Saturday, March 25, 2017

Very Non-American Thanksgiving. Can London get any prettier?

Thanksgiving in the Enemy's Territory.


Thanksgiving 2016, is a strange one to say the least especially because I spent it in two different countries with two Canadians. Thanksgiving started off in Cork, Ireland with nothing special planned since we were to leave for London mid afternoon. This trip was taken with Hanna and Michelle who weirdly enough met in Ireland but live wicked close to one another in Canada, just another example of how small the world actually is.

Anyways, we had booked this trip way back in October when round-trip flights through RyanAir were only 35$. No, that is not a typo we literally flew from Ireland to London and back on 35$. It's crazy and amazing at the same time. Our next step was finding a hostel within our price range, which we did, a grand total of 40$ for 4 nights... once again a steal, although this one has a different outcome haha. The trip to Cork Airport was uneventful and even when we arrived everything went swimmingly, or so we thought. Security took all of 5 minutes to get through so we had time to kill before we boarded. What are three of age girls suppose to do with time to kill in Ireland? Drink. Obviously, we hit up the airport bar and indulged in the wonderful flavors of beers.

LONOND TRIP BEGINS


Happy Thanksgiving 2k16!
Cliché Airplane photo.
As we boarded the flight to London we were told we were actually suppose to get our VISA's checked downstairs but that we did not have time to do so. Bless the ticket agent who just allowed us to pass through. Now, in my experience of traveling when you flew to a different country you had to go through Customs to enter, but not in Stansted. We walked right off the plane into the airport, no security, no VISA checks, We were thankful (+1 For Thanksgiving) for that and that we didn't have to explain our stupid mistake we made in Cork. At this point the excitement can't be obtained. We are in LONDON.

The trip and memories begin now. I love to explore as I'm sure Hanna and Michelle do to... pretty sure that was a common thing amongst people who study abroad. Anyways we had to take a bus to Central London and then the tube (Underground) to our hostel. When we got off the tube and walked out to the street we all had pretty much the same thought "where in the world did we book our hostel?" Now, yes, never judge a book by it's cover is a good rule to follow. But we were judging this town hard by the all the signs that said "Do NOT leave anything unattended. Robbery High Risk." Safe to say we knew we were in for a treat, good or bad we weren't too sure.

We had booked three bed out of eight in a co-ed room for budgeting purposes. It happened that the whole room was full with some interesting characters. Our roommates for the next four days ended up being 2 middle aged men, 2 people who were always asleep when we returned, and a long-term stay ex-sex shop worker. Having a early morning the next day we decided to crash and rest for tomorrow. There was a general consensus to be in the hostel as little as possible- more time to explore.

Day 2:

Hop-on Hop-off Bus Tour


The faces of two people freezing
waiting for their bus.
Being the frugal travelers we are, Hanna and I decided to book a Hop on Hop off bus tour around London. This is where you jump on any bus (with your company's ticket name on it) ride it to any stop and get on the next available bus. Travel around London for 20 GBP, score. Hahaha, little did we know we would actually be walking 6 miles around the city instead. We waited at our bus stop for 45 minutes before deciding to walk and after seeing 15 buses from our tour companies come through. We called the company from a different bus stop who said the bus would be there in 10 minutes...15 minutes later no bus.

Can London get any prettier?
We ended meeting two representative from other bus services that said our company was awful (Great news to hear), eventually our bus came but we were scared to Hop on and hop off in case another one never showed up. We had already walked basically the whole city so we took the bus until Big Ben came into view jumped off and never looked for another Golden Tour's service bus again. We agreed walking aimlessly around finding random quirks of the city would be way more fun.
Taking on the city with no Wifi.


We walked the whole city, no lie. We saw Big Ben, Harrods, London Eye, Buckingham's Palace, Piccadilly Circus, Hyde Park and so much more all without LTE on our phone :O #FirstWorldProbs. Although, when lunch time cam around we specifically searched for a place with the golden sign that said "FREE WIFI." In actuality having this standard set brought us to a small Cuban restaurant with the most amazing food ever. I still occasionally crave it.  Honestly, the rest of the first day was just walking around taking in the sights and being free from the stress of school. We did stumble onto a Christmas Market down by the Thames River, which reminded me of Germany so much!
Few of the interestingly names shops.
We met up with Michelle after this and decided to WALK back to our hostel a near hour walk. By walking we got to see the streets decorated and lit up for Christmas and found a few interesting named shops haha. It also turned out to be Black Friday in London that night so the streets were packed with street performers. Not wanting to go to our hostel at 9pm we decided to explore the town our hostel was in and did a DIY pub crawl through the three bars.

DIY: Pub Crawl

Day 3:

PSA: If you go to London and want to see Stonehenge book through Premium Tours.

Lets face it every morning during this trip was early, we didn't want to waste time sleeping in, we could do that back in EdenHall. Through this company Premium Tour everything was included, even a lunch at Lacock, a small village in England.

Our first stop being Windsor Castle. This is where the Queen now stays most of the time in comparison to Buckingham's Palace. The royal flag was flying above head so she was actually residing there when we toured it! This castle is hard to explain in words. Simply put it was AMAZING and very well kept compared to the castles in Germany.
Windsor Castle.


Can't describe just how amazing it was.

Next stop was Stonehenge, which I absolutely loved. Stonehenge should be added to everyone's bucket list. Unfortunately, to the action of some ignorant people who would chip away pieces of the rocks we were not able to get very close to the structure. Nonetheless, I enjoyed learning about the history and some folklore behind the construction. Theories of why and how they came about ranges from aliens to religious beliefs. I personally enjoy the alien theory. Just imagine, Aliens come to earth constrict this rock formation and leaves us humans in confusion for years and years. They are probably chilling on their spaceship laughing at us....

The last stop we went to was Bath, England the site of the Roman Baths! Another plus was that a Christmas Market was being held there too! Unfortunately we did not get a chance to actually go in and see the Roman baths (one of my few regrets), I'll just have to do it next time!
ALIENS?!?


Getting back to London was a short 3 hours bus ride haha which dropped us off about 20 minutes from our hostel. Yay, to Fitbit steps. Walking through the city at 10pm was magical with all the lights. Now, to get to our hostel we had to walk through Hyde Park which was hosting a Winter Wonderland Carnival. I thought Germany did Christmas markets right but this one took the cake. It was as if we teleported to a whole different dimension when we crossed the archway leading to Hyde Park. Each section represented a different country and had food, costumes, and drinks pertaining to its respective country.
Bath!

Decorated streets of London for the Holidays.

We finished the night there before crawling back to our hostel exhausted at 1am with a 4:15am wake up call... So worth it though.

Setting my alarm for 4:15am was difficult to do knowing I would only get 3 hours of sleep, but if we wanted to make our flight it had to be done. Some time during the night I guess my phone had fallen off the top bunk under the bed below me, unbeknownst to me. I guess my mind knew it was close to 4;15am so I went to the bathroom and when I came back Hanna and Michelle were already dressed and ushering me back out the door. Apparently the alarm was going off for 5 minutes before Hanna could find it and turn it off and everyone was now awake in the room.. whoops :/.

Overall, the trip was amazing and cheap and the company wasn't bad either :P. One of the many benefits of living abroad.