And so the adventure begins...
Thursday:
Even though we didn't get to bed until close to 3AM, we were up and out the door by 10AM.
After grabbing a quick breakfast we headed to the subway station to get our day going. We bought an all day subway pass and headed towards the center of the city.
We found our first Starbucks in almost 2 months and about had a field day. The only disappointing thing was Starbuck's in Europe don't do the Fall Menu, so no Pumpkin Spice Latte's for us.
We began the day, coffee in hand, at the London Eye. You know, the really big ferris wheel. We would have gone on it but it cost 12 pounds which is close to 30 dollars so we said no to that.
After that we wandered around Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park and random places all throughout the city. It wasn't the greatest of days, it kept sprinkling on us, but we had a blast. And what's more London than some fog and mist?
We grabbed lunch at this little caffe that advertised crumpets. I did in fact have a crumpet and it wasn't too bad.
After lunch we found an empty, and clean, telephone booth and took the super cheesy tourist pictures with it.
We also wanted to find platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross so that's where we headed to next. We knew that there was a Harry Potter 9 3/4 Platform but, silly us, we thought it was legitimately between the main Platforms 9 and 10. We wandered all around the station trying to find it. It wasn't until a station worker noticed we looked confused and came over to us that we found out it was right outside of the station. We did eventually find it and took our fan-girl pictures.
At that point in the afternoon it was close to 5PM. None of us were hungry, but half of us were exhausted. Three of the girls decided to keep exploring and the other of us headed back. The plan was to take a quick nap so that we would have energy the rest of the night, but that didn't really happen.
We got back to the hostel an hour and a half later and layed on our bed for like 20 minutes. No nap. The other girls weren't far behind us, so we all changed and headed out to find some authentic fish and chips.
We came across this pub that advertised fish and chips and since we had already walked a good 20 minutes decided to just go for it. Best. Decision. Ever.
These were the most delicious fish and chips I have ever had. And yes, as most of you know, I absolutely hate fish. And I ate them. AND LOVED THEM.
We got to sit in the super cool VIP room because there wasn't a big enough table for all of us anywhere else. After dinner we headed back. We were exhausted from all the traveling and exploring, so at 11PM we said goodnight.
Friday:
CONCERT DAY!
We woke up, had a quick breakfast again, and went out to the shopping district.
Not that any of us really needed anything, but why not go window shopping in London? We split up and Erin and I wandered around, looking at expensive clothes, bought fake eyelashes for the concert, and eventually found a Starbucks. It was a really gorgeous day so we took our muffins and coffee and went and sat in a nearby park to people watch and it.
Everyone was laying on the grass in the sun doing the same thing. It felt much like one of the small parks you find all over New York. There were a bunch of squirrels running around too so it made it feel a little bit like Spokane.
When it was time to meet the girls again we headed back to the station. Nina and Jo met us, without the other two, and said that they had talked to the people at The Body Shop and they had said they would do our makeup for the concert! When we got back to The Body Shop Gabby and Audrey were gone. They are the last two people you want wandering by themselves in a big city because neither of them know how to read a map or suwbay schedule... but we didn't really worry about it because we assumed they would show up eventually.
We all got our eye makeup done by one of the salesgirls and had a good time. I managed to score a super awesome deal... I really liked the eyeshadow she had used on me, and I've been looking for a red lipstick/gloss so when I saw they were advertising a buy 10 pounds worth of makeup and get the 10 pound lipgloss for free I decided to do it. Now, the eyeshadow was 8 pounds and the lipstick was 10 pounds so I was expecting to spend 18 pounds for the three items. When the salesgirl rang them up she looked at me confused and said it would be 10 pounds. I asked her to repeat it since it was way cheaper than I had expected. She didn't really question what had happened, just said I must have gotten lucky. Somehow the eyeshadow only rang up as 1 pound. I spent 10 pounds all together for eyeshadow, lipstick and lipgloss. Not bad for London.
In the middle of us getting our makeup done, Gabby and Audrey showed up. They had left to find us... even though Nina and Jo had told them to stay at the shop and we would all be back. Figures.
While the rest of the girls were getting made up, we went and looked in some of the boutiques close by. If only I had all the money in the world... we found some of the cutest clothes!
3 hours after we had planned to be back to our hostel, we finally left the shopping district. We raced home and got ready for the concert and headed out again.
We had tickets in the standing area of the floor so we wanted to get there early to make sure we got good spots. But, we were running a bit late... We got to the O2 about an hour and a half later than what we had planned. The line was pretty long, but not too terrible. We took a lot of pictures standing in line. The doors were supposed to open at 6:30PM but they didn't even let us in until 7:30PM.
The first opener started at 8PM and she wasn't terrible. She was a local up and coming artist so whatever. I won't be running out to buy her album anytime soon. The other opener was a DJ from California. He was good but it seemed like we were the only ones who liked the songs he was playing. Apparantly kids in London only like Adele and Katy Perry.
Then came Katy.
