London!

I had a great time in London last weekend. It was my second time visiting London. I first went back in November to visit my friend Vicki, who was studying abroad there for the semester. Although the weather wasn't great and I was only there for 2 days, I had a great time seeing her and getting to know London. I stayed in her apartment and she showed me around the city. We even went to Windsor castle, which was really fun. The Queen usually hangs out there on the weekend, but we didn't see her. I ate all the good London food: fish and chips, bangers and mash (sausage & potatoes), and a lamb and rosemary pot pie. It was all delicious.

Buckingham Palace

The Canada Gate

The guard was falling asleep...

Crosses with poppies outside Westminster Abbey to celebrate Remembrance Day. 

The National Gallery. 

Countdown to the Olympics in November. 

The streets were already decked out for Christmas in November. 

Outside Windsor Castle. 

Robin Hood?

St. George's Chapel in the Castle. A lot of famous Kings are buried there, including Henry VIII. 

Another guard...but this one was a little scary. I think he was tired of people taking pictures with him.

The Crooked Tea Room.

Where Vicki lived.

Gross from a long day on the bus and walking around London, but my first Tube ride!

Round 2 in London was during the second week in May, and this time about 12 of us were going for 4 days. Some of us took the bus, which is about 7 1/2 hours, and we went through the underground tunnel. I was used to it from when I took the bus to London in the fall, but it still makes me feel claustrophobic. I'm in a bus, in this crate-like thing, in a tunnel, beneath the ground. Once we got there, we were starving and grabbed some Chipotle!

Katie, Nicole, and Annie enjoying Chipotle. 

The next day, we headed to the Harry Potter Studio Tour! We had booked this back in November, and we were all so excited. We all grew up with Harry Potter so it felt like we were stepping back into our childhoods. To be honest, I absolutely loved the books but I was not a huge fan of the movies. But this tour gave me a sense of how much work went into creating these movies and the difficulties of bringing the book to life. It was amazing to see how they actually created the scenes from the movies. We were also able to see a lot of the props and special effects they used. It was incredible and I have a new-found respect for the movies. Meaghan and I also did this green screen thing were you put on a robe and hop on a stationary broom and you can watch yourself on screen fly through London and Hogwarts. I felt like a dork but it was a lot of fun and we couldn't stop laughing. We waited in line for about 45 minutes to do it and it was fun just watching all the different people on the brooms. From cute little kids to 40 year old men to grandmas, everyone was enjoying themselves.

LOYOLA.

Chocolate Frogs.

The cupboard under the stairs. So tiny!

The great hall.

The school gates.

The boys dorm.

Ron's bed. 

They used the same stove from the movie Chocolat. 

The different wands. 

The fat lady portrait. 

The Gryffindor lounge. 

For decoration they used replicas of the famous  Lady and the Unicorn  tapestries, which we saw in France. 

For some of the portraits on the walls they used people who worked on the film. 

Hagrid's hut. 

The Weasley's kitchen. Some of the props in the kitchen moved by themselves, such as the dishes washing themselves. 

The screen where you could see yourself flying on a broom through London.

Driving the Weasley's car.

Inside the Weasley's car.

The Knight bus. 

The Dursley's house. 

Voldemort's tomb.

Relaxing with a butterbeer. 

The giant chess pieces. 

They used an animatronic head for some of Hagrid's scenes. 

Dobby.

In Diagon Alley.

The Weasley's joke shop.

Hogwart's Castle.

All the wands represented a crew member. 

Voldemort's wand.

The Marauder's Map.

My brother tried these jellybeans when he was younger and one of the flavors made him throw up.

I absolutely adored the Harry Potter tour and although I saw people of all ages enjoying themselves, seeing the little kids in particular so excited to be there made me feel a little old and nostalgic. I love being 20 and being independent, but growing up is a strange feeling. Its times like these were it's strange to think you're not a little kid anymore.

We spent most of the day at the Harry Potter tour so afterwards, we went shopping at Primark in Oxford Circus, a super cheap and popular store in London. Although there were way too many people, I was able to get some cute shirts for a bargain. And we found out that there's a store in Belgium. It's in Liege, which is also supposed to have good waffles. So after finals, we might have to make a special trip to Liege for waffles and shopping:)

The next day, Meaghan and I decided to go to Stonehenge! It was a last minute decision but I'm glad we did it. We did some research the night before and then got up early and went to a tourist office and booked a 1/2 day afternoon tour to Stonehenge for a great price. After we booked it, we had a few hours to kill before the tour so we went looking for Harrods, the famous department store. We walked through a ritzy area with high-fashion stores, and I felt seriously under-dressed. But we finally found Harrods and it was massive inside! I thought it was just a really nice, expensive department store. Boy was I wrong! They had all different brands, with different levels and they even had food! There was chocolate, fudge, and a really cool cafe. It was overwhelming inside and we barely walked through most of it, but it was cool to see. I bought some white chocolate and blueberry fudge in the store, something I didn't even knew they sold before going.

