Oh what a night (week) late December
back in 69 (beginning of march in 2012). Spring break 2012 started bright and
early at 6am on Saturday, march 3rd heading to lovely London. A
little side note to start off, morning flights are the worst things in the
universe. I am writing this on a plane to Paris this weekend and our flight was
at 7am, which means we were up by 430am. Luckily our only morning flight during
spring break was our first one to London. So for all you travellers out there
unless you like being up at the ass crack of dawn, book your flights for
anytime after noon. We got to our apartment in London that day at around 3:30
in the afternoon, we were located a couple of metro stops away from downtown.
The landlord to the apartment was a kook; he looked like beetle juice was
definitely all coked out. After we got situated, we just bopped around the city
all night. A bunch of our friends from Catholic are studying abroad in London
so we met up with them that night. People say that Barcelona is the best party
city in Europe, but I think that London trumped Barcelona. Downtown London
looked like Times Square in New York City, there was so many people everywhere.
We went to a three story bar that night. On the first floor it was an Irish
bar, the second had a live band and the third was a club. Everyone had a really
good time; it was a great night to start off the first day of spring break.
The next
morning we went to grocery store to make breakfast before heading out for the
day. We all planned to go to Windsor to see the castle for the day. It was
about a 30-minute train ride to the town of Windsor. It was a really nice
little town. For those of you who don’t know (i.e. my mother) Windsor Castle is
the Queen’s home away from Buckingham Palace during the summer time. The castle
was really cool to see, it was rainy that day but still a lot of fun. The
coolest part was probably the Queen’s dollhouse. She has entire room dedicated
for this giant dollhouse that was built for her. It is an exact replica of what
someone of royalty’s house would look like. It was fully functioning, complete
with working plumbing and electricity. Afterwards we got lunch at this really
good burger place and the best part about it they had Oreo shakes which might
have been the greatest thing in the world. (Brought me back to Newport
Creamery) We got back pretty late that night so we just relaxed for the rest of
the night because we were getting up early the next morning.
On Monday
we were up bright early to pick up our London passes. A London pass is basically
an all-exclusive pass to all the sites and includes travel too, which was the
best part. London was a very expensive city; a one-way metro ticket was 4.30
pounds, which is the equivalent to about 7 US dollars. That is absolutely
outrageous. Our friends in London are interning at parliament so we headed
there for a private tour first thing in the morning. You are only aloud tours
from MP’s (Members of parliament) so they hooked us up. I think this was my
favorite thing to see in London. The tour was really cool and they all really
knew there shit. We got to see the Chambers of Lords, as well as the Chambers
of Commons, which is the equivalent to seeing Congress. They told us a lot
about what goes on and all about the new Prime Minister David Cameron. I also
learned a lot about the royal family who basically serve no purpose. They are
basically just celebrates, like movie stars that we would read about in US
Weekly. There is a ton of drama surrounding them as well that I didn’t even
realize. Like the fact that Prince Charles was cheating on Princess Diana and
she did the same to him. Because of this several people believe that Prince
Harry is not even Charles is son, which would not make him royalty. Also people
think that Princess Diana’s death was a plan set up by the Queen because she
hated her. It’s really like one big British soap opera.
While we
were at parliament we saw Big Ben too. Big Ben is attached to parliament right
across from the river. It sucks though because tourists aren’t allowed to climb
Big Ben, you have to be a citizen or a member of parliament so are friends in
the program have been up, but there weren’t allowed to bring us. It was still
really cool to see. After parliament we headed over to West Minister Abbey,
which was right next-door. For those of you that don’t know this is where the
royal wedding took place between Prince William and Kate Middleton so the girls
ate that up. Like all the other churches they start to all look the same, but
it was cool to get a tour and everything just because of all the history there.
Next we went to the Winston Churchill War rooms exhibit. This was a really cool
underground museum that replicated Churchill’s war rooms with members of the
military. They showed exactly what the meeting rooms and living quarters looked
like back in the day. They also had really cool videos about his life and major
decisions he made. We walked around a little bit and headed over to Buckingham
Palace for our final stop of the day. We walked through the park where you
could see the palace through the trees. When we finally got up to it, it wasn’t
as big as you would thing a palace to be but still cool with the guards outside
and everything. The Windsor Castle is much nicer and bigger; I can see why the
Queen likes to spend most of her time there. Before going out at night we got
Chipotle of dinner, which was just heavenly. The longer I’ve been away the more
I’ve liked it here, but you still need your American fix every now and then.
That night we got together with our friends in London again and all of us went
bowling. It was part of our London pass so we each had a free game. It was a
lot of fun to just relax after a long day, drink a few beers and chill. I’m
terrible at bowling, but my buddy Roger is amazing so maybe he can give me a
few tips. After bowling we just headed to a pub for a little before calling it
a night.
Naturally
Tuesday didn’t start off as early as Monday, we were all pretty sluggish from
the night before. Once we got moving he headed downtown to buy tickets for a
Broadway show that night. We ended up deciding on going to see Wicked. We got
lunch after in Trafalgar Square at London’s version of Panera Bread. It was
really cool too, in the middle of the square was a big countdown clock for the Summer
Olympics that are in London this coming May. Everyone met up after to do a boat
cruise around the city. We stopped off at the Tower of London and the Tower
Bridge. I wanted to do the London Experience, which is a scary tour in the
Tower Bridge, but all the girls were too scared to do it so I was over ruled.
Devon and I decided to walk around the city more and get lost a little bit
before the show that night so we ended up walking for about an hour. Wicked was
really cool to see that night. I haven’t seen a Broadway since I was little
with my family so I enjoyed it. The story was really cool. A little background;
it’s a prequel to the Wizard of Oz about the good and bad witches and how they
were friends before everything that takes place with Dorothy in the classic
movie. We got dinner afterwards and said goodbye to the London kids because it
was off to Prague the next day.
London was
by far my favorite city so far, but we haven’t been to Paris yet which I have
high hopes for. London was a very lively city, which I enjoy very much. The one
thing I wish I had seen was Wimbledon. I was going to go on Tuesday, but you
need to plan a tour ahead of time so I dropped the ball on that one. I decided
to split spring break into two parts so my next will be posted shortly about
our adventures in Prague.
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