London

What can I say about London? Words can barely describe it, it is beautiful, seeping with history, and it is somewhere I have always wanted to explore. It was a long day Friday; we left Swansea by bus, and a double decker one at that, at 4:30 in the morning, got as much sleep as we could on a bus, and arrived by 9:30.

Some key things, I think, that made my trip was that I went with just one of my friends, it was supposed to be two but one of my friends got sick :(, so we were able to get places quickly and do what we wanted to do. With a small group of people, it is easy to be spontaneous. We both had a couple of things that we had to do, and the rest of the time we could play around with. Honestly, if we had set up an itinerary for ourselves and planned it out by hour, we would have gotten more done, maybe seen some more stuff, but it would not have been as fun. There were some times where we decided to walk instead of take the tube, and it took a long time but were it not for the walking, I would not have seen Hyde Park and I would not have walked along the Thames and seen the smaller monuments that I did not know existed. Hyde Park took us a 1/2 hour to get through, and when we walked along the Thames, we were walking from Westminster Abbey to the Tower of London, and that took us 1 1/2 to 2 hours, but since we were so relaxed about it we got to take great pictures, enjoy the day, and see things like St. Paul's Cathedral and Cleopatra's Needle.

We did finally make it to the Tower of London, and it was the one big thing we did that day, and it was absolutely amazing. The history in the Tower is so diverse it's hard to believe that all of these different events happened in the same place. We saw where old rulers lived, where others were kept prisoner, and where some were tortured. We saw the ravens, the museums, and, of course, the Crown Jewels. The building that holds the Crown Jewels holds more money than I will see in my entire life. There is so much gold and diamond. You see the Crown Jewels as well as other beautiful pieces, such as a platter that has the Last Supper carved into it, and the biggest gold punch bowl that I have seen in my life. This punch bowl was gigantic, and it was all carved, and even had some unicorns carved into it. The whole thing was magnificent and beautiful;breathtaking. However, that was not the best thing at the Tower of London that day,

It has been 100 years, this year, since the start of WWI, so the Tower of London put out over 888,000 poppies in the moats of the Tower to remember the fallen. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have seen, and while we were there, there were still volunteers in the moats placing the clay flowers, it was truly beautiful.

After we finished the Tower of London, we went and got something to eat, and I had a really great Cookies and Cream Cupcake. Of course at this time it was dinner time, so we had dessert first. For dinner we went back to that Turkish restaurant in Notting Hill that we went to the first night, called Fez Mangal, and the food was just as great as we remembered it being.

The next day we woke up early and headed over to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guard, which was a really cool thing to witness especially because there were at least 1,000 other people there watching it as well. After that was over, we headed over to Oxford Circus and got lunch at Chipotle, both because we had to and because I had never been there (first Chipotle experience in London, and it was amazing). Then we did some shopping. Finally, we went to the Imperial War Museum, and it was really interesting. They had a Holocaust exhibit that my friend and I spent an hour and a half in, and then we went to their WWI exhibit for a little while because we had leave. There is so much more we could have seen in the museum, but what we did see was truly amazing and very interesting. I learned a lot about the Holocaust, little things, that I had not known before and it was really nice to see an exhibit for WWI because I feel that it is skipped over so many times. They even had trenches set up that we could walk through, and so it was easier to try to put myself into the mindset and the terror of that war.

However, we had to go because we went on a Jack the Ripper tour. Now, Jack the Ripper is not interesting to everyone, and I honestly would not have done it if it wasn't on my friend's bucket list, but it did turn out to be one of my favorite parts of my time in London. First, the story and the real history behind what has become a legend was fascinating, and it was an experience to be in the place in which these crimes were committed. Also, I never would have seen the East End of London if I had not done this tour. The East End is a marvel. Many of the buildings there are 150 years old, so much of the East End looks as it did during the time of Jack the Ripper, in the 1880s, at the turn of the century. It was like stepping into history which is such an amazing thing. Also, sometimes, in the same setting there would be an 150 year old brick building and a steel skyscraper off in the distance. Through the East End, you can almost see the evolution of technology, and the changing of a people over time. The East End is also different from the center of London, it has its own feel to it; its own ambiance, and I am very glad that I was able to walk through it and take it all in while learning about one of the greatest crime legends in history.

Finally, after we finished that, we met up with some people we knew and we went out, and we had a blast, we ended London off with a bang, because you can only experience a night out in London once when you don't live there, so we made the most of it, and had a lot of fun.

I am still going to so many other amazing places, like Paris, and Amsterdam, and Dublin, but I honestly don't know if they can top London. London is a one of a kind place with so many diverse parts, and I am glad that I was able to see many of these parts just because my friend and I planned it out the way we did; some bucket list items, and a flexible schedule. It was a lot of fun, it wasn't at all stressful, and it's something that I will cherish for the rest of my life.

Now, after this essay of a blog, I will end here, and write again next weekend, when I get home from Amsterdam.

Adios!