Last weekend (Oct. 10-12), some of my friends (Betsy and Alison) and I made a trip up north…to LONDON, ENGLAND! You can probably tell by the all-caps that I had a great time! We arrived at the London, Stansted airport around 1 in the afternoon and then took a bus from the airport to the middle of the city, which took about an hour. Although we were anxious to see the city, the hour went by fast because we met a guy on the bus who was from Vigo (one of the coastal cities in Spain we have visited) and we ended up talking with him the whole time. He was extremely good-looking and very nice…no worries mom, still planning on coming home in December :)! We ended up exchanging numbers with him so if we are ever in Vigo again we can meet up, but considering I wasn’t a huge fan of Vigo (other than the islands), I don’t think that will be happening. I found it kinda funny that our first encounter with someone in London was a man from Spain who spoke nothing but Spanish. I was SO excited to be able to speak English in London and here I was on the bus STILL speaking Spanish, LOL.
Once the bus dropped us off at Liverpool Station, our next task was to take the “tube” aka the Metro/Subway to meet up with the girl we were going to be staying with (Betsy’s friend from KU who now lives and works as a teacher in London at Westminster Academy). We asked a lady for directions to the nearest Metro Station and she looked at us like we were crazy and said (in an English accent, so she was obviously from England) “I don’t know”. After taking a second to think about it, we realized that we called it the Metro and not the tube, which is a total no-no in London…People only know it by the “underground” or the “tube”. We gave it a second try and asked a man where we could get on the tube, and he pointed us in the right direction. He was very friendly and I so smitten by his accent (I’m in love with English accents for some reason). Betsy, Alison and I found our way to the tube, bought an Oyster (Metro Card) and were on our way, or so we thought. We ended up waiting for about 20 minutes when it was supposed to come every 5-7 minutes. Then, once we were on the tube for a couple minutes it came to a complete stop, but not at a station, just in the middle of the track. We ended being at a complete stop for about 20 minutes because there wasn’t a platform open. Just imagine…the oldest running subway in the world, packed full of people, extremely hot, and me being a little claustrophobic wanting to scream with frustration. And on top of that, there was an older man starring at me with googly eyes in a Mr. creeper kind of way…no bueno! Let’s just say that I’ve had my fair share of Subway rides in my day and this was by far the worst Subway experience ever…thank god the trip goes up hill from here! ;)
Once we finally starting moving again, we made it to our stop and walked to the school where Betsy’s friend Beth works. Alison and I met Beth and we all took a little tour of Westminster Academy. It was amazing to say the least. I can’t even describe this place, it was the coolest school I’ve ever seen. After our mini-tour of the school, we walked to Beth’s flat, dropped off our luggage and headed out for dinner and drinks. Beth’s friends/co-workers (other teachers) go out every Friday after school so we met up with them. All her friends were great, and I absolutely loved listening to them talk with their cool accents…I wish I had one! :). We actually kinda ate 2 dinners, lol. Because us girls skipped lunch because of our travel schedule, we went to a Mexican restaurant at about 5:30. This is the first Mexican food I’ve had the opportunity to eat since I’ve been overseas so you can imagine how excited I was! It wasn’t very authentic, but it was still delicious. I had chicken enchiladas, rice and beans, and a margarita…and let me tell ya, I was in heaven! After our meal, we went pub-hopping. First, The Cow and then The Skid. Both are local pubs that Beth and her friends frequently visit. At the Skid I had my first taste of Strawberry beer, it was yummy! At this point in the night we met up wit Alison’s friend Kate, who is from KU on a study abroad program in Ireland and come to London to visit Alison for the weekend. At about 11:00pm we ate our second dinner…Indian food. This was yet another first for me because I had never tried Indian food before. I taste tested a few items and liked one or two of them. A lot of the food was a bit spicy for me because they use a lot of curry, but some was enjoyable. I have to admit, I probably won’t willing eat Indian food again any time soon. After our second meal we walked back to Beth’s flat and chatted for a bit before going to sleep. Saturday morning we woke up and headed to Portobello Market. For those of you who have seen the movie “Notting Hill”, this is the market that Hugh Grant walks through while the seasons are changing. The market is huge…it goes on and on for blocks! There is all kinds of stuff from food, to antiques, to clothes and jewelry. I was tempted to purchase a lot of things, but refrained and limited myself to one dress. Before leaving the market, we got some to-go-food from a “Panera-type” place and walked to Hyde Park for a picnic. Hyde park is a famous park in London and is absolutely huge! It happened to be a gorgeous day so our picnic was wonderful. Actually, we experienced great weather the entire weekend. The temperature was in the 70s which is summer weather for London. After we ate, Beth sent Alison, Kate, Betsy, and I on the Big Bus Tour…which is one of those big red buses where you sit on the top and they take you to all the attractions of the city. I really enjoyed this part of the trip! I not only saw a lot of cool things, I got to learn a lot about the history of London because it was a “headphone-guided” tour. We ended up being on the bus tour for about 3 hours as it took us to different parts of the city, including…
Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Picadilly Circus (a smaller version of Times Square), Big Ben, The London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Tower Bridge, the London Bridge, The Tower of London, The Globe Theater (Shakespeare’s Theater), and St. Paul’s Cathedral (where Prince Charles and Princess Diana were married).
