So I went to London last weekend!! I had an amazing time with my best friends here, Meagan and Mary. We left at a ridiculous hour on Friday morning. We woke up at 2am and took a taxi at 3am to the Dublin airport. From there, we waited until 6am to catch our flight to London! THEN we had a crazy hard time finding our hostel! You see most people might have prepared themselves for once they got to one of the biggest cities in the world by bringing a map or even looking up the address of their hostel. Us? We're too cool to bother ourselves with such trivial matters. Therefore, we just winged it and figured it out as we went along. It ended up being a fun little adventure, and we finally got to our hostel around noon. After that, we crashed and prepared ourselves for a fun night out on the town! Once we recovered, we met up with our other friend, Brendan, who had already arrived the day before. We met under Big Ben and ended up getting dinner at a wonderful Thai restaurant. It was there that I tried duck for the first time! I had a duck curry, and it was absolutely delicious!! After that, we got some treats at a local convenient store and then visited Brendan's hostel, where a bunch of other Maynooth students were staying. We had an interesting night, which ended with a walking tour of Westminster at 2am given by Brendan, the history buff.
The next morning, Mary, Meagan, and I started the day a bit earlier than the day before. We headed out for our first tourist destination around noon. We figured we could just walk through town, because the destinations aren't too far apart. On a map. We quickly shifted strategies and bought a day pass for the Underground after a few blocks ;) Our first stop was at London Bridge! We got out and walked around a bit to find the actual bridge, walked across it, and passed by the Monument on our way to Tower Bridge. It was so amazing! And it was a wonderful time, because it had just stopped raining for us to take some pictures! After we crossed Tower Bridge, we headed over to find Globe Theatre upon my request. Ever since my senior English class when we Google-mapped Globe Theatre, I've always wanted to visit! Unfortunately, we didn't have a very detailed map and ended up walking in circles. As it was getting quite late and we didn't want to be wondering the streets of London alone after sunset, we decided we'd come back the next day to find this mysterious theater. Anyway, we had a game to watch!! It was the finals for Six Nations that night, which is the biggest Rugby tournament for the UK and Ireland. Not only that, but the final match was between
France (the best team in the league) and England! It was the perfect game to watch in London. So we headed over to a Fish and Chips restaurant in Waterloo, where our hostel was, and enjoyed a traditional English meal! It was breaded and fried cod fish served with chips, which are really big, yummy french fries! After dinner, we slid on over to the pub next door, the Wellington! It was a really big and quite beautiful pub, which had huge TVs, perfect for our game plans. We stole a table in the back and sat down to enjoy the night. Meagan and I treated ourselves to a drink and ended up talking to a few English guys during the game!! A wonderful end to a great day.
The next morning we began exactly where we left off -- finding Globe Theatre. It was surprisingly easy to find after having spent all of the last evening looking in all the wrong places. However, once we finally found it, we discovered that it costs around 10 euro to see the inside. On a tight budget, we decided to skip going inside and just admire it from the outside. On the way to Globe Theatre, we stopped by St. Paul's Cathedral. It was HUGE. So huge, in fact, I found it impossible to fit into one picture frame. And this was not just a typical Cathedral. It was a US Capital building look-a-like!! I know, I know, we should sue, but whatever I let it go. So then we took the Underground to Camden Street! It's an outdoor market that stretches on for blocks and blocks. I loved it there! That's where I bought my very European-looking leather jacket for 10 euro cheaper than what the salesman wanted from me =) After Camden Street, we headed over to Buckingham Palace, where we spied on the guards and took some fun pictures of the palace! Then we walked down to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey one last night. There we played the part of the typical tourist and took a bunch of pictures on front of Big Ben at sunset. We headed back to Waterloo and got dinner at the Wellington, then took a bus back to the airport to endure a looooong 9 hour wait for our flight. However, we had fun passing the time with each other, and it was definitely worth visiting London =) I had a wonderful trip and would do it again in a heartbeat! I have to thank Mom and Dad for funding this thing and making it all possible =) Love you guys! I'll come back soooon!
So we stood around waiting for the parade to start! There's a St. Paddy's Day parade every year down O'Connell Street, but you have to get in line early, because, well, it's the biggest St. Patrick's Day parade in the world! We waited for three hours, but we had a great time doing it =) After buying all the souvenirs our budgets would allow, we took lots of pictures to pass the time. Once we ran out of pictures, we began to drink the morning away ;) Hey, we're in Ireland -- might as well blend in with every other person there!
