weekend in london

i spent this past weekend in london. because we had an itialian rationalism final friday afternoon, catherine and i couldn’t leave until saturday morning, and we met michael and nate, who had flown out the day before. they’re landscape architect majors, so we told them to fit in all of the parks they wanted to see before we got there ;)



the boys were pretty impressed that catherine and i figured out the train from stansted airport to liverpool street and the tube without one mistake! we checked into our hostel and dropped our bags off, and then took the tube to go on ‘the eye’ before it got too dark. when we got off at our stop, we were walking out, looking for a snack, and i spotted a krispy kreme doughnut stand. it was glorious. we all got so excited that we ordered a dozen doughnuts to share. not wanting to have to carry the box around all day, we seriously each ate three doughnuts in about ten minutes.

we had preordered tickets for the eye so we picked them up and got in line. the eye is a giant, glass ferris wheel. it moves really slowly and takes about a half hour to go all the way around. you can get some great views of the city during the ‘flight’ as they call it. it was designed ten years ago and paid for by british airways. it was supposed to be a temporary exhibit, but it’s still there. this was one of my favorite parts of the weekend, and i had been looking forward to the london trip solely to ride the eye :)

after our ride, the boys took us down westminster abbey. we saw the parliament building and big ben and Buckingham palace. we looked for prince william and harry, but didn’t see them. we had heard that the first hard rock café was in london, so keeping with tradition, we went to find it. they had a two and a half hour wait, so we chose the pub down the street instead. i had ‘bangers and mash’ which was sausage in mashed potatoes with peas and carrots. it was delicious! afterwards, we went back to russel square where out hostel was, and went to another pub. we were trying to meet up with my friend from high school who was studying there, but all of us got too tired before he made it out with his friends. we did get to watch the real madrid vs barcelona soccer game at the pub though, which was pretty exciting.

the next day, michael, catherine, and i wanted to go visit wimbledon. nate’s not really a tennis fan, so he decided to go visit some more gardens until we were done. the three of us took the metro to wimbledon, but got off at the wrong stop. we followed signs to ‘wimbledon’ but didn’t realize they were leading us to the center of the town of wimbledon, not the tennis courts. so we ended up circling through the whole town before ending up at the stadium, which was the first stop on the metro that we had skipped. we visited the museum which was really cool and interactive, and then we could walk through this glass tunnel to see center court. that was sweet and i would love to go see wimbledon some day! (now i know how to get there.)

we had all talked about going to see a show while we were in london, and i found the place where they sell discounted ticktets, so we went to see if there was anything left. since it was sunday, there were only about five plays going on, and our top choice, lion king, was already sold out. the choices came down to ‘legally blonde’ or ‘stomp’. knowing we were with boys, i figured we would go see stomp, and i was pretty excited, but then michael shocked all of us when he said he really wanted to see legally blonde! nate passed on this too, and probably went to see more gardens. catherine, michael, and i bought tickets for the show that started in less than an hour and walked to savoy theater. our seats were really good for buying them same day- we were in the front row of the first balcony! the show was really good, exactly like the movie with really great, funny songs.

after the play, we raced to try to meet nate. he told us to meet him at london bridge, which was perfect because we got to pass tate modern, the shakespeare globe theater, and some really cool, modern architecture. unfortunately we missed the london bridge (which is not at all impressive) and walked all the way to the tower bridge (which is a lot more memorable). we didn’t realize this until we couldn’t find nate at the bridge, and had to turn around and walk about half way back. nate was a little upset when we finally found him; it was getting chilly and he had to sit outside and wait forty five minutes for us to figure out where the london bridge was. oops.

we bought him a beer at dinner to make up for it, though, so everything’s okay. we went to another pub for dinner, and i had steak and ale pie which was delicious! we had a few drinks and then headed back to our hostel. we had to leave at six thirty the next morning to make it back to the airport, so we went to bed pretty early.

our flight was on time out of stansted, and we made it back to genoa airport a little before one, with the one hour time change. we took the airport shuttle and bus back to the villa, and had some lunch before having studio. london is one of my favorite cities i’ve visited. it reminded me a lot of new york city, with a touch of harry potter. i’m really glad i got to go while i was over here. i can’t believe i’ll be back in america in sixteen days!