Side Note –
While on the Bus Tour I got a surprising call from Kim. Her and Michael's flights got all messed up and instead of making it to Nice on Saturday, they ended up being in London…small world, huh!? Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to meet up because I was on the bus and they didn’t have a way to get a hold of me because they were on a pay phone, but no worries…I will see them when they arrive in Santiago very SOON!
After the Big Bus Tour was over, we did a little shopping and then headed back to Beth’s to freshen up for dinner and a night out. We ate dinner at a nice Lebanese restaurant where the food was quite interesting. I had never tried Lebanese food before so I was excited to add another first to my list, especially because I feel like this whole trip has just been a list of firsts for me. It is probably the first time in my life that I am truly out of my element and I am glad I am getting opportunities to step out of the box or out of my comfort zone…it feels great! :). The food ended up being really good, the only thing I really didn’t like was the duck. After dinner Beth took us to Camden where there is quite the night life. We hung out at a bar drinking cider and chatting. It was a nice relaxing place and we had a lot of fun.
On Sunday morning we woke up really early and ate a wonderful breakfast buffet before heading to Picadilly Circus for a little more site seeing. We met up with our friend Ben who got to London on Sunday morning from Ireland, where he spent Friday and Saturday with our other friend Kyle. Since he hadn’t seen everything we had, we did some stuff over again, such as the London Eye (although we didn’t actually go up in it because it was expensive and the line was long), and Big Ben. We all jumped back on the Big Bus Tour (the tickets are valid for 48 hours and you can “hop-on” and “hop-off” wherever you want) and got off near the River in order to jump on a River Thames Cruise boat….where we got to see the city from the water, which was a really neat perspective. The boat took us to the other side of the river where we got to see the Globe Theater up close. It was really neat to be seeing something so old and famous! After visiting the Globe, we visited Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, it was Sunday so Westminster Abbey was closed and we weren’t able to go inside, but seeing the outside was good enough for me…it was phenomenal. (Sorry, but I don’t have pics of Westminster or Buckingham because they accidentally got erased from my camera). Buckingham palace was pretty cool as well. It is kinda neat to be looking at a place where the Royal family once lived (they live in a different, smaller palace now-a-days). After yet another full day of site-seeing, we headed back to Beth’s to freshen up for dinner…which is always late (just like in Spain and pretty much all of Europe). Around 9pm we headed to a restaurant for some Fish and Chips. I was told I couldn’t leave London without eating them, so I didn’t! The fish was delicious, and the chips (fries) were good too! :).
We decided to have a chill night considering we had to wake up at 4am to catch a cab to the bus station, then a bus to the airport. So after dinner we watched a movie and went to bed. Waking up at 4am was so not fun, but I am becoming more and more accustomed to terrible travel times and waking up at the wee hours of the morning to catch flights. I slept on the bus to the airport and when I got there, I didn’t have a good experience. Because I had mousse and hairspray in my bag, they had to “confiscate” it and throw it away, and because they were “suspicious” of me after that, the airport security people felt the need to empty every pocket of my entire bag, do tests of my things (such as mini-shampoo and conditioner) to make sure they weren’t contaminated, and make me take off my shoes, belt, coat, scarf and jewelry in order to search me. First of all, I was tired and so not in the mood, secondly, I was a little bit humiliated considering everyone else was passing through security just fine while I was on the side being searched hard core. I felt like some sort of terrorist and as you can imagine, it wasn’t a good feeling. After about 30 minutes of being at security, I finally was able to repack my bag and head to my gate. Luckily, the flight was smooth and I slept the whole way! We ended up getting back to Santiago around noon and I slept from then until about 7pm…I know, ridiculous, but I was so exhausted from the entire weekend. When I woke up, I uploaded some pics in order to have a full memory card for my week trip to Madrid and then began to prepare to leave once again. I basically unpacked my bag, to just turn around and repack it because I left for Madrid the following morning at 8am. I am quite the traveler, I know!
