I HEART LONDON

This past weekend our program, API took everyone to London for the weekend. We took a bus to Shannon Airport where we boarded our flight and then landed in London around 11 at night. We had to wait around outside, it was so COLD, and wait for our bus to bring us into the city where our hotel was. We waited till midnight (now October 23!) and a few people decided to sing me happy birthday. I didn't yet feel 21 so I didn't really go along with it, but it was nice people remembered.

We finally got to our hotel and everyone was exhausted! Between the bus rides and the plane and long waits outside, everyone just wanted to go to bed. Luckily there were only 2 of us per room and we got awesome accommodations this time!! Queen beds and fluffy comforters and a huge bathroom and flat screen TV!

Saturday morning, we all went down and had breakfast. There we got our tour bus hop on/hop off tickets like we had in Dublin and we got maps of the city. A bunch of us wanted to see the London Tower and decided to split off from out directors and went out on our own. I could not believe how big the city was!! It was like being in NYC with all the hustle and bustle. We headed off to the Tower where we learned we could play games and goof off, why learn history when you can play giant tic-tac-toe?!

London Bridge

We got to go inside the Tower and check out the cool things. There was a nice elevator ride to the top of the tower where we then got to see the city views. This lead to the bridge that connects the 2 towers where it looped around and you could see more of the city and the Thames River. There were jumbo sized-games where we of course played with! Hopscotch, bowling, tic tac toe, and ring toss! We also set up giant dominoes! But I can't upload videos on here unfortunately =[

We continued to walk through London and checked out all the architecture old and new. London reminded me of being back in Liverpool a few weeks ago. Clearly the UK has all the best architects in the world to themselves, all the buildings were beautiful whether modern or old, not like what you would see in Worcester or Fitchburg where some of the buildings are just a giant eye-sore.

Buckingham Palace

We saw the Big Ben and Buckingham Palace as well!! It was starting to get dark, the setting sun gave me some pretty cool pictures of the two sites. Security has been increased at the Palace so we weren't able to get too close, there was a huge wrought iron gate around it with guards at the doors.

On our walk back to the hotel, we decided to see how many people we could fit inside a telephone box! The first time we were able to fit 5 of us but we were venturing for more! We were able to squeeze the 6 girls in the telephone box this time! It wasn't easy but we some how managed to squeeze our butts inside the small space. People walking by even decided to take a few pictures with us or capture us on their video cameras, we were instant celebrities.



Unfortunately Blogger doesn't upload upright pictures correctly

London was also a great place to celebrate my 21st birthday!! I was surrounded by new friends and I was spending it in a city with the best night life. The girls surprised me first by singing happy birthday which then lead to noise complaints from the hotel on our behalf ha ha. I got a tiara and my pimp cup, followed by peanut m&ms =] I was now officially 21 so we went out to a club called The Zoo, and it really WAS a zoo!! So busy and there was several floors of dancing with different types of music and drinks being served, but really fun none the less.

The next morning, a few of us decided to go check out the British Museum. It was interesting getting there, we were having trouble with our directions but we made it there eventually. I could not believe how big the museum was! And it was free, music to my ears. There were so many different rooms in the museum, all were dedicated to a different country and culture. I definitely liked Asia and Southeast Asia the best. Very colorful, that will be my next trip!

While walking to the museum our friend Alison wanted a picture with the giant bronze lions that are in the center of the city. When we got there, we didn't realize how big they were and how hard it was going to be to climb up onto them! The stone it was sitting on was really slippery and we had to boost each other up. We were only to get up there for a minute because the city was having a ceremony of some sort for their Navy and there was security everywhere!



London was an overall great weekend and a place I would definitely visit again! I started to get used to the fast-pace and hustle/bustle of the city towards the end of the weekend. I didn't like it at first, but it grew on me as I got more comfortable with the city and realized how much there was to see. I didn't get to see nearly 1/10th of the sights I wanted to experience, but I am happy with what I got see. I am glad the program chose London, but wished it had been a 3-4 day trip and not a day and a half.

Scotland in a few weeks and a day trip through County Clare coming up soon! 51 days till I am back in the States =]