London Calling

Back in March, I decided to tag along with a group of girls who were planning a trip to London. Originally, I hadn't planned on visitng london because I had already been there before and because of how expensive it is to visit (dollar to pound is 1 to 1.61 right now). My mind was quickly changed, however, when my friend Marissa mentioned they would be staying for free at a friend's flat in London. Before I knew it, I had booked yet another RyanAir flight.

We left our house, salami bocadillos in hand, at 7 on Thursday, but thanks to a uncharacteristly slow Sevilla bus, a 45 minute flight delay, having to sit through English customs for 2 hours, and finally taking an hour and a half long bus from Stansted airport to London, we didn't end up getting to the flat until 3:30 in the morning. Colleen and I cuddled up on a tiny couch, Willy-Wonka style for a not so great night of sleep.

After getting in so late, we all agreed it would be nice to sleep in late and have a more relaxed day. When we woke up we went to my favorite destination in any city: the grocery store. It has truly amazed me how much money you can save by cooking for yourself while traveling. In Italy, I had to spend a ton of money on the food because of how delicious it was, but for a country like London, it seems silly to waste money on mediocre food when you could have fun cooking great meals together. We ended up buying all our food for the 4 days in one trip, and only spent about 15 pounds a person. After our grocery run, we decided to take a long walk to tour a couple of things within walking distance and avoid buying a metro pass for the day. We stopped first at the British Museum...mostly because all the museums in London are free. Much to my surprise, the British Museum is home to the Rosetta stone. Who knew!

Traveling with all girls has had its benefits…not only in cooking and movie watching, but also in the abundance of touristy pictures. We spent the rest of the day, walking around acting like complete tourists. Thus, I’ll share with you guys some of the phone booth pictures we took.

Colleen and I were sad to find out that touring the Harry Potter studios would cost 27 pounds (something that certain wouldn’t fit into our 20 pound a day budget), so we settled on taking a few pictures with Platform 9 ¾ in the train station.

After our picture taking tour, we walked home and made a chicken salad with more veggies than I’ve seen since I’ve been in Spain. If you had asked me back in January what food I would miss from back home, I probably would have said cheeseburgers or pizza. Never in a million years did I think I would miss vegetables as much as I have…but when you are served kids food (fried things and French fries) every day, you start to miss your veggies! The night was brought to a fantastic end when we found out that 3 of the roommates were leaving and we could sleep in their beds for the night. Definite bonus.

Their beds were so incredibly comfortable that in the morning when Marissa came in to wake us up by saying “rise and shine”, I thought I was back at home in my big bed with my mom coming in to wake me up. After realizing where I actually was, I woke up and made one of the best breakfasts I’ve had while abroad (with the exception of my mom’s oatmeal when she visited). A simple egg bagel breakfast sandwich tasted a million times better than our typical cornflakes. After breakfast, we headed to the local “tube” station to buy an unlimited day pass (I learned the hard way that people don’t understand what you’re talking about if you refer to the tube as the metro). On the way to the metro, we stopped in a theater ticket stand, and after finding a relatively cheap tickets for a play (23 pounds), decided we would work it into our spending budget....a decision that turned out to be a great one.

The Wizard of Oz was too expensive to see, but Toto is a westie in this version!

Trying our best to optimize our unlimited tube passes, we headed straight for Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards. There was a huge crowd, but we stayed for a while to try and get some good pictures. Oddly enough, the royal band was playing Lion King's "circle of life" when we left.

Outside Buckingham Palace

From Buckingham Palace, we hoped back on the tube to Westminster Abbey. We took all the touristy pictures you would expect, but did not go in to tour anything (not in our budget). The weather while we were there was not optimal to say the least, but I suppose London never has great weather. 

Outside Westminster Abbey

With the policeman outside of Big Ben

Big Ben!

London Eye

We stopped inside a coffee shop to escape the rain and eat our sandwiches we had made. While there I ordered a cinnamon latte that I will most likely be dreaming about until I get back home. Coffees in London were big like back home (instead of the small, espresso-like cafes con leche in spain). We then walked around Trafalgar Square some and saw the official countdown to the Summer Olympics.

In front of the countdown in Trafalgar Square

Next came possibly my favorite destination in all of London: Harrods. I remembered going before when I visited with my family, but the dominant part of that memory is filled with Nathan throwing a tantrum about not wanting to shop while on vacation. I love absolutely everything about this store...from the abundance free perfume and lotion samples to the women who goes in and individually cleans each stall before going to the bathroom. Not to mention the amazing smells of the food. Everything was of course crazy expensive, but looking was free!

