London = New Favourite City

Last weekend there were no classes on Thursday for St. Thomas Holiday, so a few friends, Jacklyn, Kelly, Nina, Kate, and I planned a trip to London! We left Wednesday night out of Santander which means we had to take an hour and half bus from Bilbao to Santander station then a bus from Santander bus station to Santander airport. This airport was the smallest airport I've ever been too! 5 gates and the security was so easy to get through! When we arrived at Stansted we had to take another hour bus into London and find our Hostel. We finally arrived at our hostel at 1 in the morning! We were exhausted! 

The first day we packed in everything possible! Fortunately, before we left we booked a Big Bus Tour which is exactly what it sounds like. The bus tour has many stops throughout London at major attractions and a stop right by our hostel. You can get off and on at any one of the stops and stay at a stop for however long. Also, it lasted for 48 hours! It was really worth it! The first two days we used that as our free transportation!

We went up around the northern side of London, Baker St. where fictional character Sherlock Holmes lived, up past the Marble Arch, and Hyde Park. Then we headed into the Central part, Trifalgar Square, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and Downing St. We decided to get off at the Big Ben spot and just walk around. I must say that Big Ben was a little disappointing. It isn't as tall as all the pictures perceive it to be. Parliament was a gorgeous building but we couldn't go inside because it was in session. Westminster Abbey was a pretty penny to tour so we decided to skip that, but it looked beautiful on the outside. We walked past No. 10 Downing St. where the Prime Minister lives and up to Trifalgar Square and the National Gallery of Art. We could not have asked for a prettier day! It was cold like around 40 degrees or lower but it was sunny with barely any clouds!

 

The Marble Arch which was originally part of the entrance to the Buckingham Palace but Queen Victoria asked for it to be moved. Now it sits by Hyde Park.

 

Me in front of Big Ben

 

Parliament & Thames River

 

Westminster Abbey

 

Trifalgar Square

 

The London Eye

 

No. 10 Downing Street

After checking out the area around Trifalgar Square we walked down to Queen Victoria Plaza and Buckingham Palace. We were disappointed when we arrived to the palace because there were no guards to take pictures with and bother. Supposedly they no longer stand in front of the Buckingham Palace, they stand in front of St. James' Palace. So we couldn't do a cheesy, stereotypical, tourist photo. But the palace was impressive! It was around lunch time so we walked around the corner and picked a small cafe, Belmount Cafe, which Simon Cowell from American Idol has visited. There was a signed picture of him in which he raved about their sandwiches! I got a tuna melt which hit the spot! It was nice to have some "american" food.

 

Me in front of Buckingham Palace

 

Queen Victoria Plaza & Buckingham Palace

After lunch, we decided to catch the Big Bus again and see some more of London. We went past St. Paul's Cathedral, Bank of England, Royal Courts of Justice and over the Tower Bridge, which is the 5th one since it was originally built. The 5th one was constructed in the 1970s. It is still very impressive! We got dropped off at the Tower of London which is the oldest castle in central London. At that spot, we picked up a river cruise which came free with our Big Bus Tour ticket! It was refreshing to just sit and cruise down the Thames River. By then it was getting dark, so we decided it would be amazing to do the London Eye at night! The river cruise dropped us off right there and we bought our tickets! 

 Tower Bridge

At first I was very skeptical about the London eye. I hate heights and especially ferris wheels! But I did not want to miss out on the amazing experience, so I faced my fears! It was very worth it! The view of the city at night was spectacular. And it wasn't that scary, we were in a huge glass pod, the floor wasn't made out of glass, and there was a bench in the middle of it if you wanted to sit. Also, it moves slowly so you can barely feel it. It was totally worth every pound!

  

The intimidating London Eye

 

 

London at Night

 

Parliament, Big Ben, & Westminster Abbey

 

Can you spot St. Paul's Cathedral?

 To end our first day we headed to Hard Rock Cafe, the original one, just like the biggest American tourists! But we enjoyed the best burgers ever! With our International Student Cards we were able to get a deal, a burger, soda, and dessert, for only 14 pounds! I had almost forgotten what a good burger tasted like!

For our second day in London, Friday, the weather was suppose to be cold and rainy so we planned for it to be our museum day. Fortunately the museums were only a nice walk through Hyde Park from our Hostel. The morning was dreary with sprinkles here and there. We saw the highlights in Hyde Park, the fountains, Peter Pan, and Princess Diana Memorial Fountain. The memorial fountain wasn't like a water spurting out of a statue fountain. It was a circle of water running to symbolize her open heart and arms.

