If you don't already know, we spent this past weekend in London! It was a whirlwind but a blast, so here we go!
It all started Thursday night by learning how to pack for a weekend in our NorthFace backpacks and setting our alarms for 3:00 a.m. We woke up, made eggs (Katie knows chickens have feathers not fur…watch video), got a taxi in Spanish and took off at 6:40 for London. Once we arrived, we headed straight for Leicester Square to buy our half price tickets and found Platform 9 3/4 at a train station on the way. Harry Potter lover, Brynne, was nothing shy of ecstatic.
At Leicester Square, we were so excited to find out they had Wicked tickets available for that night!! Then, we had a yummy lunch at Shake Shack in Covent Garden Market and went to our hostel. We quickly dumped our backpacks and ventured to High Street Kensington, Oxford Street and Harrod's (yes…we did spend our first afternoon shopping). After seeing the ridiculous prices at Harrod's, we decide it was time for some food. We went to the most adorable place (BB Bakery) and had cappuccinos, macaroons, and warm croissants! Then……WE WENT TO WICKED!!! This was our favorite experience of the trip! Being in the heart of theater, hearing British accents and singing along to some of our most loved songs made it a chart topper by far! We're still singing the songs as we write this blog. Our first hostel experience was Friday night. It was the typical white London brownstone home. We had a triple stacked bunk bed, and it was very clean!
Saturday morning, we woke up ready for the London Eye. However, we had to make our first Starbucks stop of the semester, and we weren't complaining. The London Eye was an incredible view of the city to start our tourist filled day! After that, we walked down the south bank of the River Thames and got to see the Medieval parts of the city on our way to Borough Market.
Here, we had our favorite meal of the trip: chicken and vegetable kabobs, tomato and basil focaccia bread, fudge and mulled apple cider. The atmosphere was fun and local, and the people were extremely friendly! From the market, we went to the London Bridge and found out Meagan is obsessed. We spent the rest of the day on the top of a double decker bus learning the history of the city through a hop-on-hop-off tour. For dinner, we went to The Silver Cross pub for an English meal which consisted of fish and chips and pimm's. Then, we went on a river cruise and got to experience the beautiful sights of London at night. We stopped at a coffee shop on our way back to the hostel and headed back exhausted and ready for a good night of sleep.
Sunday morning, we experienced our one and only London disappointment….The Parent Trap house. It was the only house on the entire street run down and under construction of course. So, we took our single picture for proof and walked right back to the tube station. Our English breakfast at Wetherspoon helped lift our spirits before we attended church at Westminster Abbey. We spent half the time there dreaming about William and Kate's wedding and the other half in awe of the boys' voices in the choir.
We basically ran from church to Buckingham Palace so we could see the changing of the guards. Little did we know…every tourist in London would be there for the experience. Not to mention, half the population of Asia. This was a neat spectacle, but we quickly decided to escape the crowd and go to the Orangery at Kensington Palace for afternoon tea. This was the most delicious tea we had ever tasted, but what we ordered didn't go over so well with the staff….
aka they tried to deliver our kids meals to the only table in the restaurant that had kids (not ours). Oh well…the food was yummy, we gave them a good laugh, and we got to view the beautiful gardens of Kensington Palace. From here, we ran to Buckingham Palace to get our picture without the tourists and say goodbye to the queen. Ironically enough, we asked a group of girls to take our picture and ended up finding out they were Thetas from Boston University. So naturally, we took one big kiting pic for the road and booked it to the airport, literally.We made it through security 25 minutes before the gate closed for our flight. But no worries, we made it just in time! On the flight back we were exhausted and reached delirium 10 minutes in (see video for proof). We finally landed in Barcelona only to be welcomed back by a single worker at customs for our entire flight (again…see video for proof).
Missing the English already but ready to continue learning Spanish!
Here's the video link!! http://youtu.be/IQH5Y3G7hCg
Sending our love from Spain,
Brynne, Katie and Meagan
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