London Town

Hello again my faithful readers! If you are returning after reading the novel that was my Prague trip, I thank you and hope I am not boring you too much! This past weekend, my friend Julie and I took our first solo trip to London. After traveling to Prague and in such a large group, we were prepared for a very different type of trip, which is exactly what we got.

To begin our trip, we started researching hostels. After a bit of research, we discovered that London is an insanely expensive city. London uses the Pound, which is even stronger than the Euro. The exchange rate to US dollars is about 1.7, meaning things basically cost double. Additionally, no hostel we looked at had above an 80 percent rating and London is a huge city so location was very important. After all these setbacks, we decided to try couch surfing.

Basically,couchsurfing is an online community of travelers who open their homes and couches to those passing through their city. After going online and creating a profile, you can send out requests and hope someone agrees to host you in their home. After some searching, a guy named Samuel Carter agreed to host us for Thursday night and we arranged to stay with a young couple on Friday and Saturday. Our friends were a bit skeptical, but we were determined everything would work out. Based on location, we ended up spending the entire weekend with Samuel. It was a very interesting experience and it really exposed us to a lot of English culture we would not have experienced otherwise. We watched their TV shows, listened to their music, etc. It was also very helpful to have someone to help us navigate and find our way around.

We set out for our journey after class on Thursday afternoon. We got to the airport, checked in, and boarded the plane with no problem. After boarding the plane, we were informed that the airport we were flying into, London City, was closed due to the fact that a helicopter had to make an emergency landing and was blocking the runways. This created congestion in the airport. First, all the planes that were already in the air were allowed to land first, after the helicopter was cleared. This meant we sat on the runway for about two hours, waiting to take-off until we were given a landing slot. As I have mentioned so many times, Dutch and Europeans in general are so much more patient and this really showed that. In the United States, if a plane full of people were told they had to sit on the runway for two hours, people would lose it. I imagine a good majority of people would have left the plane, while the rest complained and griped loudly. On this plane, however; one man expressed concern about missing a connecting flight, but after being assured he would be accommodated, was very relaxed. Everyone else stayed on the plane, calmly making one or two cell phone calls to inform people they would be late. No one got angry or aggressive toward the flight staff. Julie and I sat and ate some snacks we had brought on the plane. We also began talking to the guys behind us who were from Boston. Through our travels, we have developed the skill to spot Americans from far away. We enjoyed talking with them and it helped pass the time.

After arriving in London, we made our way to Samuel’s flat very easily with the directions he gave us. That night, he took us out to some local pubs and introduced us to some of his friends. We had a very good time hanging out with them. Afterward, we returned home to sleep because we were so tired from traveling. Julie and I were pleased to find Samuel’s roommate was out of town so we had our own room for the weekend!

On Friday, we got up and had a traditional English breakfast or “fry up.” This consists of eggs, toast, hash browns, wonderful bacon, sausage, and beans. Most English food is not that good. The breakfast was alright and the bacon was fantastic; extra thick. After having breakfast and coffee, we set out to go sight-seeing. The weather in London was beautiful. It was a wonderful sunny day and we were happy to be out walking around. We saw Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, the London Eye, Buckingham Palace, Horse Guards Parade, and Hyde Park. Being the non-tourists that we are, we managed to accomplish all of our sight-seeing in about four hours. We spent most of the day walking through London’s beautiful parks and enjoying the weather. We even snacked on ice cream! After sight-seeing we went to High Street to do a little shopping at Top Shop. Top Shop was a little more expensive than we expected and with the unfavorable exchange rate we were hesitant to buy anything. Before we could make it around the entire store, an announcement came on stating, “Leave the store immediately. Please find the nearest exit. Do not run.” Of course, I never would have thought of running until they said “don’t run”, but we had no idea what was going on so we calmly made our way out of the store. All the fire escapes were opened and even the employees were evacuated. Our hosts later told us this was most likely due to a bomb threat, as Top Shop is a huge, crowded store. We still do not know exactly why the store was cleared; it was an odd experience. We vowed to return to High Street, but we got distracted with so much other shopping that we never made it back. After a long day we returned to our host’s home. We were all tired from our long day and Julie and I wanted to get up early the next day to get discount theater tickets. We all decided to have a “chill” night and order pizza, play video games, and watch movies. Julie and I were over the moon to find that they had Pizza Hut and, even better, coupons. Our pizza was delicious and it finally satisfied our craving for “real” pizza!