 

The Fountains at Hyde Park

 

Peter Pan

 

 

Walking through Hyde Park

 

 

Princess Diana Memorial Fountain

We headed to the Natural History Museum which was free! All the exhibits were very modern and interactive. They had the typical exhibits, dinosaurs, mammals, earth, natural stones, ect. The one exhibit I was really excited about, Nature Pictures of the Year, cost 19 pounds to see! So I elected to not see that. The building was beautiful though and I enjoyed walking through everything. There were, also, all these British school groups in their uniforms, blazers and plaid. They were all so cute! 

 

One of the entrances to the Natural History Museum

 

The older part of the museum. So gorgeous!

When we walked out of the museum it was another gorgeous day! The rain they called for never came! It was sunny with barely any clouds in the sky. We were so fortunate because we walked to our next destination, Harrods! Harrods is the oldest department store in London and has just about everything! For me, who loves fashion and shopping, it was like a dream! They had all the big names like Dolce & Gabana, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Chanel, Burberry, ect. And when I hit the shoe section I could have died happy there! ;)

But we didn't spend that much time in there. The other girls weren't as into as me, but it was still something amazing to visit! 

 

After our quick shopping trip we got back on the Big Bus, our free transportation, and took it to Picadilly Circus, which is a big shopping square in Central London. It was nice break from walking and we were all able to take naps during the bus ride. When we arrived in Picadilly Circus we found the Absolut London Icebar where we booked our tickets for later that night! Then we headed to the National Gallery of Art to pass the time while we waited to go to the icebar. We saw works done by Da Vinci, Michaelangelo, Van Gogh, Monet and other old paintings from the 12th to 17th centuries. We also saw a very interesting and intriguing temporary exhibit done by an American couple, Keinholz. It was a representation of the red light district in Amsterdam. They recreated about 2 streets of the district. They plastered the bodies of actual prostitutes and then put dolls heads on them. They recreated the rooms of these women and portrayed them in more of a sad, depressing light. Glass cookie boxes were around their heads that could be opened or closed in front of their faces which represented how they can close themselves off so easily. It was the most interesting piece of the whole museum! Oh and on a side note, when we were leaving the museum I saw a guy wearing a VT hat! I whispered to my friend, "Look that guy is wearing a VT hat." and he turned around and was like "Go Hokies!?" hahahaha. Just can't escape that Hokie spirit!

After that it was off to the icebar! With our ticket we got a free drink, a 40 minute time slot, a cloak, and gloves. The bar, walls, glasses, tables, and chairs were all made completely out of ice! -5 degrees Celsius is the temperature they have to keep the bar at, but it didn't really feel that cold. And they only allow a certain amount of people in there for 40 minutes at a time or else it starts to melt. Every year there's a different theme and our theme was aquatic, under the sea. There were carvings of all sorts of fish and the drinks all had under the sea names, mine was deep blue, my friend's was sea cow. It is something to experience! I enjoyed it a lot even though I hate the cold, it was a good time!

Carving behind the bar

 

 The group in our cloaks and gloves!

 

  

Our glasses were made out of ice!

We did the icebar a little early so afterwards we met up with Jacklyn's friend whose studying in London for dinner. She took us to a traditional British pub where some of the girls got shepherd's pie and I got salmon cakes with the best mashed potatoes! She also introduced us to Cider beer which is sweet, taste just like apple cider. So delicious! After our long day we called it a night.

For our final full day in London, Saturday, we got up extra early to go to Windsor Castle which is about a 45 minute train ride away from the city. For those of you who don't know, Windsor Castle is the oldest and largest occupied castle in the world and still one of the official residences of Her Majesty the Queen. It was about 16 pounds to tour the castle but it was totally worth every penny and a nice audio guide is included! We arrived at about 10am which was perfect because it just opened and there weren't many people there yet. Inside, where we saw Queen Mary's dollhouse and the state apartments, I could see where it would be less enjoyable with a lot of people and hard to see everything. However, we were able to take as long as we wanted in every room and see everything! But this dollhouse, I mentioned, was made for the Queen's sister, I think. But it is a recreation of the Buckingham Palace and is the most amazing thing I've ever seen! It has completely functioning plumbing, an electric mini vacuum, and the plates at the dining table are real silver! It was spectacular! Then the state apartments were just as spectacular with all the paintings and furniture! Of course we could not take pictures of anything inside. So you will just have to take my word for how amazing this place is! There was even a fire in 1992 that destroyed some rooms on the backside of the castle and one of the towers completely collapsed. But its incredible everything they were able to recover and restore from the damage. If it wasn't mentioned nobody would have been able to tell there was a fire there. 