She was absolutely amazing! I much prefer her in person than on recordings. Her voice isn't made over with all the technology gadgets when she's singing on tour. It's just her voice, and if you didn't go to one of her concerts you would never know how good of a voice she actually as.
As expected, it was high energy, many costume changes, and all around extremely entertaining. We danced and sang until our feet and throats hurt. It ended all too soon....
It took us forever to get out of the stadium. We got on the subway we needed to take to catch the other subway we had to take to get home. We got off at the station where we needed to transfer only to find out that the last train to the station we needed to get to was at midnight. It was a little past 1AM at this point. Our options at that point where to either 1: take a different train to a station close by and walk the rest of the way or 2. catch a bus/taxi. We didn't want to pay more money to get home so we just took the other train. We didn't know which way to go out of the station towards home so we asked some people. After walking 20 minutes we came to the conclusion they had told us the wrong way.
We eventually made it home. Almost an hour later.
Saturday:
We slept in a little and grabbed a quick breakfast at the diner across the street. Again, we went in search of a Starbucks to waken up our senses.
We continued to do the touristy stuff. We took a ferry from Greenwich to the London Tower. This included going under the London Bridge.
Our initial plan was to check out the London Tower, however, we had no idea it was going to be so expensive to get in. None of us had the money to pay the entrance fee, so instead we just walked around the outside and read the signs we could.
We then went over, and onto, the London Bridge and took a few pictures there.
At this point we were bored with the city and wanted to get out and see the countryside. We went into a tourist information place to ask if there was a train or something we could take for cheap to get outside the city. After a half hour of looking at maps, subway schedules, and talking to a British tour guide we came to the conclusion that it wasn't going to be able to happen. Instead, we got on a train to Camden to check out the markets.
Camden was pretty. It was packed full of people and vendors, but still nice. Again, we had no money so it wasn't like we could buy anything, but looking was fun.
Some of the girls were hungry so we stopped into a bar for some food. We made friends with the owner and had a good time. A lot of the clubs in England won't let you in unless your 21, so he told us if we wanted to go out later in the evening to come back and he would let us in. He was such a nice guy we felt bad having to pay in all coins. Probably why we spelled out 'sorry' and then ran out before he could see/say anything.
It was close to 5PM and we were all exhausted. It took us an hour and a half to get back to Greenwich and at that point we were starving, on top of being tired. We found a bar that served what looked to be good food. It was. We stayed there for quite awhile drinking our tea and having girl talk.
We crashed once we got back to the hostel. I would say a good last day in London, for sure.
Sunday:
Our flight was scheduled to leave at 11:20AM, so we thought we would be good leaving the hostel at 8AM. We would have been fine if the trains ran on the same schedule as every other day. But no, on Sundays they have a different schedule we didn't know about. Instead of getting on a train at 8:10AM like we thought we could do, the first train we could take didn't leave until 8:54AM. When we got to Whitechapel station we ran to the bus ticket center. The next bus was leaving in 10 minutes so we ran outside to catch it.
The bus takes an hour to get to the airport. We were leaving the station at 9:25. Not good.
We got to the airport close to 10:30AM. All the signs in the airport were saying that our gate was closing at 10:50AM. We ran through the airport to the check in desk, but someone thought we didn't need to be there so we ran to security (they're very close to one another). When we got up to the podium they said we needed to get our tickets tamped at the check in desk. So back we went running to the desk. A nice Ryanair employee took us to the front of the line and stamped all of our tickets super quickly, and off we went back to security. We hastily pulled off our shoes and took out our liquids. Erin and Gabby were in front of Nina and I and we were on the other side waiting for our bags when we saw Erin's first bag appear. Instead of coming straight down it was shifted to a middle lane where we couldn't get to it. Gabby's stuff did the same thing. We started panicking, but Nina, Jo and my stuff all came down where we could grab it. Audrey's bags also got shifted to the middle lane. While they were freaking out, the three of us put our clothes back on and decided we needed to leave them and try and catch our flight.
Our gate was literally as far from security as you could possibly get. We had 5 minutes to get there too. I am not kidding when I saw we outright sprinted through that airport. I have never ran so fast in my life, not to mention wearing boots and wearing a hiking backpack.
When we got in sight of our gate there were still people in line. We didn't even end up being the last people in line. We kept a look out for the other girls but they were nowhere in site. As the plane was taking off we sat there wondering what was going to happen to them...
We landed safely in Pisa 2 hours later and caught a bus back to Florence. When I got home Allie told me that the other girls had been on Facebook. They had had to buy a new plane ticket, spending 200 euro. I am so glad I didn't miss our flight.
For the rest of the night I didn't do much. Close to 8PM I met up with Felicia, Jaclyn and Fallon and we went to Astor for burgers. It was nice to sit and eat a chicken burger while watching some American football. It almost felt like home.
We stopped for gelato on the way home and for the rest of the night I worked on homework.
All in all, the trip to London was a success. A whirlwind, but a fun one. However, I'm not sure how soon I will be going back...
Thursday, October 13th - Sunday, October 16th
Thursday, October 13th - Sunday, October 16th
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