So apparently May is full of holidays in France so pretty much every week of May there was no school/work. How awesome is that?! Gotta love the French, they sure do love their vacations. Did you know everybody has 5 weeks off, even if you are new in the company?! YES 5 WEEKS!! That's how much my dad gets and he's been working for the same company for over 20 years! I think everyone in America should copy the french when it comes to this.
Since there was going to be a 3 day weekend I asked my host mom if I could go on a weekend trip and she said yes. I really wanted to go to Berlin because I have been dying to go but the flights were quite expensive and well I didn't have a lot of money saved up since I had spent it all in Barcelona (I pretty much came back broke, I guess I got to blame my little shopping spree hehe). Then my host mom told me that we (my friend and I) could stay at her cousins house in London that way we don't have to spend on hostel. So my friend and I decided to go to London, because the flight was cheaper than Berlin and we thought we could stay at my host moms cousin's house. But oh boy, going to London is not the best idea for somebody who is quite broke. My friend and I barely made it! Now that I think about it, it probably would've been cheaper to go to Berlin since we at least didn't have to convert our euros into anything else, this was the problem in London we "lost" a lot of money when we converted our euros. For example I exchanged 150, and that bought me 100 pounds. Anyways, I won't go on complaining about money and how expensive this whole trip was because it'll only make my post longer and I'm sure you don't want to hear me explain how much money we spent. Only tip is, if you're thinking of going to London do not forget like we did, that you have to convert your money and the pound is quite expensive. Also take into consideration that hostels are VERY expensive in London and you should book them quite in advance, we had lots of difficulty finding one with a price that wouldn't leave us without money to eat lol. Also, if your flight arrives at Luton airport, take into consideration that you need to take a bus to London and that costs you around 12 pounds one way (so another 12 pounds on your way back). So maybe consider a train, like the eurostar. It might be cheaper because you arrive to London. Also the metro is not as cheap as Paris, we found out that the hard way. A one way ticket was around 4 pounds! and I think day pass was 7? So you might as well get the day pass.
Okay okay I'm stopping now, I'm going on about money. But hey, this information might come in handy for you!
Moving on.... On our first day in London we headed to Piccadilly circus, Trafagal square were we took pictures with the famous Lions (which by the way were quite hard to get up on! ) and I took a picture with an official clock that said how many days were left until the London Olympics. I might not get to be there for the Olympics but at least I got to be in London the year they happened! Plus I also got to be in London a few weekends before the Queen's Jubilee...what a busy year for London!
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| Piccadilly Circus...I still think this name is so funny |
Then we walked by Buckingham Palace, which unfortunately wasn't so nice to look at since there was so much going on. They were preparing the area for the jubilee, so many things were blocked and the view wasn't so great. We also did a walking tour that day, but it wasn't so great as the one I went to in Barcelona. I didn't really feel like we covered a lot (then again, London is huge and everything is somewhat spread out). We mainly covered Buckingham palace, St. James' Palace, Green Park, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Parliament...wow now that I think about it we did cover a lot haha. It was lots of walking indeed!
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| Trafalgar Square with it's Lions |
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| I was 70 days away from being in London during the Olympics! Close enough |
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| St. James' Pa |
At night we went to our very first pub crawl in Camdem Town. This was lots of fun and I want to continue doing pub crawls in the future! It's so awesome because you leave all the organizing to other people and it's a great way to meet people. Camdem town was so cool, and very unique. I can't really describe it...it was very different from anything I've seen. I guess the best word to describe it is "alternate". It has a very alternative. We wanted to go back during the day because we heard they have great markets, but unfortunately time didn't permit. I also don't have any pictures to show you, but if you're in London, definitely pay a visit to Camdem Town.
On our second day we went to see Tower Bridge and the Tower of London. Unfortunately due to our economic situation we couldn't afford going into the Tower of London. BUT we did get to read all the information about it that was outside....so that counts right? I had already been inside and from what I can remember there's not too much to it besides the crown jewels....okay yes that's good enough reason to visit but it's either eat or see some jewels that will only remind you of how poor you are haha. We then headed to Oxford street, which I would consider it the "Champs Elysees" of London. It was filled with top notch brands, and fabulous clothes. Oh I was so tempted to pull out my credit card. We also visited the Soho area, because my friend hear it was a really cool part of London. To be honest we either weren't in the right place or it's not so great. I didn't really see anything special, but then again London can be a bit confusing so it was probable we weren't in the right place.
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| Tower Bridge |
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| Tower of London |
We tried to go to another pub crawl that night, but once we got to the bar there was nobody and well we didn't want to pay 15 pounds for a pub crawl that was going to be empty. So we decided to do some sightseeing of the same things we had seen that day but at night. It was so beautiful to see the London eye and Big Ben at night. Oh and the worst part about this was as we were heading back to my friend's house (A friend of a friend lives in London and she hosted us for a night, which was a total life saver and money saver too!) we go inside the tube (subway for the americans, metro for the canadians haha) we see a HUGE group of people just being loud and just having a good time. I look at one of them and see that he was wearing a t-shirt that had the name of the pub crawl we had gone to earlier that night! We were so confused! When we went to the bar there was nobody yet here they are a group of at least 50 people or more. That just depressed us.
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| London eye and Parliament |
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| Big Ben and Parliament |
The next day the friend who we had stayed with for the night took us to Nottin hill to see the market. It is such a beautiful and cute area! There were a bunch of houses painted in sweet pastel colors, and I just loved this. Also it was so different from any other part we had been in London, it was so calm and peaceful then again maybe thats because of the fact that it was a sunday morning. We then headed King's Cross to meet a friend of mine from Montreal. I love seeing friends or people that I know from back home in a different country. It just think it's so cool! I mean think about it, you both live your own separate lives and suddenly you're in the same country that is not your home country!! Okay, maybe I'm the only one who feels that way... We took a picture with the famous 9 and 3/4 sign from Harry Potter and it was like a dream come true. I am a huge Harry Potter fan! When I saw the sign I couldn't help but jump up and down from excitement.
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| Notting Hill |
We then headed to the museum of British history because we wanted to educate ourselves more about British history....to our surprise this museum was NOT about british history but instead world history. Yeah how weird is that? Why would you name your museum British History museum if what you have on display are objects from Greece, Egypt etc? So we only stayed for a few min and decided to go look for Shakespeare's The Globe.
That night we decided to sleep at the airport because our flight was leaving at like 5 or so and we needed to take a bus that took like an hour to get to the airport and well to get to the bus we would've needed the tube, but by that time it would be closed. We figured it wouldn't be a big deal, but oh boy were we wrong. I don't think I'm ever going to sleep in an airport again, at least not if it's not necessary and specially NOT if it's a small airport like the Luton airport. We did not get any sleep that night, it was cold and I was paranoid about getting my bags stolen while I was sleeping. The only thing that made it better was the awesome tea from Costa (it's kinda like their Starbucks). A pot of tea was like a pound and something...A POUND!! Can you believe that?? In Paris (or anywhere else I've been) they charge you like 4 euros for a CUP of tea! I wish we had Costa everywhere. I am definitely going to miss it!
We finally made it home after a very long trip. I was very sleep deprived but I had to suck it up because I had work that evening. Yay, watching over kids when you only slept 3 hours! I seriously don't know how parents do it.
