London, England: Part One

Day 35, Sunday, 6/24

Today we all woke up pretty early and got ready for our first full day in London. Audrey went to go meet with her Aunt and Uncle for lunch, because they live right outside of London and the rest of us went to meet up with Sydney’s friend Chase from her study abroad program. After we did this we went to see Westminster Abbey, but we only got to see the outside today, because the tours were stopped for worship on Sundays, which was respectful of course. 

So, we decided to go do the tour of the London towers by the London tower bridge! You walked inside and there were tons of towers to walk through and each one had amours and replicas of the things that used to actually be in the room and there were stories about how the towers used to be used. We also got to see all the crown jewels, which was pretty amazing. You couldn’t take pictures of them out of respect and privacy for the royals, but it was still really neat to see them all. We also saw a fake changing of the guards here too!

After this we all went to lunch at Subway! Which was AMAZING after eating foreign food for so long. One thing we noticed was they had a few different things on the menu, like nachos as a side item? You would think Texas would have this over London for sure, but I guess not! After this we headed to Buckingham Palace, because we thought the changing of the guards was at 3:30, but it wasn’t, haha. So we just got to see Buckingham Palace, which is beautiful! 

Then we headed back towards Westminster to meet back up with Audrey! Over in that area we stopped to look at some water color portraits that a street artist was working on. It was the cutest old man and we sat and talked to him for a long time. He talked to us about London and his life and what kind of paintings he does, etc. He had also been to Barcelona, because him and his wife were friends with a couple that were from there! Which he said the couple was now divorced, so now all he hears about is what a wretched husband the guy was, which I thought was funny. But anyways, we bought a few of his water colors and he gave us a discount since we were young students, which was very thoughtful of him!

Then we found Audrey and headed over to Victoria area to check out the shopping. We went into Topshop for awhile, which is an awesome store in London, but a little bit pricey! After we shopped for a little bit we headed back to our apartment to meet up with Lilly, which was another girl who was going to be staying with us for the next few days. We then all freshened up and got ready to go do the London Eye!

We had skip the line tickets for the London Eye, so we barely had to wait in line, which was awesome. We did this in a lot of places by booking things in advance through viator, which I’d definitely recommend to anyone going to Europe! I will be using them again for sure! Once we got in the bubble like structure, which is designed like a Ferris wheel it took about 30 minutes to make a full circle. It was getting darker outside and was a good time a day and great weather to see the amazing views in. You could literally see all the big tourist attractions in London, plus much more!

After the Eye we were all getting hungry so we headed back towards our neighborhood to find somewhere to watch the England/Italy game and get some food! We ended up at an Italian place again, because it was the only place we could find with a TV and the game that wasn’t completely full! England lost, but Italy deserved to win, so it was okay. Then we headed home to get some sleep for another full day ahead of us.

Day 35, Monday, 6/25

Today was the day of our Harry Potter tour! So we got up early and went to eat breakfast at this place we found near our apartment that was pretty cheap and had good food. I had bacon, eggs, toast, and a cappuccino. 

Then we headed over to find the spot where we were to meet for the tour! One the tour with us was 2 families and one was from Chicago, which was random since most of my family is from Illinois, so I thought that was cool! We began the tour in the square where the premiere of the last Harry Potter movie took place! They had the biggest red carpet in history, it made a Guinness world record. We then headed to the street that Diagon Alley was based off of! It has some of the oldest shops in London, including a shop where they sell magic money and one where they do palm and tarot card reading. We then headed to a few other stops where we got to see the entrance to Diagon alley and the leaky cauldron! We also got to take a boat tour to get to the other side of London and got to see the Millennium Bridge, which was also in the movie! 

 Diagon Alley was based off of this street!

Millennium Bridge

We later ended the tour at Platform 9 and ¾! Which of course I had to take a picture and pretend like I was going to Hogwarts, naturally. 

After this we stopped for some coffee at Prêt and went to meet up with Katie! Then we headed to go see the Olympic Stadium, which was about 20 minutes on the train! It is right outside of a huge mall, so of course we had to shop around as well! The stadium was really cool to see and we went to the official Olympic shop as well and I got my Dad a shirt!

Olympic Stadium in progress

After we shopped around we went to a Mexican food restaurant in hopes that they had queso, but their version just wasn’t the same. So, we were let down again! But the food was still really good!

After dinner we headed to Abbey Road! We had to take the picture like the Beatles of course! Because who knows when we will be in London again! Once we did this we headed home to get some shut eye!