Our mission for Saturday was shopping and show day. We got up early (later than planned due to alarm malfunction) by our standards at 9:45 am. We made our way to the theater district and got tickets to the matinee of Chicago for 19 pounds. This is probably the most reasonably priced item we purchased. With a few hours to spare before our show, we headed down to Portobello Road to shop at the street markets and thrift shops. We spent the rest of our morning browsing and eating food from street vendors. We bought strawberries and bananas covered in chocolate and Julie filled her craving for steak by finding a delicious steak sandwich. I got a seafood basket for four pounds, containing shrimp scampi, fried fish, fried crab, and delicious sauce. It was awesome! In addition to our wallets, I found a great new watch for fifteen pounds. After finishing at Portobello Road, Julie had to have Starbucks. After going on a rant about what a rip-off Starbucks was, I found myself inside with Julie dying for a coffee. Eating my words, I paid the price for an iced white chocolate mocha and it was worth every penny! Sometimes it’s nice to be able to have your old favorites! After our Starbucks treat, we walked through the Notting Hill and Kensington Gardens area. This is the nicer part of London and it is just beautiful! Check pictures on my Facebook.

Now it was time for our show. We made our way to the Cambridge Theater for Chicago. It was simply wonderful. Julie and I were just falling out of our seats singing and dancing along with the show. We were both very pleased that we saw Chicago instead of Wicked, because we have both already seen Wicked. We felt that the show was cast really well and thoroughly enjoyed seeing it onstage. Chicago is a truly amazing show in that it is exclusively a showcase of singing and dancing. The characters wear the same costumes for the duration of the show, dressed in all black, and use no props. It is not a production like many other shows, but it is great. At this particular theater, the orchestra took up a majority of the stage so that the show was performed in front of the curtain the entire time. It was an excellent performance and I highly recommend it!

After the show, we went to another part of the city called Camden to shop. This is a quirky area of town with lots of different types of shops. Though we didn’t buy anything, it was really great to see. Our original goal was to go out this night, so we headed down to central London and asked some people for suggestions. After much time and difficulty finding an affordable restaurant, we had a quick dinner during which we decided to hike back to our host’s flat to change before going out. On the way home, however; we noticed we were getting very tired. After some discussion, we decided to spend the night in and save our money for shopping the next day.

On Sunday, our flight was scheduled for 6 pm. Wanting to make the most of our day, we got up, packed out backpacks and headed out for the day. Originally, we planned to shop at Brick Lane and High Street. After making it to Brick Lane, we were overwhelmed and overjoyed at what we found! Not only was there a whole market of street food but it was a whole market with tons of booths selling everything at (semi) reasonable prices. We immediately became absorbed in this and spent hours falling in love with items, contemplating if we should buy them, going back to buy them, and snacking in between. I ended up buying some really cool shirts, a dress, a fish necklace, and a really funky pair of earrings. Julie did equally as well. We made pretty good shopping partners and managed to spend most of our money.

After tearing ourselves away from Brick Lane, we made our way to the airport, after buying a train ticket for 9.50 pounds (20 USD)!!! London is so expensive. After getting stopped in security for having extra liquids, we made our way back to Amsterdam. After returning home it was time to finish a group project and presentation for the next day…it was nice to forget about school for awhile though!

Sorry for the delay in posting! Up next: Carly’s visit, Awakenings in Rotterdam (concert), and St. Patty’s Day in Ireland. Stay tuned faithful readers!

Sending love from Amsterdam and wishing everyone as much happiness and excitement as I am feeling knowing Carly will be here in 2 days!

PS: I love, love, love getting everyone's mail! My room is decked out in St. Patty's day decor thanks to Grandma Jenny and I love all the pictures from Mom. Thank you all so much!!