Finally! I made it to London!
As you probably noted from my last post (If you read it), Lucas and I went to London this past weekend. It was a blast and a half. We did so many amazing, fun things.
It took us 2.5 hours to get from our plane in Gatwick to our hotel in Kings Cross, because we are apparently both incapable humans. We started out our journey, both a little sick, and getting to a hotel that seemed more like a spruced up private hostel. Our hotel was in the Kings Cross area of London. Upon check-in I realized the hotel charged for turning the tv on, use of towels, maid-services, and wifi. After I freaked out and asked if I would have to pay additionally for each of these amenities, an expensive (AKA not free) window-less room, I discovered the travel site I’d used had supplied all of these things. So, after they handed us a bag full of towels and complicated instructions for turning the water, tv, and wifi on in our room, I asked them if they were a hostel or a hotel, because I was genuinely confused if the bathrooms would be communal, as they’d handed me towels like a hostel would…
Turns out, our hotel room wasn’t as bad as it sounded. We were located just five minutes from the Kings Cross station! We even had two cute restaurants near us–Cappadocia Cafe & Bistro and The Water Rats (We ate at these Friday and Saturday, respectively.)
Friday morning, as I’ve already stated, we ate at Cappadocia. We’d looked this place up prior to our visit, because we wanted to make sure it would be open 8am. Lucas and I had both expected it to be a small little cafe, but we were completely wrong. It was a small little place, but they had full english breakfasts. So, I got the Papa’s Breakfast, and Lucas got the Gray’s Inn Breakfast.
This was a splendid breakfast, and I swear I’m still suffering from the food-induced coma that this brought on.
After this, we tried to navigate the Kings Cross St. Pancras station at 8:45 in the morning, which was a mistake because lines to buy Oyster cards were terrible and everyone was trying to go to work. Eventually, we figured it out and made it to the London Eye. We booked this in advance, so we didn’t have to wait in much of a line. However, since we were the first time slot that day and everyone else planned to get there early too, we still had to wait 20 minutes in line for the London Eye to actually open for the day.
By the time we got off, it was about 10:40 and we had planned on meeting our friends at 11:10 for the 11:30 changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. So, we walked around to the Westminster underground station to head to Greens Park, but not before taking pics with Big Ben and taking a quick peek at Westminster Abbey.
We met our friends precisely at 11:11, and after warm hugs and greetings of “I missed you!” we went on with our journey to see the changing of the guard.
After seeing this, we walked around and decided to walk to Hyde Park for Winter Wonderland!
We ended up walking all over Winter Wonderland–it was HUGE, and so much fun.
Even though it was only noon, we decided we should try the Ice Bar at Winter Wonderland. Lucas and Emily had never been to ice bars (Sydney had been to one, maybe more, in Barcelona this fall, and I had gone to one in Amsterdam on my #EuroTrip after high school.) It was a blast and a half, and freezing cold. The gloves were soggy, but the parkas were warm.
Walking outside after being in the Ice Bar made it feel like we were suddenly in the middle of summer in Texas. It felt amazing and warm, and it was such a sunny and beautiful day.
So, naturally, we walked to Harrod’s to show Lucas and Sydney what the huge department store was all about. None of us bought anything there (Because we are broke college students) but we walked all around the inside of it and “Ooh’d” and “Ahh’d” our way right back out.
After this, we headed back to the Kings Cross station to check out Platform 9 3/4, because obviously we had to. We didn’t end up waiting in the hour line to get our picture taken with the wand and scarf provided–we had places to be! But we went back later and got our pictures, don’t worry.
At this point, the sun had already set and Lucas and I were headed to get dinner and see a show! We went to Soho to grab food at Hawksmoor and see the Book of Mormon at the Prince of Wales Theatre.
That’s when disaster struck.
We were actually late to our dinner reservations, which caused me immense panic in the underground stations. And after this panic, leaving the final station to walk to Hawksmoor was a disaster with huge lines everywhere to leave. We had to swim through hundreds of people just to see what was going on. As it turns out, it wasn’t the 5 o’clock rush hour we thought we were among. Instead, the power had gone out, leaving only two functioning handicapped exits for 300 people to leave the station. But that’s okay, because we were sure it was just in the station. We were wrong.
When we finally got outside and got away from the crazy crowds, we stumbled upon Hawksmoor. It was so dark! We thought it was just the aesthetic. We were wrong.