Outside of Harrods

After gawking at all that Harrods has to offer, we then headed over to walk through Hyde Park. We ended up having to run through it for fear we would miss our play, but we did take a moment to stop and take some pictures in front of the Princess Diana memorial.

Princess Diana memorial

After breaking a sweat in our sprint to get to the theater on time, we picked up our tickets from the box office and took our seats for "Blood Brothers", a musical (of course) about two brothers, separated at birth who become best friends not knowing they are related. The play itself was fantastic, and our seats ended up being pretty great...the theater was pretty small so there wasn't really a bad seat in the house. It was definitely one of my favorite things we did on our trip, and something I will always remember.

Outside the theater

In our seats!

To properly celebrate cinco de mayo, we had planned for a while about which mexican food to eat. I know before I said how much I've missed vegetables, but I must also admit how much I've missed americanized mexican food. You know, the kind with unlimited chips and queso dip (two things that do not seem to exist in Spain). Well, lucky for us, Colleen had planned ahead and found out that London had Chipotles....one of which just happened to be right next door to the theater. My burrito bowl was significantly smaller than in America (and significantly more expensive in Pounds), but for a one time splurge while eating out in London, it was completely worth it. After filling ourselves with burritos, chips (of which the guy gave me a free extra serving--saying I looked hungry) and guacamole, we headed over to piccadilly circus to check out the night scene. Piccadilly circus is more or less the times square of London, but was cool to walk around at night. After exploring for a while, we hopped back on the metro and stopped by the store for some late-night snacks (I found 4 chocolate muffins for 35 cents that granted were about to expire, but were delicious none the less). We then all cuddled up in a bed to watch the new Footloose. The movie itself was laughably bad, but we all had fun watching it together.

After another egg bagel sandwich and coffee the next morning, we headed off in the tube to the Tate Modern. I distinctly remember visiting the museum with my family when we were in London so I knew how weird it was going to be. There are 2 floors you can see for free and exhibits you can pay for. We saw some very "modern" art which provided an hour's worth of great entertainment.

At the Tate Modern

After that, we walked by the Millennium Bridge (as featured in Harry Potter 5) and Shakespeare's globe theater before stopping to eat our sandwiches in a cafe. We then went across the Tower Bridge (not the London Bridge as I thought it was called) and around the Tower of London. Dreary weather once again, but I still managed to get some decent pictures!

At the Tower Bridge

Our next touristy destination was Abbey Road to take a Beatles impersionation picture. No one really warned us just how dangerous this would be. There were touristy surrounding the intersection waiting for their chance to go pose, but the cars on the road really did not appreciate having to stop and wait for people to get the perfect shot. In between honks, we ran in the road to get a picture. Luckily no one was hurt in the process. Only downside was that I was looking out for cars and thus wasn't looking straight ahead like I should have been.

On Abbey Road

Signing the wall outside Abbey Studios where the Beatles recorded

After another successful sightseeing day, we headed back to the flat and played cards for a while. We cooked 2 pizzas and a delicious salad for dinner, and afterwards cuddled up for another movie (this time The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo...much better than Footloose). 

We slept in pretty late on Monday before heading to the grocery store to pick up some food for lunch on the plane. After budgeting all weekend, I had 3 Pounds left to my name. I didn't want to have to take out more, so I spent it wisely on bagels, hummus and a banana. We left a card with some money in it for the roommates and caught the 2:00 bus back to the airport without a problem. The british security stopped to check both Marissa and my's bag and confiscated her peanut butter (which was a birthday present from Natalie) and her hummus. Luckily they didn't find my hummus, so I was able to sneak it on. 

Once we landed back in warm Sevilla, I had a moment of realization that my last RyanAir flight was over with. Although this is certainly something to celebrate, I also felt a little depressed. Then came the realization that the half of UNC's program that don't take classes at the university had already headed back home. All the trips we've planned and all the good times we have had are starting to come to an end. We only have one big trip left (to Lagos in 2 weeks), and then after a week or two of finals, I'll be back stateside. I start to wonder where all the time has gone, but then I look back at my 2,000 something pictures I've taken and I remember. All the memories, experiences and life lessons I've learned here are invaluable. This semester abroad is a once in a lifetime opportunity that I can't imagine not having taken. 

Well enough of me rambling I suppose. This weekend our parents go to Prague to celebrate Pilar's 40th birthday, and the kids are staying at a friends house. I could not be more excited. I love having them here, but a weekend or two away is always nice :)