  

Outside View of Windsor Castle

 
 

Garden inside the Castle walls

 

Once we got through the state apartments we went to St. George's Chapel which again we could not take pictures inside. The inside was just spectacular, though! The stonework and stained glass windows were just beautiful. This is where kings, Charles I and Henry VIII are buried. Everywhere we turned it was just gorgeous and again, it was the most beautiful day! We could not have asked for better weather! Around 1pm we got the train back to London but we had to change trains at one stop. When we got off we saw a notice that said all trains are delayed indefinitely due to a person being hit by a train! Yes, someone was killed by a train while we were in London! Fortunately though we only had to wait about 30 minutes til another train came.

 

St. George's Chapel from the outside

 

Me at Windsor Castle

 
 

The group at Windsor

Once we got back to London we still had some last minute sights that we wanted to hit, 1) Platform 9 3/4 for Kelly, 2) Abbey Road to get the Beatles picture. When we got to King's Cross, Kelly went to go ask a guard where Platform 9 3/4 was and she didn't even have to open her mouth! As she approached he just said, "Photo op, that way." It was great! They actually have set up a photo op place in King's Cross station. They have a sign that says Platform 9 3/4 on a brick wall and half a trolley sticking out so it looks like you are going through the wall!

 

 

Off to Hogwarts!

 

King's Cross Station

Next, off to Abbey Road! We asked at the information desk which stop to get off at and of course he told us the wrong one. So we had to walk about 20 minutes because we didn't want to pay for another metro ride. But we finally made it to Abbey Road where the Beatles took one of their most famous photographs. The Beatles "immortalized the pedestrian crossing in front of EMI studios on the over of their 1969 album, Abbey Road, 150,000 people make as a pilgrimage to this most famous Beatles in London." There were actually a good number of people trying to get this classic picture and it wasn't as easy as you think it would be. One, there were a lot of people and two there was a lot of traffic. It is not like you could just stand in the middle of the road and take the picture whenever. You had to wait for cars to stop or for none to be coming and then you had to coordinate with the people around you about who was going. We did the best we could to get the photo. We were going to rotate out people so we could all be in it, but then I just elected myself as the photographer because it would have been too difficult. Once we got the shot we went to see the studios which is right there. The Beatles recorded over 200 songs at this studio as well as recording for films such as Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Also, you can leave your autograph on the wall outside the studios.

  

 

The best shot we could get. See the resemblance?

 

EMI Studios

 
 

Part of the autographed wall

 
 

autographed wall outside the studios

That night after we had a good nap and dinner, we met Jacklyn's friend again at a bar/club called Electricity Showroom. The upstairs was a nice big bar area and then the downstairs had a really cool dance floor that lit up all different colors and then a mirror on the ceiling. However, it was strange to us when they made everyone leave at 1:30-2am because in Spain that is when everyone is just arriving to the clubs! We had some trouble figuring out what bus we had to take and missed a stop along the way, but we figured it out in the end. We just got back at 3:30am when it should have only taken half an hour.

 

Sunday morning was our last morning and we had to check out of our hostel early. So we got up, checked out, and then went to an outdoor market which used to be an old stable barn. There were tons of vendors set up! I could have really spent some money there! They had to most unique jewelry and clothes.  We could have gotten lost in there for hours. But we quickly went back to our hostel to grab our suitcases which they let us keep there. Then we walked to the bus station that would take us to Stansted Airport. Our gate closed at 4:20pm so we had allowed ourselves plenty of time to catch the bus and go through security. We were told we could get on at any of the stops and the bus comes every 20 minutes. Well it didn't come in 20 minutes, nor 30 minutes, we watched 2 of the buses just drive by the stop. And we weren't the only ones waiting for this bus, there were about 10 other people with us who said they had been waiting an hour. Well after 45 minutes it finally arrived. It was suppose to take an hour to get there but of course we hit traffic and so it took an hour and a half to get there. I took a nap on the bus and when I woke up we were pulling up to the airport and I looked that the clock and it said 4:15pm! I had a heart attack! There was no way we were going to make it through! And we didn't.

We missed our flight.

The only other flights going back to Santander or Bilbao were Monday at the same time 4:15pm. So we coughed up another 100 pounds for a flight and waited 24 hours in the airport. Fortunately we had brought  one computer so we had if we got really bored. And we all got books from a bookstore in the airport. It was really upsetting and frustrating but it was completely out of our hands. We just had to wait. I was just thankful we were in an English speaking country! I think I slept about 3 hours, but the 24 hours actually went by pretty quickly. Once we got to Santander we had to take a bus to the bus station and then a bus to Bilbao and then a metro back to my apartment. Finally at 11pm on Monday I made it back to Bilbao safely!

But overall the trip was amazing! I loved London as a city because of the mix of old central London and the new modern buildings! And you can't forget about the accent! ;) It is definitely my new favorite city!