London for the Weekend

Hi! It is 1:05 PM here in Canterbury and 8:05 AM back in Indiana. I returned last night around midnight from my weekend trip to London, and what an amazing time I had! I saw a lot of London's main sites: Piccadilly Circus, the Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye, plus I went to the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Gallery. London is so beautiful, much more so than I expected. Coming over the bridge into London on the bus literally took my breath away. Big Ben is so pretty; pictures don't do it justice. It has gold on it, and the sun shines off of it in the loveliest way.

 Amazingly, I didn't spend that much money. Spending my two nights in London in a hostel cost about 25 pounds, or about 41 US dollars. The hostel, Equity Point, is located in Piccadilly, a bit of a hike from London, but who can beat that price? It was nice, clean, and quiet, and I didn't get stabbed by any strangers in my eight-person room, so A+. Granted, I was staying with five other people I know, but, still, that two-person remainder could have been sketchy. The two other people ended up being French girls who called us names in French, but, eh, could have been worse, yeah? I would highly recommend the hostel to anyone looking to save some dough while in the Big Smoke.

To further constrain my budget, I tried to spend below 10 pounds at every meal, and I limited myself to only a few souvenirs. I spent most of my money in a teashop at the Piccadilly Circus called Fortnum and Mason because, well, when in Rome... My friends and I especially saved a lot of money by doing a free tour of London offered by this company. If anyone is interested, I can send you the name. The tour lasted 2 and half hours and covered a lot of the city's main attractions. Our tour guide, Steph, was from Amsterdam and has been a London resident for eight years. She told us that she majored in theatre in college, and you could totally tell. She was spunky and told great stories about London's attractions. Like, for instance, Buckingham Palace used to have the worst security. One time in the 80s, a curious, drunk Irish man stumbled into Buckingham Palace to see if he could spend the night there and ended up in the Queen's bedroom. The security system was undergoing maintenance at the time, so when the Queen pressed the panic button on her bedside table, it didn't work. She ended up calling her butler for a cigarette, and since she doesn't smoke, the butler knew something was up. Everything ended up fine, obviously, but since then Buckingham Palace has undergone some serious external renovations, like the addition of an electrified fence.

On a side note, the guards of these palaces and headquarters are ridiculous, and they know it. We visited Prince Charles's house, and there were two guards outside of it, doing their thing. One guard straight-up giggled when we started taking pictures of him. Newbie? We also saw guards change shifts here, and the amount of pomp and circumstance that comes with this simple action is, frankly, silly.

With London off my bucket list, my friends and I are now looking into going to Bath for a day or two sometime soon. I've heard it's a nice, little town, a change of pace after London. Thank you for reading! Pictures are above.

PS- Canterbury 2013 friends, if you're reading this, you're the best. You made London fantastic!