October 2019
Hey everyone.
For A’s birthday we decided to take a few days and travel over to London (he has never been, loves English accents, and adores Harry Potter, so why not?). As we were there, we did a LOT of walking and saw most of the important touristy sights.
On our first evening, we went to a Breaking Bad themed bar, called ABQ, in which you are able to mix your own cocktail with syringes, beakers, and other chemistry gear while being able to wear a bright yellow Hazmat suit. It was a lot of fun for us, even though I found the drinks to taste a little bit too strong. All in all we had a fun night!
On our first full day in London, we walked for 9.7 miles (over 6 hours) around the city. The longest part of our walk was getting to the Kyoto Gardens, a place that I had read about online and that looked like a peaceful spot. On our long walk there we were able to see a few sights such as the Wellington Monument, Kensington Gardens (briefly), and the Albert Memorial. When we got to the Kyoto Gardens, it was beautiful and peaceful, but not a place I would have walked that far to get to, so that was a bit of a let down. After that we grew brains and decided to take a bus back into the city centre so that we could see the big touristy places. Due to the high volume of traffic, we had to get out of the bus and walk after less than 10 minutes aboard. Our first stop after getting off of the train was Buckingham Palace – a place where A was very excited to see because he wanted to see the guards in person. Unfortunately, when we arrived the Union Jack was flying above the palace, an indication that the Queen was not home and therefore the guards were not there either. It was disappointing, but we were still able to get some pictures of the grounds and wander off into St. James’s Park. Wow. If you ever go to London I highly recommend going there as it is incredibly beautiful and calming. I thought it was a fantastic park with huge trees, a small body of water, and a path all around. Also, from either side of it you could see beautiful London architecture. After we walked around this beautiful park, we decided to go find Westminster Abbey. (For those of you who are curious, but feel too embarrassed to ask, an Abbey is a group of buildings used as a place of worship and for religious activities as well as to house nuns and monks – and yes, I googled it too). It was very impressive, but unfortunately it was difficult to get any good pictures of it because there were a lot of climate protesters in the way so we had to make due. After that we tried to get a look at Big Ben, but he was all covered up due to construction and we could only see one side of the clock face. It was still impressive to note how giant it is and we could imagine its beauty. After that, we went to take a little ride on the London Eye (I recommend it if you haven’t done it before, but once you go on it once you don’t really need to go on it again as it is expensive and takes 30-45 mins to complete the trip), but we had fun on there and we could see the views even though there was a lot of rain on the “pod”. After that we figured that we needed some food in our system so we wandered and found a little restaurant where I had the biggest Yorkshire pudding I have ever seen. It was the same size as my hand! After dinner we walked a few feet and saw one side of the Globe theatre which is famous for Shakespeare’s plays. We didn’t get to see a play, but we saw the magnificence of the outside and I was happy with that. Next, we walked across the Millennium Bridge because as I mentioned before, A is a huge Harry Potter fan and the Millennium Bridge appears in one of the movies, only to be destroyed, but that’s not the point. It was a very impressive pedestrian bridge and we enjoyed seeing it at night and in the rain (and no death eaters, thank goodness!) After we made our way across the bridge we found the Leadenhall Market, which is a very unique and cool looking grouping of pubs and stores in the heart of London. As we were leaving there, we walked past some buildings that A was quite taken with, particularly the Lloyd’s building (unfortunately it isn’t very exciting what they do inside – insurance). Finally, as the rain poured on us we finally started to make our way back to our hostel by taking a walk over the Tower Bridge. It is quite breathtaking at night when it is all lit up and the rain coming down. I found it amazing to look at. Also, we got to see the Tower of London which was beautiful at night too. So you can see how we walked so much in one day, and poor A’s ankles were not happy after that and he also developed a cold.
Our second full day was A’s birthday and we had a tour set up to go to the Warner Brother studios to tour the sets of Harry Potter. It was an amazing tour and well worth the money. I loved seeing how happy A was getting to wander around in his element and explain to me what different things were as well as getting to learn a thing or two about the films. Also, because it was his birthday he got to help open the doors to the Great Hall and his face was so happy. We got a chance to taste butter beer, and it wasn’t actually terrible (our friends had said it was gross and sweet), while it is very sweet, it actually tasted a lot like a root beer float. At the end of the tour we got to wander through the gigantic gift shop and A got to buy himself a birthday present – the Elder wand. It is actually very cool, but came in quite a big box, so wish us luck when the time comes to pack that thing away. After our 4.5 hour tour, we got to make our way back to London and get ready for our evening at a magical bar called The Cauldron. But we arrived too early for our reservation, so we went down the street to another pub that had a host of different board games (it was called Loading Dalston and I wish that we had had more time to stay there as it was a lot of fun and the staff was incredibly friendly and knowledgeable about all different games). We had fun there until our time to go and head back to The Cauldron. Oh my gosh, if you are into anything magical (similar to Harry Potter, but due to copyright they aren’t allowed to say that) I highly recommend going to this pub. The staff are all fully committed to their characters and actually seem to enjoy themselves, and the actual drinks were great! It was a lot of fun getting to mix our own drinks that came in various viles and jars.
On our last day in London, we tried to make our way to the Sky Gardens because we had read it is incredible to get to go up there and it is free! So we walked for an hour to get over there and go up for the drop in time, we even checked the website to make sure we had the times right and everything, but apparently there was a big party up there so no one was allowed up. It was extremely disappointing because it was our last chance to go up there and the lady at the door was very dismissive. We even checked the website to see if it said it was fully booked with a party or anything and it made no mention. So needless to say that was a bit disappointing… But we managed to pick ourselves up and go traveling around to different places to kill time in London. Then we went a bit north to meet my friend up for dinner and we had a very nice visit with her (and she spoiled us rotten!)
So that was our trip to London, I’m glad that we went, but with A’s ankles hurting and him getting sick, it was a relief to get home where we could just rest.
gentleraindrops 