Our reservations were at 5:30, and we got there around 5:45. Apparently, at 5:25ish, the power in the whole area had gone out. Many of the generators at most places had saved the buildings in the area, which is why we didn’t know the power had gone out (Places all over had power, except the places past Hawksmoor, which we hadn’t seen.) Initially, the hostesses at Hawksmoor told us that the power might come back at any moment. Ten minutes later, at 6 o’clock, they alerted us the earliest the generator company could get out there to fix the restaurant’s power would be 7 or 8. We had to pick up our tickets at the box office of the theatre at 7 for our show at 7:30! So, reluctantly, we left Hawksmoor to find a place to eat, with several other people now also without dinner reservations.
The lines were long. People were angry. I was stressed and hungry. We almost decided to stop and eat at a Pizza Hut.
We then found a steakhouse. It looked relatively empty and nice. I peered over a woman’s shoulder to read the menu that was on their window, and loudly exclaimed, “What! This is so expensive!!” That’s when this lovely saint in front of me turned around and saw how young and broke Lucas and I probably looked. She looked at me and smiled and pointed across the street and said, “There’s a lovely Italian place called Getti’s right there.” Bless this woman.
That’s where we ended up eating. We told the hostess there that we had a show at 7:30 to catch, and she told us we’d get in and out of there in an hour. Our dinner lasted from 6:05 until about 6:50. The service was great, and the food was even better. Getti’s was phenomenal.
We didn’t end up taking any pictures at the Prince of Wales Theatre, but I assure you it was stunning. The Book of Mormon had us both cracking up in our seats. I was a bit worried Lucas wouldn’t like seeing a musical, but even the next morning, he was still humming “Turn It Off.” We were busting laughing the entire time. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a production twice, so this was my first time seeing something performed again (I saw The Book of Mormon in Dallas 4 years ago.) It was so amazing. Each cast brings a different light to a show, as many of you probably know. And it was exceptional. I cannot even go on to tell you how great it was. Go see it. Go see it now. I loved it. (And it was so refreshing to hear American accents only for a few hours, as weird as that sounds.)
The next day, we went to breakfast at the other place by our house (previously mentioned) called The Water Rats. Interesting name. The waitress was stressed out, but kind. And our food was great (Although nothing could beat Cappadocia!)
After stuffing ourselves full, we went to go check out Abbey Road. We had a few mishaps–including Lucas figuring out he should probably check-in to his flights back to US the next day and we had to sit outside of a train station in the bitter cold because it was the only place I could get wifi. I also led us the wrong way down Abbey Road (I just looked up the street in general, not the infamous Beatles stop.) But, we eventually found the crowds of people pausing along the (real) street to take pictures. Cars were constantly honking at people to get out of the way. Once a car passed, people would immediately hand their phone to the person next to them and walk across the street with 20 strangers just slowly walking hoping to get their picture. How people time it so they’re alone walking with 5 people without getting hit by a car is beyond me. It was hysterical.
Instead of handing off our phone to a random stranger to hopefully take a picture, only to walk across a street (with backs facing them…people put a lot of trust in the hands of strangers), we ended up just taking a selfie with the people slowly stomping across the street like lost children.
We had made plans to meet Sarah Britton and her sister at Baker and Spice on Elizabeth Street near the Victoria station, so we headed to them after this. We ended up getting there early (Like 2 hours early) and walked around the area for quite a bit, going into tourist shop after tourist shop. Eventually, we ended up walking around to the point of exhaustion (as we were carrying our weekend luggage–giant backpacks) and had to sit down and take a break for fifteen minutes.
We were near Baker and Spice (where we were to meet) and had found wifi, so we had planned on sitting there (on little stone seats that we’d decided weren’t statues, but an artistic approach to a bench) until we were to meet at 1:15. We had our backs turned to a cafe and were facing a lovely little street, hunched over with our backpacks on our laps, so we probably looked like homeless people to anyone walking by.
When we finally got off our butts to head to the cafe, we realized they’d been sitting across the street outside another cafe the entire time. So, we met up with them then and proceeded to have over a two hour lunch discussing all things of life.
These two wonderful women were absolutely hilarious, and we had a blast! I kid you not, we ended up talking about everything from politics and the British school system to family friends in Dallas. It was so much fun, and great seeing them! We had such a great time with them, and then we had to run to the airport. We made it to the airport with a whopping 10 minutes before our plane began to board–so it was pretty perfect timing.
Now, Lucas is gone and I miss him dearly. But I get to see him December 30th, which is so close in comparison to the long stretch of time I just went without seeing him. Now it’s exam time, which is very overwhelming and I’m unmotivated to study for my history classes. However, I’m having so much fun here and I can’t wait to see what will happen the next 3 weeks here before I head back to Dallas! Until next time, cheers!
an idiot aBRONd 