Harry Potter's Home.

Our next trip after Morocco was to London during our first spring break! To get there, we took a 5 euro flight to Alicante, a little town in the northern coast of Spain, and spent our 8 hour layover on the beach there in our winter London clothes and bearing all of our luggage. It was really fun! I got to sleep on the beach and eat some Subway and gelato, so I was happy.

On the Alicante beach:


A flight, 2 buses, and a taxi later, we arrived to our hostel in London, which was the most interesting hostel of them all by far. I wish I had taken a picture of the room we stayed in. It was like a long blue hallway with bunked beds lined up against both walls. The beds were like little capsules with blue curtains to pull to separate yourself from the 16 other people staying in the room with you- including boys and girls. Upon our arrival to the room at 3am in the morning, my one question to Kellsey was, "How do we feel about the large German man watching me put sheets on my bed?" Her response was, "Not good." However, as strange as it sounds, it was actually not that bad. The hostel was really good about enforcing a low noise level, most of the people were nice, and large German man had a girlfriend with him, so all was well.

After getting all of our pounds together and preparing for the day, we went to the train station to buy "tube" passes. London is so big that you have to use the tube aka metro to get around or you won't be able to see everything. The tube is also very confusing and large, but thankfully Kellsey was an excellent navigator. Our first stop was to the famous Camden town market! We spent way to much time there because a) it's huge, and b) it has really cute stuff. Aside from all of the cool stuff it had, my two fondest memories of the market include the delicious falafel I ate there, and when I had to pay almost $1 to use the bathroom. That's London for ya!

Falafel from the Funky Falafel:


After going to the market, we walked around and saw a lot of the famous places in London like Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Big Ben, The Parliament Buildings, and China-town. On the way, we spotted many red double-decker busses and old red telephone booths. I also discovered that the McDonald's had a Cadbury Egg flavored McFlurry. More on that later.

Trafalgar Square:


421 girls with Big Ben:


Prepared with our umbrellas for London rain:



After hitting up the grocery store and finding beloved peanut butter (Spain is severely behind in that peanut butter is hard to find and expensive when you do find it...so basically we had all been deprived for months), we went back to the hostel to make dinner. We used the kitchen there, made pasta and packed our PB&Js for the next day. In the kitchen, we met a really nice guy from Sevilla , and he had some friends with him from the Spain, the Netherlands and Italy. It was cool to have a lot of different languages going on at one time.

That night we visited platform 9 3/4, although I don't think it is the exact one from the movie...it's just a tourist spot. Anyway, we put our pride aside and played some pretend quidditch in the train station while waiting in line to take our picture with the sign.



The next day we walked on the London bridge, went to Buckingham palace, toured the Tower of London, and got to go to Hillsong London church!! I wasn't very impressed with Buckingham...it was a lot smaller than I thought and you can't really taunt the guards because they are behind the gates. The Tower of London was awesome. It used to serve as a residence to the royals and a place where they held and tortured prisoners, and now it holds the Crown Jewels. I could write an entire blog post just about that place! After the touring the Tower of London and seeing how all of the prisoners used to be tortured, we decided to go to church! Hillsong London takes place in Dominion theatre and the atmosphere is awesome. It was so nice to take a break from the hustle and bustle of traveling and spend some time in the presence of the Lord. After that, we ate some fish and chips and mushy peas, and then I got to try the Cadbury Egg McFlurry!! That needs to come to the States ASAP.

Tower of London:


The next day was our "tour cathedrals and more famous places" day. First we went in St. Paul's Cathedral, the 2nd largest cathedral in the world! It is very immaculate inside and I liked that the ceilings were sparkly. We went downstairs and saw the crypt, and also climbed the seemingly million stairs to get to the top of it. The view from there was incredible and worth the work out.

St. Paul's:


From top of St. Paul's:


It's Windy Up There:


Then we went in Westminster Abbey and saw some famous dead people, and Tate Modern to see Claude Monet's water lilies painting and also some Andy Warhol paintings. (love him) We also walked on Millennium bridge and saw the Globe Theatre. Then, Alyssa and I got to ride the LONDON EYE, the big ferris wheel!! The views were amazing because we could see almost all of London. After this day we were all pooped, so we stopped for a coffee break and then went to see the show Wicked at the Apollo Victoria!

Westminster Abbey:


London Eye:


View from the capsule of the London Eye:


I had never seen Wicked before, but I loved it. It was a brand new cast that night and they did fantastic. Rachel Tucker played Elphaba and she gave me goosebumps as she sang some of her solos.

Congrats if you made it to the end of this. Sorry for the novel. Also, the British accents were awesome and the English was nice because I could understand everything that was happening around me. I really loved London and want to go back! Also, I am obsessed with Big Ben. That's all. :)