London Calling

This weekend I left for my first trip outside of Ireland with my friends Maura, Jess, Reba, and Megan and we went to London! We left at 4:30 AM, which was brutal, and took a taxi to the Dublin airport and our flight arrived in Gatwick Airport around 9 AM. We then had to take a train into the city of London, because Gatwick is pretty far out. The train took about an hour and was more expensive than I originally thought it would be, a sign for things to come in downtown London. After the train ride we got off at Prancras Station in Bloomsbury. Reba had a friend attending University College London and she let us stay in her and her friend’s dorm room, which was amazing. This not only saved us a lot of money on a hostel or hotel, but she also was our personal tour guide and planner for the weekend. After getting rid of our bags we left for lunch at a pub and then were off sightseeing for the rest of the day. We started out with a stop at the British Museum. I couldn't believe how extensive the museum was and the fact that it was free made it even better! My favorite exhibits were the Parthenon ruins, Egyptian artifacts and mummies, and the African exhibit. The Parthenon ruins were shocking, because I had no idea how much they actually had left. There were amazingly beautiful parts of the building intact and Maura was able to give us some history because she took a Greek history class last summer. The Egyptian part of the museum was a bit creepy, because they had mummified bodies all over the place, but it was definitely worth stopping into. The bodies were a lot smaller than I expected and were really impressive.

After finishing up at the British Museum we walked over to Chinatown and got some cheap tickets to Avenue Q along the way. We then walked to Trafalgar Square and got our first view of Big Ben in the distance. The square was full of statues and 2 huge fountains and it was packed with tourists. There were some really great buildings around and I really liked it overall. We also saw the art museum near the square and then had to stop in a cafe to warm up.

After warming up we walked back to the theater and saw our matinee show of Avenue Q which was hilarious. If you're not familiar with the show, it's basically a musical with puppets and people based in New York and I'd really recommend it:-) By this time we were running on empty, because we were hungry and tired from a day of travel. We stopped at an Italian Restaurant in the area of the theaters and got some great pizza and then attempted to ride to the tube back and failed. 3 of the tube lines are either closed or under construction so our stop didn't work and we were forced to walk back in the cold. That night we all passed out pretty early and planned to wake up early the next morning

The next morning we got a relatively early start at around 10:30 and took the tube to the Nottinghill area where we planned on going to Portobello Market. This market was the largest market I've ever been to and I couldn't believe how extensive it was. There were clothes, artwork, telescopes, antiques, fruit, cooked food, and much more all down the street. It was pretty much packed and we struggled our way up and down the street for about an hour and a half. For lunch we stopped and got some muffins and fruit which was delicious and cheap!

After finishing up at the market we headed down to Harrods and spent a little while walking through the store and looking at how ridiculous it was. I think you could probably easily buy anything you need in that store if you had a lot of money and we needed a map to get around. It was fun looking at all the crazy things being sold and we even stopped in the pet department where they sell animals and pet accessories. We then moved on to Buckingham Palace and walked around the park near the palace. The palace itself was beautiful and it was fun looking around the area. We didn't go on a tour or anything due to our lack of time and money, but I still liked it a lot.

We kept walking from there and ended up at Westminster and got to hear Big Ben strike 4 o'clock. I loved the Parliament building and I think the Westminster area was my favorite part of London. I just liked being right on the river with the huge buildings and I thought it was a great place. Apparently I'm not computer savvy enough to know how to rotate this picture...so you get a side view of Big Ben. What are the chances all my pictures were this direction??

From here we crossed the river, ate dinner, and looked around some of the shops by the river. We then went to the London Eye and picked up our tickets for an 8 o'clock ride. I think that the Eye would be awesome during the day, but I think the night ride was the way to go. If you aren't familiar with the London Eye, it's basically a huge ferris wheel right on the water near across from Big Ben. Each part of the ferris wheel can easily hold 15 people and it's the best way to see the city of London from high up. We boarded when the sun had set and the lights of the city were beautiful. I especially loved looking at Parliament at night and just seeing how far the city went for. I tried to take some pictures of London at night, but my camera didn't really work too well. Instead I got some video on my camera that shows how pretty everything was at night. After we got off the Eye, which took about 30 minutes, we were pretty tired and started to head back for Bloomsbury. Along the way we stopped at some shops and got some souvenirs and food. We took the tube home and went to bed pretty early again....no night life for us in London

Sunday morning, we decided to get an early start and leave at 8:15, on a mission to find platform 9 3/4. When we arrived we had seen that the Pancras train station had been across the street from King's Cross and one of us had heard that there was a platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross (the station where Harry picks up the train for all of you who don't read harry potter). I thought that I couldn't pass up the opportunity to see this while I was in London so we left to look. King's Cross was under construction so things weren't looking good, but luckily they left a little section open to the public where the platform was and I was able to see a fake platform!! It was very exciting:-) After this we encountered some issues with our train to Gatwick and were informed it didn't run through Pancras on this particular Sunday due to maintenance. This was of course stressful, so we had to take the tube down to London Bridge and hope the train ran there. Luckily we were able to hop on a train there and transfer in East Croyton to get to Gatwick. More little problems ensued, but nothing major. We didn't miss our flight and we got back to Dublin midday. We were lazy and decided to share a taxi back to the Rathmines area and our taxi was pulled over in the heart of city center next to Trinity College. Our taxi driver decided to "get cheeky" with the garda and there was a ticket. After a few awkward minutes we were on our way again and finally made it home. Whew, it was a really busy weekend where we made the best of our time and had some great craic!