There is no place like London!!

Craziest trip while in Ireland was not actually in Ireland but rather in London, England. Jenny, Ashley, and I took a flight to London on thursday July 15. Once in London after a terrible cab ride we met up with Cait in Surbiton where she was staying. Since we got in at 1am we all just went to sleep upon reaching Cait's flat. Friday was a very busy day that started with a cruise on the Thames River. The cruise was super informative and I saw and oriented myself pretty well based off what we saw. It was interesting to see how much of London I have either heard about or known about previous to my trip, I really thought I didn't know much about London at all. Once we hopped off the cruise we went for lunch and then stood in line for the London Eye, which is a super large ferris wheel that made me nervous to be on, but had the most amazing views one can even imagine. When we got off the London Eye we met up with Cait and wandered past the House of Parliament and Big Ben towards 10 Downing St where the Prime Minister lives. They have the actual road blocked off but we did see the gates. From there we walked to the Horse Guards which was awesome because we saw the guards all dressed up and marching to protect the royal horses. Our next stop was to walk through St. James park heading towards Buckingham Palace. After seeing Buckingham Palace we found Wellington's Arch and walked through Hyde Park. At this point I was wanting to be back in the 1800s with a horse drawn carriage to ride through the park like many people used to do to see and be seen! After a brief rest in Hyde Park we continued to the adjacent park called Kensington Gardens where they have a statue of Peter Pan and they have a playground in memory of Princess Diana. After all of this in one day we went back to Surbiton and had a great meal at one of the local pubs, and got some rest for saturday.

Saturday was a bit more relaxed and we started the day by attempting to go to a street market in Notting Hill, sadly we found nothing but a very pretty street so that was slightly disappointing. But then we went to the Earl's Court tube station for Jenny to find her Police Box (a Dr. Who thing, I am told). Then for Hannah we ventured to Harrods in hopes of trying on fancy clothes but it really isn't possible to do that unless you have gobs and gobs of money so we just wandered until we got lost in there. I was then on a mission to find a specific book that somehow managed to be in the computer system (of the stores) but never actually in the store. We walked from Covent Garden down Fleet St. (thank you Sweeney Todd) to St. Paul's Cathedral. It was one of the best moments of my life sitting on the steps of St. Paul's with a tuppence and Cait singing Feed the Birds. After more fruitless book shopping Jenny, Ashley and I went to see The Lion King on the West End. The show was so unbelievably good! The British accents made Scar sound all the more menacing and Simba all the cuter! :) Everything about this day was just amazing!!!

We also had all day on Sunday since we had an early morning flight back to Dublin on monday, so....we started the day with the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. The whole ceremony is really rigid and calculated and pretty long, we did have great "seats" meaning we were standing right at the front gate. The only problem was this was that the people behind us we always crushing us to get closer to the gate, I did NOT appreciate that! As soon as it was over we booked it for the Tower of London in an attempt to get away from all of the crowds. At the Tower I got a tour by one of the resident Beefeaters, and he was super funny to listen to. Since we were on a limited schedule we took the tour then went into one of the small tower things, then stood in line for the Crown Jewels. The Jewels were so so so very pretty!!! Then we went to the one prison tower where many famous people were held and graffiti-ed the walls. We then went to the British Museum with Cait to see the Elgin Marbles and many other ancient artifacts. After the British Museum we went back to Surbiton and celebrated our last day in London.

As I said earlier, this was the best trip I took in Ireland even though it was really rushed.