Overall, my weekend in London was fantastic. I absolutely loved just about every minute of it. The city was beautiful and there was so much to do/see there. The people were fun and vibrant and just like most big cities…London was full of life! I really enjoyed the big city feel and for me, London was a European New York and I love New York! :). I’ve been here for a while and have traveled a lot, but London was the first city where I could see myself living. I could picture in my head my life in London, which I think is a pretty cool thing, because although the other cities I’ve visited so far have been beautiful and great, they are places that I enjoyed visiting for a small period of time and not places I could see myself returning to. Don’t go getting all worried though, although I would love to live a period of my life in London, it is pretty much out of the question because the cost of living there is ridiculous! Everything in London was super duper expensive and the exchange rate is terrible. For every US dollar I had, it was only 50 cents in pounds, so for a typical 10 pound meal, I paid 20 dollars. I think the cheapest meal I ate was still about 17 US dollars, which is a lot for a small non-gourmet meal.
Because London was the first city I had my new camera to use, some of the pics didn’t turn out so well because I was playing with the settings. Also, as I mentioned above, I don’t have pics of Westminster Abbey or Buckingham Palace because they were deleted from my memory card. I’m not sure how, it might have been an effect of me messing with my camera settings, who knows?! Most of the pics I took, turned out well…You can check them out on my Shutterfly:
http://mexigurl14.shutterfly.com/
Last weekend (Oct. 10-12), some of my friends (Betsy and Alison) and I made a trip up north…to LONDON, ENGLAND! You can probably tell by the all-caps that I had a great time! We arrived at the London, Stansted airport around 1 in the afternoon and then took a bus from the airport to the middle of the city, which took about an hour. Although we were anxious to see the city, the hour went by fast because we met a guy on the bus who was from Vigo (one of the coastal cities in Spain we have visited) and we ended up talking with him the whole time. He was extremely good-looking and very nice…no worries mom, still planning on coming home in December :)! We ended up exchanging numbers with him so if we are ever in Vigo again we can meet up, but considering I wasn’t a huge fan of Vigo (other than the islands), I don’t think that will be happening. I found it kinda funny that our first encounter with someone in London was a man from Spain who spoke nothing but Spanish. I was SO excited to be able to speak English in London and here I was on the bus STILL speaking Spanish, LOL.
Once the bus dropped us off at Liverpool Station, our next task was to take the “tube” aka the Metro/Subway to meet up with the girl we were going to be staying with (Betsy’s friend from KU who now lives and works as a teacher in London at Westminster Academy). We asked a lady for directions to the nearest Metro Station and she looked at us like we were crazy and said (in an English accent, so she was obviously from England) “I don’t know”. After taking a second to think about it, we realized that we called it the Metro and not the tube, which is a total no-no in London…People only know it by the “underground” or the “tube”. We gave it a second try and asked a man where we could get on the tube, and he pointed us in the right direction. He was very friendly and I so smitten by his accent (I’m in love with English accents for some reason). Betsy, Alison and I found our way to the tube, bought an Oyster (Metro Card) and were on our way, or so we thought. We ended up waiting for about 20 minutes when it was supposed to come every 5-7 minutes. Then, once we were on the tube for a couple minutes it came to a complete stop, but not at a station, just in the middle of the track. We ended being at a complete stop for about 20 minutes because there wasn’t a platform open. Just imagine…the oldest running subway in the world, packed full of people, extremely hot, and me being a little claustrophobic wanting to scream with frustration. And on top of that, there was an older man starring at me with googly eyes in a Mr. creeper kind of way…no bueno! Let’s just say that I’ve had my fair share of Subway rides in my day and this was by far the worst Subway experience ever…thank god the trip goes up hill from here! ;)
Once we finally starting moving again, we made it to our stop and walked to the school where Betsy’s friend Beth works. Alison and I met Beth and we all took a little tour of Westminster Academy. It was amazing to say the least. I can’t even describe this place, it was the coolest school I’ve ever seen. After our mini-tour of the school, we walked to Beth’s flat, dropped off our luggage and headed out for dinner and drinks. Beth’s friends/co-workers (other teachers) go out every Friday after school so we met up with them. All her friends were great, and I absolutely loved listening to them talk with their cool accents…I wish I had one! :). We actually kinda ate 2 dinners, lol. Because us girls skipped lunch because of our travel schedule, we went to a Mexican restaurant at about 5:30. This is the first Mexican food I’ve had the opportunity to eat since I’ve been overseas so you can imagine how excited I was! It wasn’t very authentic, but it was still delicious. I had chicken enchiladas, rice and beans, and a margarita…and let me tell ya, I was in heaven! After our meal, we went pub-hopping. First, The Cow and then The Skid. Both are local pubs that Beth and her friends frequently visit. At the Skid I had my first taste of Strawberry beer, it was yummy! At this point in the night we met up wit Alison’s friend Kate, who is from KU on a study abroad program in Ireland and come to London to visit Alison for the weekend. At about 11:00pm we ate our second dinner…Indian food. This was yet another first for me because I had never tried Indian food before. I taste tested a few items and liked one or two of them. A lot of the food was a bit spicy for me because they use a lot of curry, but some was enjoyable. I have to admit, I probably won’t willing eat Indian food again any time soon. After our second meal we walked back to Beth’s flat and chatted for a bit before going to sleep. Saturday morning we woke up and headed to Portobello Market. For those of you who have seen the movie “Notting Hill”, this is the market that Hugh Grant walks through while the seasons are changing. The market is huge…it goes on and on for blocks! There is all kinds of stuff from food, to antiques, to clothes and jewelry. I was tempted to purchase a lot of things, but refrained and limited myself to one dress. Before leaving the market, we got some to-go-food from a “Panera-type” place and walked to Hyde Park for a picnic. Hyde park is a famous park in London and is absolutely huge! It happened to be a gorgeous day so our picnic was wonderful. Actually, we experienced great weather the entire weekend. The temperature was in the 70s which is summer weather for London. After we ate, Beth sent Alison, Kate, Betsy, and I on the Big Bus Tour…which is one of those big red buses where you sit on the top and they take you to all the attractions of the city. I really enjoyed this part of the trip! I not only saw a lot of cool things, I got to learn a lot about the history of London because it was a “headphone-guided” tour. We ended up being on the bus tour for about 3 hours as it took us to different parts of the city, including…
Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Picadilly Circus (a smaller version of Times Square), Big Ben, The London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Trafalgar Square, Tower Bridge, the London Bridge, The Tower of London, The Globe Theater (Shakespeare’s Theater), and St. Paul’s Cathedral (where Prince Charles and Princess Diana were married).
Side Note –
While on the Bus Tour I got a surprising call from Kim. Her and Michael's flights got all messed up and instead of making it to Nice on Saturday, they ended up being in London…small world, huh!? Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to meet up because I was on the bus and they didn’t have a way to get a hold of me because they were on a pay phone, but no worries…I will see them when they arrive in Santiago very SOON!
After the Big Bus Tour was over, we did a little shopping and then headed back to Beth’s to freshen up for dinner and a night out. We ate dinner at a nice Lebanese restaurant where the food was quite interesting. I had never tried Lebanese food before so I was excited to add another first to my list, especially because I feel like this whole trip has just been a list of firsts for me. It is probably the first time in my life that I am truly out of my element and I am glad I am getting opportunities to step out of the box or out of my comfort zone…it feels great! :). The food ended up being really good, the only thing I really didn’t like was the duck. After dinner Beth took us to Camden where there is quite the night life. We hung out at a bar drinking cider and chatting. It was a nice relaxing place and we had a lot of fun.
