My Study Abroad Adventures in Swansea, Wales: Awesome Weekend in London!

Hello!

Soo, perhaps I will describe the weekend here, and then I'll caption the pictures at the end. Basically, I spent an AMAZING weekend in London with my friend Robert. We did SO SO SO MUCH, and I really feel like the trip was worth the arm and leg that I spent because we saw so much of London. I was so exhausted by the end -- accidentally slept through my alarm this morning; WOOPS -- but it was totally worth it because I am now obsessed with London and want to go back again and again (perhaps my favorite city that I've visited? perhaps one of my favorite cities in the world?). There is just so much to see and do. Now, let's start from Friday.

Friday - My train got in quite a bit earlier than Robert's plane so I made my way to the hostel and hung out there for a while. Once Robert finally arrived, we basically had to drop off our stuff and immediately head out for all our reserved activities. First stop: London Eye! The London Eye is like a mega ferris wheel (see below), and it was STUNNING at night, clearly. Unfortunately, during our trip, my camera batteries died so I was lucky to even get this picture. After our journey, we had planned to go to this one recommended place for dinner. Instead, however, there was a lovely Christmas market right next to the London Eye, and we wandered around that for a while and basically ate everything in sight. This includes doughnuts, a German bratwurst, and some kind of gourmet burger. After this, there was a fun-looking restaurant near the market, and we stopped there for appetizers and drinks. After this, we made our way to Soho, which was where the Ice Bar was. I wish my camera worked so that I could have taken pictures of us in our awesome jumbo-poncho-looking-Eskimo coats. (Robert had his camera, so I'll upload a few more pictures after he uploads his). The Ice Bar.. had a lot of ice! It was quite fun. We then made our way back to the hostel. By the way, this hostel was super cute, but one of the guys was sleep-talking, and I was TERRIFIED. That's what you have to deal with, though, if you want to be cheap!

Saturday - Woke up bright and early. First stop: Buckingham Palace. We were there long enough to watch the beginning of the Changing of the Guards ceremony, but we then left so that we could make our way on our hop on/hop off Double Decker Bus Tour. We found the stop near Buckingham Palace, got on, and essentially had the best time ever! It was an extremely pleasant day in terms of weather, the tour guide was hilarious, and we rode around for about an hour. This was an extremely effective and efficient way to see a ton of London, and I totally recommend it. We got to see all the major sites and eventually got off at the stop near Borough Market, which is one of London's most famous markets. We then got various delicious pastries and Fish and Chips, which was fantastic, and a smoothie -- looks like a lot of my money went toward food! We explored the market for a while, walked by the River Thames, saw Shakespeare's Globe, walked across the Millennium Bridge (featured in the 5th HP movie), took pictures of St. Paul's cathedral, went to a gourmet candy store, and then found the bus stop, where we got on the bus again. We got to see more parts of London, before stopping at a stop near Harrods. In case you don't know, Harrods is an extremely nice and expensive department store. Obviously, we were not going to buy anything like clothes, so we bought cup cakes. We then had to quickly make our way to the Tower of London underground stop, where we took a free walking Jack the Ripper tour provided by our tour bus company. Apparently, I was the only person who didn't know who Jack the Ripper was, so in case you don't: in a period of 10 weeks, he murdered 5 women in East London in extremely brutal and grotesque ways, and they never figured out who he was (although, there are royal conspiracy theories, which actually seem very believable). This... was kind of a joke and extremely hilarious. The tour guide was very dramatic and theatrical, and although Robert and I were kind of confused as to why this tour came so highly recommended, the guide kind of made up for it by the end when he explained the conspiracy theory -- who Jack the Ripper is thought to be: the doctor to some member of the Royal Family. After the tour, we made our way to an area of London called Piccadilly Circus, which totally reminds me of Times Square. We explored that for a little while and then went to a delicious Indian restaurant. After this, we met up with my friends Courtney and Yushi, who also happened to be in London that weekend, in Soho, and we went to a bar and chatted for a while. It was a fabulous time indeed. Many thanks to Robert for humoring me by meeting up with my friends. hahaha

Sunday - Up early again. We started our day by going to a nearby cafe to get a full English Breakfast. We clearly wanted to do as many "British" things as we could this weekend. We then went to the Tower of London and spent quite a bit of time there. The Tower of London is quite large and had so many uses! So that was very cool. My favorite thing there was probably seeing all the royal jewels/crowns/etc. They are pretty darn impressive! After that, we went to a delicious pub near the Tower of London to have a classic Sunday Roast, and that was fantastic. By then, we had to head back to the hostel, where we had locked our stuff up, and Robert had to make his way to the airport. I then headed to the train station and took a RIDICULOUSLY crowded train home!

Soo that was that! And I can assure you - that will NOT be my last time in London!

Now for some pictures: