February 22nd, 2015: London, England

Anne, Chiara, and I enjoying London

This past weekend was exciting! Two of my roommates and I went to London over the weekend. It was perfect timing because one of my aunts was on a business trip in London and she invited us to stay with her for the time we were there. I have been feeling a little homesick the past week, but this definitely helped. I did not get to go home for any of the past breaks so this was the first time seeing family since August. It is also the first time we’ve been able to sleep in a nice hotel. We’ve been frugal with our money in order to afford traveling, so we’ve been staying in hostels. I think the three of us were the most excited about being able to take long showers since the last couple of weeks our showers have been short due to our small water heater.

Big Ben

While in London we saw Buckingham Palace, The Eye, Big Ben, a variety of parks, The Shard, Tower Bridge, and Platform 9 ¾ . The great thing about London is the Tube, which is their subway system, this made it easy for us to get around fast enough to see all of London. The city was filled with people and we saw a lot of familiar restaurants and stores. In London we got to do something that we missed doing while in the States: we went to go see a movie and we ate some Chipotle. Unfortunately, Chipotle did not taste as well as we thought it would. I guess compared to all of the amazing Italian food we have been eating Chipotle just didn’t compare. Watching a movie in London was an experience. Compared to movie theaters in the States, in London they had assigned seating and different balcony seating sold for different prices. The higher up the balcony the more expensive the ticket got. Also in the movie theaters not only do they have a concession stand outside of the theater, but there are also employees walking around selling snacks inside the movie theater.

Things that I have learned this week:
1. London is expensive
2. Movie theater experience in London is very different
3. London is a very busy city
4. London’s subway system is easy to navigate and very useful
5. People in London are very nice