LONDON

February 9th, 2009

I had a fabulous time this weekend in London. The food there was amazing. The crazy journey all began Thursday night as Sal, Grace, Anisha, and I left to catch the Megabus from the Buchanan Bus Station around 10pm. The bus departed at 11pm and arrived in London at 7am. Now I can usually sleep on any bus, car, plane, or train trip but this journey may have been the first exception. The bus we were taking was a double decker, and when we sat down on the top level, Anisha and I sat in the third row. The driver came up to us before we left and told us that we were in the "crash zone" and that our seatbelts must remain on at all times, while everyone else has the choice to wear their seatbelts, but if the bus were to crash and they chose not to wear seatbelts then there would be no insurance. So that was something to look forward to...

We arrived in London on time and went to Victoria Station to get breakfast. London was freezing!! We then made our way toAnisha's sisters appartment to drop off some luggage. After freshening up we set out to explore London, first stop Abbey Road. It was slightly amusing trying to figure out which crosswalk was the correct one... I guess I thought it would have been obvious. Along the road, there was a wall that fans got to sign which was probably my favorite part of the attraction. After adding our names to the wall we did the tourist thing and walked across the road... in the wrong direction I might add.

After Abbey Road, we took the Tube to London Bridge and then went to Borough's Market for lunch. This place was really cool and there was a ton of food. They had just about everything there including TONS of cheese. After eating some lunch we decided to walk along the River Thames towards Westminster Abbey. Along the way we saw London Bridge, Shakespeare's Globes Theatre, the London Eye, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament.














Westminster Abbey and Big Ben were huge. We bought tickets and went in to walk around inside Westminster Abbey. We saw the tomb of Mary Queen of Scots, and Queen Elizabeth. I think my favorite part though was the coronation chair that they still use today!

After exploring Westminster Abbey I went off to meet Jamie at Queen Mary! It was really exciting to see her and Jill! We met back up with the BC group (including Amy now!) and had dinner at Pizza Express. Pizza Express is now officially my favorite restaurant... it sounds like fast food, but it is actually a really nice sit down restaurant and the food was AMAZING. After dinner we were all beat from the little sleep allowed on the Megabus, and I went back to Queen Mary with Jamie and Jillt to watch Blue Crush (Keels I am sure you would have appreciated that).





Day two London was exciting and seemed to fly by. I met up with the BC group at Victoria Station and we went to check out Buckingham Palace. The palace was huge! I was actually surprised to find that the guards were inside the gates and not outside of them but they were still pretty cool. After the palace, we went to see "Spring Awakening." Are seats were on stage and it was pretty cool to watch the play from this view. It amazed me to see how young the actors and actresses were!


That night we went out to dinner at an Indian restaurant where the food again was really good. For some reason I have been really obsessed with food here in Europe... but anyways, after dinner we went out to a club in Covent Gardens and reunited with some other BC math majors visiting London as well haha...





It was kind of sad waking up the third day and knowing it was the last day in London. The city is HUGE and I still feel like there is so much left to see. Jamie, Jill, and I went to Piccadilly market and walked around and shopped most the morning. The market was definitely one of my favorite places in London. There were tons of venders set up on the streets, and you could just walk down the streets browsing at all the clothes and jewelry. After shopping we spent some time in Cafe Nero relaxing before heading back to Jamie's dorm. We watched Into the Blue while I packed up my things... I met up with Sal and Amy for our last dinner in London. We ate at Pizza Express again... I'm telling you it is SO GOOD. We then caught the midnight megabus back to Glasgow. We arrived around 8 in the morning and I sprinted to my 9am class! Definitely a great weekend!