One of the best things about being in Europe is the ease of traveling. So, not wanting to sit in Florence for my birthday, my friend Afsheen and I hopped across the continent to London! Traveling is partly so easy because of cheap flights. The cheapest being Ryanair. And the best part of cheap flights? Cheap service. Apparently Ryanair is notorious for running late and messing things up, but hey, they're convenient for college students. After several delays and an incredibly long taxi time, Afsheen and I took off from Italy at the stroke of midnight. So in an essence, I took off into my twenties! So philosophical, right? I still have to get used to this whole twenties thing. It doesn't feel natural to say it yet.
After some more cheap traveling we finally arrived at the place we stayed around 3:30 in the morning. We got situated and settled in, and by that time the sun was rising. Logically, if the sun is rising, you should not go to bed. So naturally we didn't. We opted to go for a walk instead. I don't know about you, but I find early morning to be one of the best times of day. There is nobody out and the world is quiet and peaceful. Add a sunrise and a dewey London morning to the equation, and you have near perfection. On our walk we saw the london eye, big Ben, parliament, Westminster abbey, and London bridge. Basically, almost everything that was on my list of things I wanted to see. And it wasn't even six in the morning yet!
Later we saw the changing of the guards at buckingham palace. That was the last thing on my list. I don't know if it was just because it was a Saturday or if it is always like this, but outside of the palace was packed! I'm telling you, tourists are crazy! Why does everyone want to see the same things? Jeeze. Because of all the people and my apparent lack of height compared to a large portion of adults, it was rather difficult to see the ceremony. So lesson learned, I need to go back and get to the palace about an hour early to get a good spot or bring a trampoline.
Since my list of tourist things to do was quite short, I got to experience a typical lazy London afternoon of window shopping, tube riding, and hopping from restaurant to restaurant to get different types of foods. I must say though, the highlight of my weekend might have been the crumpet I had for breakfast. I mean a crumpet in London, can't get much better than that. It's not even like crumpets are anything special, in fact many londonians don't even eat them, but it's just really fun to say I've eaten a crumpet in London.
Realizing that this is my last week on Florence, the pressure is now on to do all the tourist things here that I have yet to do. I finally saw the duomo yesterday. I've walked by it a million times, but have never stopped to walk in or climb the cupola. The view from up there is breathtaking. I feel like i have an obsession with climbing tall buildings now. But since I've climbed all the important things on florence, i just have to be content with seeing other tourist stuff now. Next on the list is the Medici chapel, and of course shopping. Then Thursday is the uffizi gallery. Apparently homework is not the only thing i procrastinate. And yes, I am writing this blog in order to avoid the research paper I have due on Thursday.
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