On Sunday morning we woke up really early and ate a wonderful breakfast buffet before heading to Picadilly Circus for a little more site seeing. We met up with our friend Ben who got to London on Sunday morning from Ireland, where he spent Friday and Saturday with our other friend Kyle. Since he hadn’t seen everything we had, we did some stuff over again, such as the London Eye (although we didn’t actually go up in it because it was expensive and the line was long), and Big Ben. We all jumped back on the Big Bus Tour (the tickets are valid for 48 hours and you can “hop-on” and “hop-off” wherever you want) and got off near the River in order to jump on a River Thames Cruise boat….where we got to see the city from the water, which was a really neat perspective. The boat took us to the other side of the river where we got to see the Globe Theater up close. It was really neat to be seeing something so old and famous! After visiting the Globe, we visited Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately, it was Sunday so Westminster Abbey was closed and we weren’t able to go inside, but seeing the outside was good enough for me…it was phenomenal. (Sorry, but I don’t have pics of Westminster or Buckingham because they accidentally got erased from my camera). Buckingham palace was pretty cool as well. It is kinda neat to be looking at a place where the Royal family once lived (they live in a different, smaller palace now-a-days). After yet another full day of site-seeing, we headed back to Beth’s to freshen up for dinner…which is always late (just like in Spain and pretty much all of Europe). Around 9pm we headed to a restaurant for some Fish and Chips. I was told I couldn’t leave London without eating them, so I didn’t! The fish was delicious, and the chips (fries) were good too! :).
We decided to have a chill night considering we had to wake up at 4am to catch a cab to the bus station, then a bus to the airport. So after dinner we watched a movie and went to bed. Waking up at 4am was so not fun, but I am becoming more and more accustomed to terrible travel times and waking up at the wee hours of the morning to catch flights. I slept on the bus to the airport and when I got there, I didn’t have a good experience. Because I had mousse and hairspray in my bag, they had to “confiscate” it and throw it away, and because they were “suspicious” of me after that, the airport security people felt the need to empty every pocket of my entire bag, do tests of my things (such as mini-shampoo and conditioner) to make sure they weren’t contaminated, and make me take off my shoes, belt, coat, scarf and jewelry in order to search me. First of all, I was tired and so not in the mood, secondly, I was a little bit humiliated considering everyone else was passing through security just fine while I was on the side being searched hard core. I felt like some sort of terrorist and as you can imagine, it wasn’t a good feeling. After about 30 minutes of being at security, I finally was able to repack my bag and head to my gate. Luckily, the flight was smooth and I slept the whole way! We ended up getting back to Santiago around noon and I slept from then until about 7pm…I know, ridiculous, but I was so exhausted from the entire weekend. When I woke up, I uploaded some pics in order to have a full memory card for my week trip to Madrid and then began to prepare to leave once again. I basically unpacked my bag, to just turn around and repack it because I left for Madrid the following morning at 8am. I am quite the traveler, I know!
Overall, my weekend in London was fantastic. I absolutely loved just about every minute of it. The city was beautiful and there was so much to do/see there. The people were fun and vibrant and just like most big cities…London was full of life! I really enjoyed the big city feel and for me, London was a European New York and I love New York! :). I’ve been here for a while and have traveled a lot, but London was the first city where I could see myself living. I could picture in my head my life in London, which I think is a pretty cool thing, because although the other cities I’ve visited so far have been beautiful and great, they are places that I enjoyed visiting for a small period of time and not places I could see myself returning to. Don’t go getting all worried though, although I would love to live a period of my life in London, it is pretty much out of the question because the cost of living there is ridiculous! Everything in London was super duper expensive and the exchange rate is terrible. For every US dollar I had, it was only 50 cents in pounds, so for a typical 10 pound meal, I paid 20 dollars. I think the cheapest meal I ate was still about 17 US dollars, which is a lot for a small non-gourmet meal.
Because London was the first city I had my new camera to use, some of the pics didn’t turn out so well because I was playing with the settings. Also, as I mentioned above, I don’t have pics of Westminster Abbey or Buckingham Palace because they were deleted from my memory card. I’m not sure how, it might have been an effect of me messing with my camera settings, who knows?! Most of the pics I took, turned out well…You can check them out on my Shutterfly: http://mexigurl14.shutterfly.com/
2 comments:
I read this: "Sorry, but I don’t have pics of Westminster or Buckingham because they accidentally got erased from my camera" and my mouth dropped open! We got you an awesome camera and you accidentally deleted pics!? I'm disappointed. I hope you figured out the settings and your pictures from here on out will be nothing less than fantastic. I really want this camera to be a good one!
Off I go to check out your shutterfly.
Have fun with Kim and Michael this week!!
hola chica!!
I am so glad you had a good time in London! Don't worry andrea, I have pics of those places! You just know so many European travelers! I wanna hear about Madrid! I miss you. We're in Spain and we still haven't talked for a week! I can't handle it!!
I love you and I will talk to you soon! p.s. thank you for updating :)
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