London

My trip to London was the last leg of my spring break trip. Even though I was exhausted from all of the sightseeing in Paris and Dublin, I was ready to take on London and see all of the famous sights.

This was my first experience staying in a hostel. Not only was I staying in a hostel, but in a ten person shared room where my group of friends and I did not know the three strangers staying in the room with us. The bunk beds with curtains and wooden safes below our beds added to my uneasy feelings about my hostel experience for the next three days.

Hostel situation aside, my first full day in London consisted of seeing Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abby. The Parliament building’s architecture was beautiful with its golden façade and intricate details. I chose not to pay to go inside Westminster Abby but admired it from the outside, replaying the Royal Wedding in my head (I’m a big William and Kate Fan!). After studying in Rome and seeing countless churches for free, we decided that to pay 13 pounds to see the inside of a church was just out of the question.

For lunch we met up with some of our friends and went to the Borough Market where we ate warm sausage sandwiches and mulled wine. Afterwards we explored the Tower of London where we got to see the crowned jewels, Torture Chamber, and the armor and weapons from past kings and war heroes. A display that stood out to me was a case with three embellished guns inside, one being completely covered in diamonds that was designed by Tiffany & Co. I could not imagine putting so many beautiful and colorful diamonds on a handgun!

 After a spicy and delicious group Mexican dinner some of us decided to go to an English club where we met some really nice people and danced the night away. We made up a few dance moves, one being the elephant that actually caught on to the people around us!Needless to say this became a signature move of ours, we have since brought it to Brussels, Rome and Sorrento.

My last day in London began with frantically rushing to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards ceremony to only find that there was no ceremony scheduled that day. I then headed to Harrods where I gazed at some of the most luxurious products in the world, only dreaming of one day being able to return and actually buy something. Alyssa and I then rode the Underground for what seemed like hours, unsuccessful in finding Abby Road.

I concluded my stay in London with one of the most stressful experiences that I’ve had in Europe thus far. With a 6 am flight back to Rome, meaning a 4am arrival to the Stanstead airport (approximately 1 hour from London), a few friends and I decided to book a hotel room to sleep at before heading to the airport. It took us over two hours to find the bus stop in London for the airport shuttle that would take us to our hotel. We lugged our luggage around the busy and dark streets of London until finally finding the bus stop, all three of us nearly in tears. A three hour nap in the hotel later (the most expensive nap I’ve ever taken) and we headed to the airport to return back to home to Rome.