For our winter break from school we had one week off, and we decided to spend it touring the UK and Ireland. Our first stop was London. Now, I have actually been to London once before, about 6 years ago now, can you believe it's been that long?! But I liked it even better the second time around!!!
On the Friday when we arrived we had a hard time finding the apartment we were renting.. which took up most of the morning. We spent the afternoon exploring a few neighborhoods in East London nearby where we were staying: Angel and Islington. The areas house a ton of little cafes, independent shops, designers and those kind of lifestyle stores where they sell a little bit of everything. It was a nice way to start of our travels because we were just laid back and took our time with everything not rushing about from attraction to attraction. We saved that all up for Saturday when we boarded a double decker bus and did a hop-on-off tour hitting all the major attractions like Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and English Parliament, Buckingham Palace, London Bridge and even the recreation of The Globe Theater where Shakespeare's play's used to be performed.
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| in front of the palace |
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| Imitating the Royal Guard..you used to be able to walk right up to him. |
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| The Globe Theater |
The weather was FREEZING cold the entire week in all 3 cities -- we layered up. Thank goodness I bought a good scarf!!
We warmed up with high tea at the Palm Court Hotel on Park Lane, like fancy English ladies. But we also succumed to middle class pleasures like FISH AND CHIPS! yummm
Even though there was lots of traditional pub food to be found in London, it is a city full of international cuisine. We got a good recommendation from a local to check out the Vietnamese area in town and we had some "pho" which is a traditional Vietnamese soup. It was the first time I had tried it, and it was pretty good. Mind you, anything that was warm was appealing to me we were frozen solid from the wind and rain!
Our last little excursion in London was to ride the London Eye! We got some fantastic views of the city even though it was raining.
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| The View |
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| Happy Halloween! |
and last but not least... we got a little taste of the familliar when we met up with our friend Steph who is living just outside London for law school. So nice to have friends abroad!! More of you need to travel so I can keep visiting new places ahah
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| read the sign - the English have a sense of humor at least! |
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