Day 7: After a great week in Italy and a long sleepy day in the Marseille train station, I said goodbye to Mary and Ali (they were going back to Montpellier that night) and headed to the airport to fly to London. When I arrived, I went through the first customs/passport check of my trip. Apparently they're pretty lax when you're traveling between some European countries, so I don't have many passport stamps to show for the places I went to. I took a train into London, where my friend Hilary met me. At this point it was around 11 pm and I was still running on no sleep, so we just caught up in her dorm and then went to sleep.
Day 8: On my first full day in London, Hilary and Rachel, friends from Brandeis who are studying in London through the BU internship program, took me to see the sights. First, we went to Old Spittlefields Market, a huge covered markets with booths selling everything from jewelry to vegan salads.
Right next to Spittlefields was Brick Lane, which was full of food. Seriously, so much food! There were booths with food from every ethnicity imaginable. I stopped in the way in for a red velvet whoopie pie before getting to the real foods. Each booth had food from a different place, bubbling and sizzling and steaming on electric woks and hot plates, which made it look even better. We saw Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Sri Lankan, Lithuanian, Spanish, Mexican and so many more. The building was also incredibly packed with people, all looking at, tasting and munching on different food items. It was really hard to decide what we wanted for lunch because everything looked and smelled so amazing. I have never seen such a colorful, good-smelling selection of foods, I wanted to have about five meals! I ended up choosing Sri Lankan, a mix of rice and noodles with about four different meat/sauce combinations mixed together. It was delicious. As were Rachel and Hilary's Thai combinations.
After an awesome lunch, eaten standing up, squeezed between everyone else at a tiny counter in the corner of the room, we headed out to see the big, London touristy spots.
They took me across the Tower Bridge, although we didn't see the London Bridge, because apparently it's not very exciting or nice looking. Then we headed towards Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and the London Eye. After some confusion on Hilary's part over which was which, we took a bunch of pictures and enjoyed the sights with all of the other tourists. It was pretty cool seeing all these places that I've heard about and seen in pictures and movies. We didn't go inside anywhere, which was fine with me since I did plenty of touristy things in Rome as well.
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| Tower Bridge |
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| Westminster |
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| Big Ben/London Eye |
Day 9: After sleeping in while Hilary was at her exam in the morning, she sent me to see Buckingham Palace, since she had to study for another test. It was cool to navigate London by myself and figure out (with Hilary's directions) how to get to Buckingham. I took a ton of pictures and walked around Saint James Park. It was just starting to show some signs of spring, so it was fun to see all of the little crocuses and snow drops as well as the biggest variety of birds I have ever seen in one place.
That night we explored Piccadilly Circus with some Brandeis friends of Hilary's and went to the famous M&M store, which was pretty exciting, although expensive. We went to a drug store as soon as we left to find cheap chocolate.
Day 10: After sleeping in again during Hil's next exam, she took me to get lost in Herrod's for awhile. We talked about how American department stores can't even touch the fanciness of Herrod's. It was fun to see all of the intricate rooms and very very expensive merchandise. Hilary's favorite part was the pet shop with two adorable puppies playing around. I had to drag her away from them. After another fairly relaxing day, we met up with Rachel and her friend in Chinatown for dinner in a Korean restaurant. I didn't end up having any traditional English food, just Asian. Interesting how these things work out.
My last night in London we went to bed pretty early, because the next morning, very early, I was leaving and Hilary and Rachel's break was about to start, so they had to be to the airport bright and early as well.
Although I probably didn't absorb as much of British culture as I should have, I had a great time hanging out with Hilary and Rachel and doing "drive-bys" of all of the popular London tourist destinations. It was also nice to get a lot of sleep after my whirlwind Italian adventure filled with too much walking and not enough sleep.
The next morning I was off to Paris for the last few days of my vacation to meet up with my friend Marielle who was visiting Europe for her spring break, although I would have been just as happy to head back to Montpellier.
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