Its London Love!

This amazing weekend is going to be a 3 or 4 part series that I will try to finish as soon as I can but here is the first installment!

I just got back from a 4 day weekend in London and it was the best time of my life so far! It started with getting there! Three other girls and myself set off on Thursday morning at 8:45 to catch our 9:22 train out of Bangor. The morning came pretty early since we were out until 2 the night before. Wednesday nights are big party nights here in Bangor apparently. Thats ok, I survived! We made it down in plenty of time to catch the train. The trip down was very uneventful since we just had to sit there, no train changes woo hoo! As we got closer we began to discuss how we were going to get from the train station to our hostel. We really had no idea what we were doing and that was I'm sure very obvious. A fellow passenger overheard us chatting about how we really had no idea how we were to get from Euston train station to an area by Hyde Park called Bayswater. So he helped us out by explaining we should get on the Victoria line on the underground to Central line and get off at Queensway. Sounded pretty easy, but he was talking to a few "stupid Americans" as we kept calling ourselves.

We arrived at Euston and we were off. We bought some handy dandy Oyster cards that a friend suggested we get to make our experience on the Underground easier. The card is an electronic swipe card you can keep refilling with money so you don't have to get a ticket every time you get on the Underground... worked pretty slick. Needless to say, after we started our trek to the middle of the earth (or so it seemed) I was getting a little nervous! We just kept going deeper and deeper and it just kept getting warmer and warmer. We finally stopped in a crowded and dirty tunnel. The wind was blowing out of the tunnel and the sound just kept getting louder and louder and just like that a train came shooting out of the tunnel in front of us! We boarded and off we went. It felt like we were going 100mph and just like that we had to get off and jump on the central line. And again before we really started we were at our stop... I thought at that point I could get used to getting around so fast!

My cubbie for the weekend

We checked into the hostel and found ourselves in a room with beds on top of beds. For 3 out of the 4 of us, this was our first experience with hostels so we really didn't know what to expect. We were given a piece of paper with tape on it to claim our spot and 2 sheets to make our bed with. So we scrambled around looking for an empty bed. I found one and taped my name to it so the cleaning crew wouldn't clear my stuff out. We made our beds and decided we had enough of the hostel already! We wanted to see what the city had to offer.

Amazing chocolate cake

We headed out with our tourist map of the city and a pocket map if the Underground! We knew we were centrally located, but in a city as big as London we weren't really 100% sure what that meant. So, looking at the map I decided our best route we be to walk through Hyde park and head southeast. After being on a million family road trips I feel like I know how to work a map pretty well! We saw many cool modern works of art in the beautiful park and eventually came out by a huge golden statue across from a theatre showing Circ de Sole. We then headed straight east,which according to our map should have led us right to Buckingham Palace, the home of current Queen Elizabeth. It felt like we had been walking forever and we came to a point where the park was no longer on our left and we were in the middle of a construction zone. This didn't feel right at all, but according to the map, the Palace Gardens should have been right in front of us but they were not! A construction worker saw we looked confused and asked if he could help. We explained we were trying to find the Palace and he looked at us like we were nuts and exclaimed it was the other way. Frustrated, we turned back and headed back in the direction we came from. I couldn't believe my map skills had failed me, but surely this man knew better than me. So we eventually came upon a bunch of shops and restaurants so we had a look around. We were all starving so we settled on a cute little cafe that cost us more than we wanted to pay, but hey, its London, and it was pretty tasty.

Having fun while shopping

After more shopping we decided to call it a night and we headed back to the hostel. We were going to walk back through the park but soon realized the gates had been locked for the night we would have to walk around. We ended up walking through a neighborhood with some really HUGE places and thought that was pretty cool. We later found out it was Noting Hill that we walked though... not sure how we got in or out but it was pretty cool! So we arrived back at the hostel and decided it was too early to go to bed so we enjoyed TV room provided for us in the basement. We watched a movie which was actually the first movie I have watched since arriving in the UK. After the movie bed was calling our names. This was a lot of fun because when we got to our room the lights were off so we decided to be polite and not turn them back on. So I struggled to take out my contacts and put some shorts and a tank top on to sleep in... in the complete darkness! After we got all settled in, several people were in and out of the room turning the lights on and off. Glad we were considerate even though no one else was! Oh well. Sleeping wasn't too bad considering we were in a room with beds stacked 3 high full of people we had never met.... Hostels... something you just have to experience I guess.

So I should try to get some sleep since I have a full week of classes ahead of me. Stayed tuned for day 2 in London!

Until tomorrow...

~Amy