London Baby!

Traveling to London was the first time I traveled outside of the US by myself. I was very happy to get to the airport, check in, get through security, and get to my gate with plenty of time to spare. Just as I was thinking that, they announced that there was bad weather at Heathrow and my flight was going to have a 5 hour delay. The best part was they were boarding the plane and we’d have to sit there for the 5 hours, in hopes that being on the plane would speed up the time from air control. Since I only had 3.5 days in London, I was not happy about this delay. I walked around the airport and bought a book and snacks, preparing for the wait. When I got back they announced they would take the first 5 people who didn’t check luggage to get on an earlier flight that was leaving at the time ours was supposed to. I ran to the desk and was the second person to get on the earlier flight. It was actually exciting because they took us on a little bus to the other plane and rushed us on. I ended up landing at Heathrow at the exact time I was supposed to – just on a different flight.

I met Caity and Danielle at the Underground station at Hyde Park, and we immediately started sightseeing. It was cold and rainy so we were the only people at most of the places we went. We saw Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and Harrod’s. We took pictures next to all of the guards, which was a little bit awkward. One actually laughed at us when we switched places to get Caity in the picture. I was carrying my backpack around the whole day, which kind of sucked after a while. We stopped for lunch at a good Italian place, and they had the most delicious dessert ever. It was a mixture between cinnamon toast crunch and a waffle with vanilla ice cream on top. Later we went to Queen Mary, where Caity is studying. Then we had a fried chicken dinner near her campus.

The next morning we woke up very early because we had to be at London Bridge at 7:30am. Danielle and I went on a tour of Stonehenge and Bath since Caity had classes all day. It was a really great tour and it was cool to see things outside of the city. I really liked Bath a lot. It’s a beautiful city, and the Roman Baths were very cool. My favorite part of the day was when Danielle and I got baguettes for lunch and we were sitting on a bench people watching. There was an adorable little boy that I noticed because he was on a leash. His mother was jewelry shopping and not watching him at all. There was a dog near him, and he expanded the leash so the dog could run far away. The dog was jumping on a woman who was eating and the leash blocked the entire sidewalk so no one could pass. The mother didn’t notice anything. Then the woman yelled at her, so the clueless mother got the brilliant idea of giving the boy the dog. The dog went running away, dragging the boy with him, who fell on the ground. It was great lunch entertainment.

When we got back to London, we decided to hang out in the central part rather than go back to Queen Mary. First we went back to Harrod’s to explore some more. Then we tried to find a place for dinner. Who would have guessed that would be so difficult? We wandered around for a long time and could not find any food places open, and it was only 8pm. In New York we would have passed lots of pizza places and McDonald’s. We ended up eating at a Friday’s, which was ridiculously overpriced, but very good.

The next day Danielle and I rode on the London Eye, which was very cool. Then the three of us went to Greenwich and saw the Prime Meridian line and the museum with the time ball on it. Then we went to Canary Wharf, and did our own movie tour. We saw places where The Bourne Supremacy and Love Actually were shot. Then we went to the Millennium Dome, then back to Caity’s for pizza. After that we went to a giant toy store, then got Cadbury Creme egg McFlurries at McDonald’s, which were good.

The next day was my last day in London. Danielle and I went to the Fashion and Textile museum. If you’re thinking about going there don’t go! They only have about 5 dresses there. The rest was pictures of pinstripes. When we saw that was a bust, we took the tube to the Victoria and Albert museum, which was much better. It had a fashion section that was 20 times bigger than the Fashion museum.

After that I took the Underground to Heathrow, which took a long time and I had to stand with my bag. When I got there the security was crazy because there was a terrorism scare there earlier in the day. When I finally got to my terminal I was shocked at how small and crowded it was and how few seats there were. I was expecting Heathrow to be much nicer. My flight was delayed because of the terrorism, and there were annoying American girls there singing loudly the whole time. I was very happy to get back to Dublin that night.