travel by the tube. Next, we decided to check out the London zoo. As all three of us are animal lovers who miss our pets, we were excited to see some wildlife. Unfortunately there weren't very many actual animals at the zoo, and the ones we did see seemed sad and unhappy which made us sad and unhappy, so, we decided to go to the Camden market and do some browsing. The market is pretty remarkable and difficult to experience completely in one day. We grabbed some disgustingly delicious fried food and then continued to explore the endless tents of the market. They sell literally everything there and one could create a completely unique and original style by shopping there. Unfortunately I couldn't buy anything because the pound had already brutalized my bank account thoroughly and I had literally no extra room in my backpack. After spending several hours at the market, we stopped by St. Paul's Cathedral and then went to check in to the hotel...and you know how that went. Luckily we had planned to meet Teague's dad for dinner at an Indian food restaurant. It was great to have someone's dad around after the hotel debacle, and dinner was delicious. 

cutest animals at the zoo

Camden Market 

St. Paul's Cathedral 

All in all, London was really fantastic. It is a great city to visit and there are limitless things to do and see there. We were all just thrilled to be able to speak English and make eye-contact with strangers without the fear of being sexually assaulted. Next installment is Dublin!