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London Day 1
Well, it was Saturday, March 23rd and it was time for another adventure. Sarah and I woke up at 3:45am to be ready for our cab which was coming at 4:30am to take us to the airport to catch our 6:15 flight into London. I only managed to get about 3 hours of sleep that night and needless to say, I was already exhausted when I started the day.
Luckily though, getting to the airport and flying to London went nice and smooth. When we arrived at London Stansted Airport, we eventually found our way to the train where we spoke to a helpful information desk worker, bought our train tickets to and from Stansted to London, and hopped on the train into the London city center. The train took about an hour so it was a nice opportunity for a little nap, and when we arrived at Liverpool Street we bought our Oyster cards and wandered through Liverpool Street Station until we eventually began to figure out the Underground or "tube".
The tube was so crowded and I was hoping it wouldn't always be like that, but for the most part it was since it's one of the cheapest, quickest, and most efficient ways to get around London.
We arrived at Queensway Station and walked about 10 minutes to the hotel that some of our other international friends from Jordanstown were staying at for the weekend (it was a complete coincidence that we all booked tickets to London on the same weekend). It worked out nicely though because Sarah and I were able to get ready and leave our backpacks at their hotel for the day until we returned later on to check into our hostel.
The first place we all visited together was Portobello Market. I had never heard of it, but I figured it would be somewhat similar to St. George's Market, but it really wasn't. It was so much bigger and more impressive. There must've been hundreds of vendors lining street after street with their jewelry, t-shirts, food and antiques. I was in awe of the magnitude of this market. The colorful houses lining the streets were a beautiful backdrop for the market as well. I ended up trying some kind of Vietnamese pita-like sandwich and it was actually very good.
One thing that we learned very quickly was that many places in London don't accept bank of Ireland notes (bills) even though they are still pounds. That was a bit of an annoyance since pretty much all of us had taken out cash in Northern Ireland before heading to London and most of the notes said Bank of Ireland on them.
After spending a while walking around the market, we decided to hop on the tube and head towards Oxford Street to do some window shopping. On our walk to Oxford Street we stopped by the Sherlock Holmes Museum (221B Baker Street), but the line was very long and you needed to pay to get in so we settled for a couple pictures of the outside and decided to move on.
Oxford Street was nothing like I thought it would be honestly. I assumed it would be a surplus of stores lining the street, and while that may have been the case, the stores were disguised by the most beautiful, historic-looking buildings. Block after block, the buildings seemed to get more and more beautiful.
We then made our way to Carnaby Street which was another cute little shopping area with many bars and restaurants. We went into a shop or two and then ate some lunch before hopping back on the tube to the main area of London which was home to landmarks such as Big Ben, the London Eye, and Westminster Abbey.
Unfortunately for us, there was a large Brexit demonstration happening in this area, so it was very crowded and Sarah and I couldn't quite enjoy the sites as much as we would've liked to, so we decided we would return to this area the following day. Down by Westminster Abbey it wasn't quite as crowded though, so I was able to take some decent pictures of the beautiful architecture there.
That's another thing that I noticed quickly about London: The architecture. There is a wonderful mix of old and modern architecture and somehow it blends so seamlessly together which I feel is one of the many charming things about this city.
We then took the tube once again and walked a bit towards Millennium Bridge. We were lucky enough to reach it right around sunset. Sarah and I got our first glimpse of the London Tower Bridge from there. On the other side of the bridge was a large art museum called Tate which was free to walk around in. (Another nice thing about London, many of the museums are free!) As sad as it is to admit, we went into Tate only to escape the cold, charge our phones a bit, and take a quick power nap. If I had had more energy and hadn't been up since 3:30am, I would've loved to walk around and view the museum's exhibits, but by this point in the day I was running on fumes and was struggling to even stay on my feet so I took this opportunity to relax and recuperate as much as possible.
It was about time for dinner after we sat for a while in Tate, so we started walking to find a place to eat. On our way we passed a nice viewing point for the Tower Bridge which was lit up in the night. It was surreal to see such an iconic piece of history in front of my eyes (or maybe nothing felt real anymore because of how exhausted I was). We finally found a place to eat called Vapiano. I had never heard of it, but apparently it's popular in Europe. It's a very good Italian restaurant where you are handed a card when you walk in and you can go up to the counter and order whatever you'd like, they make it in front of you, you charge everything on the card and when you are finished you pay whatever you charged on the card. I was impressed with how delicious it actually was.
By the end of dinner, I had reached my max level of exhaustion and needed to head back to the hostel. Everyone else wanted to go to a pub (because they had already been there two days and weren't running on 3 hours of sleep), but luckily Sarah was on the same page as me and was ready to head back.
We stopped by their hotel to grab our belongings and then walked about 10 minutes to our hostel. The hostel wasn't so bad, the only downside was that our room was on the 5th floor and there was no elevator, only very steep, tiring stairs. We were in disbelief the first time we climbed them. It also didn't help that I was beginning to get sick again.
Even though it was an extremely exhausting day, it was a really good first day in London.
