Long Awaited, The Spring Break Posts: Part 1

London, England: 28 March-1 April

I realized today that I had not yet updated you all on my Spring Break trip, which is unfortunate because it's now been over a month since I first left and it's going to be a little more difficult for me to remember all the fun things. I wrote some stuff down along the way, but I'm warning you that these posts will probably not be wholly inclusive or altogether completely accurate. My bad. You'll still get the idea. So anyway, on to London!

Fortunately, Meggo was in London this semester and she and her flatmates graciously offered to put us up for the nights we were there. This probably saved us a ton of money since London is pretty expensive. It was probably really annoying for her flat of 4 people to suddenly expand to 8, but we tried to be good house guests. When she wasn't in class, Meggo showed us around the city a bit, as did Kevin. It was a lot of fun to see my old friends again, though strange to try and mix my Vestal friends with my Glasgow friends. Those two parts of my life just feel so completely separate. I was happy that everyone got along well.

Meggo's flat is right in the Oxford Street area of London, a really popular shopping area. It was a little overwhelming when we got there sinc eit was a Saturday afternoon, and a lot of people were out and about.

I have the feeling that if I write extensively about each thing we did while I was gone, you'll be bored long before it's over (and so will I!). The list format has worked pretty well in the past, so I'll just list things and elaborate where necessary.

Tower of London--This was our first destination in London, primarily because Brady and Shauna are history majors and they really wanted to see it. I didnt' know much about it, to be honest, but I was really glad I went and it was totally worth the 15 pounds it cost to get in. This is where the majority of the beheadings/executions that happened in London took place; most notably that of Anne Boleyn, one of Henry VIII's wives.

Tower Bridge--From the Tower of London you can see the Tower Bridge. Way prettier than London Bridge (which, I am told, is why Fergie used it in her video for "London Bridge" instead of the REAL London Bridge. Did she not think we would notice??)


Markets--Spitallfield and Brick Street. I can't explain to you how much I love markets. My favorite thing is walking around all the food stalls and seeing everything just splayed out and looking so delicious. I took many, many photos.


Walking tour of London--Meggo and her flatmates told us about this tour company, New Europe, which does free walkign tours in many cities in Europe. Basically they ask you for tips at the end and you contribute whatever you think it was worth. We really enjoyed the company and ended up taking their tour in Berlin as well. Our guide led us through London and we saw sights including Wellington Gate, Buckingham Palace, Horse Guards' Parade, Trafalgar Square, the outside of a bunch of museums, Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. It was a lot of fun.

The tour was particularly interesting because we happened to be outside Buckingham Palace when the Queen of England left with her husband, Prince Philip to meet with the President of Mexico. She was wearing a pink hat.


Spring Awakening--This is a relatively new musical that Emily is obsessed with. When we found out that you can go to the box office and ask them if they have any cheap tickets, we decided we definitely wanted to see a show in London. Shauna and I were the most excited about this, so we opted for the slightly more expensive front row center tickets. Crystal and Brady weren't as hyped on the idea, so they got some cheaper seats close to the back. It was TOTALLY WORTH IT. A really great show and super fun to have seen a real production in London.

Tate Modern--museum. The Andy Warhol room was closed but I saw a Claus Oldenburg which was cool.

Millenium Bridge--pretty self-explanatory.

Globe Theatre--where Shakespeare's plays were performed back in the day.

St Paul's Cathedral--we didn't go in, but it's very pretty.


We tried to get in to Westminster Abbey, since they have hour long choral services that are open to the public for free most weekdays. Unfortunately for us, the day we tried to go there was a memorial for the victims of the Australian Brush Fires. Nice, but too bad because seeing the inside would've been really cool.


Overall, London was a fantastic city. We were a little more frugal in London than in some of the other places we visited simply because it's much more expensive, but it was totally worth the money we spent there.

Getting to the airport from London was slightly more interesting. We opted for an early morning flight to Berlin, getting us there at 9 something Berlin time (an hour ahead of the UK). It meant our flight out of Stanstead left pretty early in the morning, around 6:30 AM. But Stanstead is nearly an hour outside of London, and we wanted to get there plenty early in order to check in and whatnot. This meant we had to leave Meggo's flat at around 2AM in order to get a city bus that took us to the bus that would take us to the airport, which left at 3:30 AM. When we arrived, there were a whole bunch of people waiting. We didn't buy tickets in advance because we'd wanted to keep all our options open. When they told us we couldn't get on this bus, we nearly panicked. A creepy man came up to us and tried to convince us that he would take us to Stanstead in his cab for the low low price of 100 pounds. We considered it, and then decided he was WAY too creepy, it was the middle of the night, and another bus was coming. So we waited it out, hoping that it wouldn't backfire on us and we'd get on the next bus. We did, but barely. So we made it to the airport on time, met up with Briana, and had loads of time to get on the flight, which actually boarded a bit later than planned. It was pretty stressful, especially since we'd had a 30 minute nap in place of a whole night's sleep!