After, we walked back through Buckingham Palace. We missed the changing of the guards, but it was still great to see the royal palace. One guard left the palace and started walking through the park. It was funny to see such a tall guard, with his tall feathery hat, marching through the crowd of people.

Buckingham Palace.

We then hopped on our bus tour to Stonehenge. It was a 2 hour bus ride there, but it was nice to relax and not have to walk for a bit. The weather was absolutely beautiful and made the day so much better. Stonehenge was incredible to see and I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. The stones were huge and the history behind them is so fascinating. We listened to the audio guide and strolled around for about 2 hours. The sky was beautiful and we were able to see some people who were paragliding above Stonehenge. We wished we had known that was an option because it would have been something we would have loved to do. It also would have been great if we had brought a lunch and sat in the fields after the tour, but we had to get back on the bus and head back to London.

That night, we went to Abbey Road because it was near the hostel that we were staying at. We both tried walking across the street like the Beatles did on one of their famous album covers, but it was difficult with the other people and the traffic. Some people had starting writing on the wall near the crosswalk, which was right in front of the Beatles old recording studio, but we didn't have a marker. But it was fun to do and see another major London attraction. We were definitely the ultimate tourists this trip. After, we walked back to our hostel, which was one of my favorite hostels I've stayed in. It was in a huge old house and there was a really nice lounge area with computers and a coffee machine. The other night, they played There's Something About Mary on the TV, one of my favorite movies. And although we were in about a 14 person dorm, we had our own curtains around our beds that we could close to give us privacy. It was really nice, and it reminded us of the dorms from Harry Potter.

I can pretend I signed the wall outside Abbey studios.

Our friends signed the wall when they visited abbey road the next day.

The hostel.

My bed in the hostel. 

The next day was another beautiful, sunny day. We walked past the London Eye, to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. We walked past the beautiful St. James park and saw the beginning of a guard's parade. We snapped some pictures with the guards and walked to the National Gallery by Trafalgar Square. We went into the free Gallery and saw some beautiful paintings by Van Gogh and Manet. Outside in the square, we saw a sign with the countdown to the London Olympics. It would be awesome to be in London for the Olympics in August, but I can only imagine that London is going to be insane! At times, it was extremely crowded in the streets and packed on the Tube, so I can't imagine how busy its going to be in a couple of months! But you can tell London is excited for the Olympics.

Big Ben.

The London Eye.

Parliament and Big Ben.

Westminster Abbey.

St. James Park

The guard parade.

The countdown in May. 75 days until the Olympics!

The National Gallery.

We walked over Waterloo Bridge and along the water up to the Tower Bridge. It was a beautiful walk and everyone seemed to be out and enjoying the weather. We got a 99 ice cream, which Meaghan told me it was called because her dad said that growing up in Ireland,  it used to be 99 cents. It was delicious vanilla ice cream with a piece of chocolate in it. It was so good and hit the spot. We walked past Shakespeare's Globe Theater and saw Fergie's London Bridge, though it was so unimpressive that we walked right past it, thinking that the Tower Bridge was the London Bridge. The Tower Bridge was ornate and looked like something from Disney World. The London Bridge looked like any old bridge. By the time we got there, our feet were killing us so we lay down for a bit near the bridge in this cute little area and met up with some of our friends.

A 99!

The London Bridge.

Some sand art.

The cutest puppy.

Shakespeare's Globe Theater. 

The London Bridge in the background. Not that impressive.

The Tower Bridge...a lot nicer.

We then walked to Covent Garden, a nice theater neighborhood with a cute market/shopping area. We saw two of our friends who had just got out of their 3rd play of the weekend. They were able to see Matilda, Billy Elliot, and Les Miserables! And for Matilda, they really lucked out and got tickets for 5 pounds! So jealous!

We walked back to the hostel, freshened up and grabbed our bags, and then got on our 9:30 pm bus back to Brussels, getting back around 6am. The bus back was different this time because it was too late for the tunnel so we went on the ferry! We got to chill out and walk around for 1 1/2 hours on the boat. I was excited to get off the bus and it did make the trip seem faster, but the boat was rocking a lot and I felt nauseous. Usually I'm okay on boats so I don't know why I was so affected by this one, but I was happy to get back on the bus.

I had a great weekend in London. I was lucky to be able to visit London twice and the first visit helped to orient me a bit and made me feel more comfortable navigating London. Initially, I wasn't going to book this trip because I wasn't sold at first on the Harry Potter tour and London is an expensive city to visit again. But I would have been so mad at myself if I hadn't gone. The weather really made the trip and I felt like I was able to see so much more in a few days. It was one of my favorite trips because I felt like I accomplished a lot and it was still a relaxing trip. Now it will be extra exciting to watch the Olympics on t.v. this Summer.