No, I didn’t meet Prince Harry and fall in love (God, I wish… sorry Jacob), but I am in love with the city of London! It reminded me of New York City (which I’m obsessed with) except cleaner. All of the buildings and landscapes are beautiful and sooo ornate! On Monday night, we arrived in the fabulous town of London but we were so tired, we only managed to grab some Japanese food before calling it a night. This may or may not have made my life, considering I got real white rice for the first time since I got here…. So as you can imagine that was the greatest one pound I spent all trip… (Alright so I’m exaggerating a little :) )

 The next day we trekked all the way to Buckingham Palace to see the ceremonial changing of the guard. Jacob, one of the tallest guys on the trip, let me sit on his shoulders so I had the best view of the whole thing! It was a little slow, but it’s something that you have to see at least once in your life. After the ceremony, we walked around London for about an hour or so until we stumbled upon a small Irish pub for lunch. The whole ten day break, we ended up eating at a lot of Irish pubs which meant I had a lot of burgers and fries, but it was a good break from pizza and pasta! After lunch, we raced back to the hostel to get ready for our afternoon Tea Party! How British of us :) We went to a four star hotel called The Hempel for the tea. We were each given a choice of what tea we wanted and then give little finger foods. These ranged from sandwiches to scones to small gelatin- like desserts! After tea we continued with our British filled day and headed over to the Apollo Victoria Theatre to see Wicked! I have never been to a show on Broadway or the Kennedy Center before so I was a little nervous to see how this was going to be. But, I ended up LOVING IT. I loved the story, the actors with the amazing singing voices and the props/ decorations! Everything was incredible. What’s my next musical mission? To see Chicago!

 The following morning we woke up with a large to- do list. We decided to skip our free tour, because none of the other ones had worked out really well, and decided to do our own thing. We first went to Trafalgar Square and took pictures on the in front of Lord Nelson’s column and the National Gallery which has their huge Olympics countdown in front! Gahh I wish I was going to be here for the Olympics! It would be an awesome experience! We then headed down the street towards the House of Parliament, Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. For some reason I wasn’t as impressed with Big Ben as I thought I was going to be… I thought it was going to be bigger? Hmpf. Afterwards, we grabbed some lunch and then went to the British Museum. My teacher described the British Museum as “basically England went to all these countries and took home whatever they could get their hands on… they have more of the Parthenon than there is left in Athens”. And he was right! The whole museum is sectioned off into rooms by global region/ continent and has different artifacts from all different time periods. I saw the Rosetta stone, double headed serpent from Mexico and lots of beautiful statues from all over Eastern Asia. Everything was remarkable! After the museum, we went back to the hostel and met up for dinner a few hours later. We went to a burger place…. Again… before heading to Camden. We were told by the man at the tattoo shop in Dublin that Camden was the place to be, and since he seemed like a pretty reliable guy, we decided we should head up there. After taking a bus there, we found a cool bar called the Wheelbarrow which was having live music as well! I am allll about the live music at these places! But I wish just one person would have played Hootie and the Blowfish for me instead of Country Roads, Take me Home for the 213,812,739 time. But since we were out on a Wednesday night, it wasn’t as crazy and as much fun as we wanted it to be. But there is one positive to hanging out with a group of 20+ people every single day… you always have a pre-made party wherever you go… even when the bar is empty! After quite some time and a few too many drinks, we decided to go home and call it a night.

 The following morning, we decided to sleep in (such a change!) before getting a start on our day. Almost everyone in the group except my hostel room (Kira, Lindsey, Gina, Olivia and Tara) and the Whitney’s had left for Amsterdam early in the morning so we spent another full day there by ourselves to see even more sights! We started the day by heading up to northern London to see the famous Abbey Road! All we wanted was a quick picture just like the Beatles, but what we didn’t realize was that Abbey Road is a MAIN road in the middle of the town and there is lots of traffic!! It took us almost 30 minutes to get a picture we finally liked! We found a man who takes the Abbey Road pictures for a living and he got a good one for us! Yipeeee! After Abbey Road we headed to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. The Tower of London is an old jail/ torture center in London which has since turned into a museum and is famous for holding the Crown Jewels. Unfortunately we didn’t go in because we are poor and couldn’t afford it, but we did take pictures around it and see the Tower Bridge. After that we headed to London Eye! The London Eye is basically a HUGE Ferris wheel located right on the Thames River. It’s a little pricey but when you go around you can see alllllll of London! It was gorgeous and so cool to see everything up from so high!

 We headed back to the hostel to meet up with some of the girls and then Tara, Lindsey, Whitney Unis and I headed to Harrod’s! Harrod’s is a huge department store in London and is very, very famous. And now I know why…. It is GORGEOUS. Just picture the Ritz Carlton of department stores… it was like a Barney’s New York on crack and makes Nordstrom look like a Target…. Every famous designer you have ever heard of was in that store. And you could literally buy ANY thing you need in the store! It had your clothes, make up, shoes, jewelry and accessories, tea, champagne room, café, restaurant, food market, meat market and toy store for the kids… EVERYTHING I tell you. After meandering around for about for 45 minutes, we were forced to leave because they were closing. It was in that moment that I realized I had to be a millionaire in order to shop there for the rest of my life… we will see how that goes… After our run in with paradise, we headed to another kind of paradise… Chipotle. People had been talking about it for weeks before we went so it was kind of a big deal! We finally headed back for the night so we could be ready to get our 6 AM train headed to Amsterdam!

 London has been my favorite place hands down! We did so much and still didn’t even see or do nearly half of what there is!! It’s such a remarkable place and I will definitely be returning! Maybe even move there with @Kelly Miles to start our fabulous fashion careers?? :) I will miss you London!