Team No Sleep: London!

10) Personal Excursion 
Blog #4

This past weekend a group of us traveled to London, United Kingdom for a quick little get away! This was the first trip that I had ever pretty much fully planned without the help of a travel agent or my parents. A group of us girls set everything up including busses, trains, flights, taxis, hostels and bought tickets ahead of time for things like the London Eye and a night river cruise. All the hard work paid off and we had a pretty smooth trip! We finished up with class around 1:00 pm on Friday and were at the train station ready to leave for Prague by 3:45. It's always a little stressful when you can't read the boards telling you which platform your train is coming to because it is in Czech but we managed to get on the right train! 

When we arrived in Prague we got a taxi to the airport. They tried to charge us way too much but after watching my dad in these kinds of situations, I have learned that most of the time you can get things for a lot cheaper. We ended up getting the price down a lot and saving some money! We got to the airport and took off for the London Stansted airport. 

Since we weren't arriving until around 12:45 am at the airport, we decided that it wouldn't be worth it to get a hostel before we caught our bus into London at 5:30 am. So we planned on sleeping in the airport. Of course all the seats were taken so we literally attempted to sleep on cold tile in the bag drop off area in front of an airline check-in area. All part of the experience right!? 

We left the airport really early for a bus ride into town. Ryanair, the airline we flew with, only flies into this airport which is about an hour and a half outside of the city. We arrived at the Victoria train station in downtown London at around 7:00 am. We wanted to find our hostel so we could drop off our bookbags before we started our day. We bought an all day tube pass to get us around and when we found our hostel way on the outskirts of town, nobody was there. We knocked on the door several times and didn't hear anything. It looked more like a pub than a hostel so we decided we wanted to find something else. We went back to the train station where a nice person helped us book a 4-star hotel not too far away. We had to pay quite a bit more but it was definitely worth it! 

After that minor setback we were finally able to start our day in London! We were all pretty exhausted but so excited to be experiencing such a beautiful city. We started out not really knowing where we were going, but made our first stop at the London and Tower's Bridge. It was a pretty cloudy/foggy morning but the view was still amazing! 

We knew we wanted to start making our way to the main attractions but we didn't quite know how to get there. We ended up seeing the top of the London Eye from pretty far away so we just followed it all the way there. We stopped on the way, however, to enjoy a Fish and Chips meal. I can definitely tell why everyone says you HAVE to try it there. It was so good!

After walking several miles and getting lost a few times we made it to the London Eye and Big Ben area. It was pretty crowded but we got some good pictures and admired the view from several different locations. We then got our tickets for the London Eye that we had purchased in advance which saved us about an hour in line AND they were cheaper! That's a win win if you ask me.

Our View from the top of the London Eye!

Before our river cruise we had some free time to explore. By this point we were borderline delirious from being so tired but we kept going and went on to see The Buckingham Palace and walked through some beautiful gardens and parks. I had never seen such pretty flowers!

Our view of Buckingham Palace from St. James Royal Park!

Had to take a picture in the telephone booth.

The night river cruise ended up being much more than I expected. They took us in a boat along the river and pointed out some of the top attractions and the history behind them. It was too cold to sit up top but we enjoyed the view from the warm comfy seats inside the boat. It was like a different city at night, everything was lit up and absolutely breathtaking!

After the the cruise we all agreed it was time for some much needed sleep. We made our way back to our hotel and after walking 14 miles in one day, we could finally relax! The hotel was one of the nicest I had ever been in. We definitely treated ourselves to that one. 

The next morning we woke up early to start our day because we only had until 2:00 pm in London before we had to catch our bus back to the airport. We knew we couldn't fit much into our schedule for the day so we decided to go to King's Crossing train station where the Harry Potter 9 3/4 platform was located and get a big lunch before our journey back. We got to the train station at a good time and only had to wait in line for 30 minutes to take a picture. Usually it is at least double the time! We then made our way back to the Victoria station and ate at a cute little cafe before getting on our bus. Then we were off for our trip back to Olomouc where again it seemed like we went on every form of transportation possible (bus, airplane, taxi, train) getting us back in the middle of the night. 

Off to Hogwarts!

Reminiscing on the trip today I learned a lot during this experience. It's important to have a plan and to know all the places you want to cover. We kind of went in with a 'go with the flow' mentality and although we covered a lot of stuff I think we could have made better use of some of our time. We got lost several times but I learned that is is ok to walk up to random people and ask how to get to the nearest underground tube station. I am now more confident in my travels. I feel more comfortable planning trips and being able to navigate around in a big city. I also learned that it would take about two weeks to cover all that London has to offer. Since we were only there for a day and a half it looks like I will have to go back someday! :)

Spring break starts tomorrow and I will be traveling to Austria, Italy and Spain for two weeks! I am really getting used to living out of a suitcase! :)