London Calling!

My girls and I at Buckingham Palace! 

Well, the weekend started off with myself nearly in tears in a disgusting hostel shower shared by dozens of people…. I used a t-shirt as a towel. Then I slept in my raincoat because my pajama shirt was wet. YAY hostels.

The hostel life... ( please note the random Brazilian)

Luckily, the next day my six friends and I embarked on quite the day of London tourism spots. Starting, of course, with the Changing of the Guards and Buckingham Palace. We had a front row spot in front of the center gates of the palace for the whole processional changing. 

The band (that played "Skyfall" by Adele haha...as well as classics).

After two hours of standing/waiting/watching, we decided to walk through Hyde Park – the equivalent of NYC’s Central Park. It was fun to speed walk through the gardens and see the famous Peter Pan statue!

We'll never grow up, either.

Next up was our first adventure on the Underground. May I just say that I am incredibly thankful we had two little map wizards with us (Brynn and Maddy) to direct our crew through every train change and station. We spent a significant amount of time both days riding “the tube” and definitely learned how to “mind the gap” quickly. ;)

Fish and Chips with Matt.

We arrived just in time for the showing of “Macbeth” at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, and were shocked to find that the tickets we all had purchased were for the next weekend… Regardless, we happily took pictures of the outside of the theater and used the extra time to recharge with Starbucks. We wandered over to the London Bridge and walked across the famous structure. And may I just say that it is very surreal to be seeing all of these famous places in real life? PINTEREST IS NOT LYING, friends. These places exist!

The London Bridge! Still intact.... not falling down.....

We toured the Tower of London next, which is basically an entire little city within two thick exterior walls that the royal family lived in for many years back in the day. The whole complex also served as a torture zone for prisoners as well. Very disturbing learning about their methods of torture… We also saw the Crown Jewels there!!!!!!! HUGE diamonds and every other stone you could imagine - so beautiful that I can’t properly describe them all.

Guard securing the Crown Jewels.

The rest of the night was spent eating fish and chips on the street (delicious), walking across Abbey Road (I WALKED WHERE THE BEATLES DID) and seeing the studio the Beatles recorded in, and ending up at T.G.I. Friday’s for Maddy and Katie’s birthday dinner. Why not?? We miss American food. And they made balloon hats for our two 20-year-olds!

Atop the London Eye! Look at the sites below...

The next day, we spent one of the few sunny moments all day on the London Eye, which was such a blessing. It was frightening/amazing to be up so high and seeing the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, the Royal Palace, etc. from that perspective - DEFINITELY worth the money (discounted tickets online ahead of time, if anyone was wondering). After that we hit up some gift shops, observed those special monuments up close, and gazed longingly at Westminster Abbey, where I will marry Prince Harry someday…

Tourist Pic! 

Later, we saw the Egyptian preserved mummies at the (free) British Museum, had tea and more fish and chips at a place called Munchkins, spent a few hours walking through the Portobello Market and trying not to buy everything, and lastly, we went to Harrod’s. If you are not familiar with that name, just picture the most glamorous and expensive department store of all time…then exaggerate it even a little more.

Fish and Chips at Munchkins! AND tea. 

I looked at dresses worth more than my four years of tuition combined, saw some of the Tiffany jewelry made for the “Gatsby” movie, walked through the Gucci section of the children’s floor, and saw an incredible amount of ridiculously expensive alcohol from all over the world. My mind was blown…it was amazing.

BIG BEN! It is quite large.

That night we went to a Turkish restaurant and I enjoyed delicious cheese stuffed mushrooms, some leftover rice, and bread and butter pudding. We basically took a nap for about two hours and woke up at 2:45AM to walk to a bus stop, to ride the bus for an hour, then to wait at the airport, to ride on a plane for a couple hours, and finally to ride the metro home. We were exhausted, but we made the most of our time in London and celebrated Maddy and Katie’s birthday the best we knew how! :)

HAPPY 20th TO MY BEST FRIEND!! :)