sydney voit le monde: londres || london

18 - 20 octobre 2012

sage, annie, alicia, and i spent a weekend in london! it was so much fun.

after class on thursday, we took the RER (train) to gare du nord, where we took the eurostar through the chunnel to london. it was a super easy trip. the ride was about 2 1/2 hours. i love trains.

when we got into london, we obviously had to make a stop at king's cross...because of platform 9 3/4. duh. we wouldn't be real harry potter fans if we didn't.

then we found our hotel. we had to navigate through the tube, which is definitely not as efficient as the paris metro (sorry all you london tube lovers, but it's the truth). we cleaned up a little bit, and went out for a night on the town!

SPECIAL SHOUT OUT : dear sage's mom. you are the most wonderful person ever for our hotel. thank you, thank you, thank you! it really means a lot to all of us! we had the best time ever and you made it all possible :)

we went to picadilly circus, where we were going to see les misérables. annie found a super good deal for tickets online before we came to london, so of course we booked the tickets asap. we had dinner at this place called "ed's diner." it had real american food. like real american hamburgers. and milkshakes.

i had a cheeseburger and a chocolate malt with extra malt. i am definitely ed hughes' granddaughter. :)

after dinner, we made our way to the queen's theater for les mis. i can't even tell you how amazing it was. we were all in the very last row of the highest balcony, but it didn't even matter. i had never seen les mis before, and didn't really know what to expect. i can honestly say that it was one of the most amazing musicals i have ever seen in my life. there were a few times when all four of us had tears in our eyes. it's not much of a surprise that my eyes were watering...haha. i am definitely carole hughes' granddaughter :)

after the play, we just stumbled upon m&ms world. I WAS SO HAPPY. because who loves m&ms?

if you guessed that it was me...then you guessed correctly. because i love m&ms. maybe a little too much. it's probably a good thing that i don't have access to peanut butter m&ms here in europe...but i sure do miss them.

"i just bought 10 pounds worth of m&ms. that could be monetary or weight. that's fun." -sage

anyway.

on friday, we got up, had breakfast, and did some sight seeing! we went to abbey road (where we just so happened to be wearing the same colors at the beatles...best accident ever!), big ben, westminster abbey, and then we went to this awesome little pub for lunch over by the national gallery. we all got fish and chips. SO GOOD. i don't normally like fish...but i make an exception for fish and chips.

this was where the pea and pepper incident took place. my life has been forever changed. (annie, sage, alicia...if you're reading this, i am laughing while typing this.)

after a super struggle with british money, we decided spur of the moment to see if there were any tickets for some other musicals available for that evening. we found a little ticket stand and found out that there were 4 seats available for wicked at a really reasonable price. so obviously we jumped on that!

we also explored the national gallery, which was super fun. after our art history classes, we were having the best time ever picking out different styles of art, recognizing other artists' influences, and just have fun enjoying the amazing collection they have.

then we wandered back over to picadilly circus, where we thought our theater was. we got dinner at a little cafe and enjoyed being dry for a while. (it was pouring outside.) when it was getting close to show time, annie decided to look up directions to the theater.

and that's when we realized : we were going to the wrong theater. there are TWO apollo theaters in london - the apollo VICTORIA and the apollo QUEENS. we wanted the apollo VICTORIA, all the way across town. we had fifteen minutes to get all the way across town. FIFTEEN MINUTES. absurd.

so we got out of our seats. we ran outside. we sprinted to the tube. we (im)patiently rode the tube to our transfer. we sprinted through that tube station. we (im)patiently rode that tube to the station we needed. we sprinted through the station to an information desk where annie asked "WHERE IS THE APOLLO VICTORIA" using her indoor voice, of course, and then we sprinted to the theater.

it was only a little bit stressful. and we made it with two minutes to spare.

so we sat, drenched in sweat and rain, and watched wicked. alicia had never seen it before, so it was really fun to see her reactions to things. also...i just really love that musical. so i was really happy :)

after our evening out with elphaba and glinda, we called it a night.

on saturday, we got up, ate some breakfast, and went to the tate museum of modern art. it was kinda weird...but i liked it. i mostly loved the bookstore because it reminded me so much of my parents. they would have loved everything there. i wish they could have seen it all.

then we wandered a little bit more and found the globe theater, a random pirate ship, the thames river, london bridge, and the tower bridge.

and then we just happened to find harrod's. i love that place. it is massive. and so expensive and so beautiful. my favorite parts were the shoes (duh), the evening gowns (we're talking gowns that were at a minimum £3,000), and of course, christmas world.

(side note : it is christmas EVERYWHERE in europe.)

after picking our luggage up from our hotel, we got fish and chips again at a little pub called the grazing goat. i thought that was kinda fun. they were the best fish and chips ever. i loved them.

when we were at the train station waiting for our eurostar, we realized we had a few extra pounds on us...so naturally we bought some candy. british chocolate = happiness. like bubble chocolate and wispas and such. and shortbread, too.

i loved going to london. even though it made me a little homesick to hear people speaking english (even though sometimes i couldn't understand them haha), it was one of the best weekends EVER. i feel like i say that about every weekend, but it's the truth! they're all just so good! and you can never go wrong with a little london town :)