I Think I'll Treat Myself To....

I wasn't sure if I was going to like London. Sometimes I like big cities but sometimes they totally overwhelm me and I've already been experiencing some amount of travel fatigue...but no fear, I loved London!

The first day we did a lot of walking around to see some of the major sites. We were staying at a hostel the first two nights and then we stayed 3 nights with friends of my aunt who were so gracious to host us.

I saw Big Ben, The London Eye, Trafalgar Square, The River Thames, Oxford Street, China Town and probably some other stuff on the first day. It was an excellent introduction to the city.

Hint: This building foreshadows future events ;)

Obligatory telephone booth pic.

We decided we were in the mood for bubble tea. Bubble tea by itself makes me happy...but we found a 2 for 1 deal at one bubble tea place which made us super happy. Everything is super pricey in London, but paying half-price for a bubble tea literally made our day. I know I've been talking about this bubble tea for a whole paragraph now, but I think it merits this much attention.

We walked to Oxford Street and paid a visit to Primark. Primark is pretty much equivalent to Forever 21 and at least as overwhelming as the Forever 21 you can find in Time Square. But I needed to buy a pair of cheap heals for our visit to The Shard, so we braved the store. 

And for another British chain experience, we went to Nandos for dinner. Nandos is definitely one of the better food chains I've been to...and by that, I mean it's actually super delicious. 

By the end of dinner we went back to the hostel and basically crashed because we had actually been up at 4.15 that morning to make the flight...so it had already been a long day.

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Our second London day was beautiful and very outdoorsy. We started the morning with the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace, and then spent the entire afternoon in Hyde Park. It was such a beautiful day, and the park is absolutely gorgeous so we decided to get some food from the grocery store and have a picnic lunch. For me...a perfect way to spend an afternoon.

While overwhelming, the crowds were, in a way, just as entertaining as the actual ceremony.

We got there early so I was able to stand close...but not quite close enough to get a good picture.

This fountain is open for children to play in. We sat with our feet in the water and watched the people for a while. It stood out to me as one of my favorite moments during my time in London.

The Peter Pan statue!

That evening we went to a Korean restaurant that Hannah really likes. One of the things I really liked about London was the variety of food available. As much as I love Italian food, living in Italy didn't provide for the same amount of variety that I'm used to. It was really nice to eat a ton of different kinds of food while I was in London. (More on that to come)

Also, I got a few lovely London At Night pictures.

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We started the third day with a trip to the British Museum. I was debating whether or not I wanted to go...I feel like I've been to so many museums and churches in the last few months that I was getting tired, but I thought it would be worth it. Surprise...it was!

Also, there are free tours throughout the day of different sections of the museum so we decided to do a guided tour on the section about Ancient China. I wouldn't say it was the most fun tour I've ever done, but it was interesting, and a nice addition to our British Museum experience.

We found this friend at the museum. Isn't he cool?

In the afternoon, we had our afternoon tea. It was great.

Just look at how adorable that is.

Later that evening, we found an outdoor festival of sorts and had pitas and beer for dinner. It was a super lovely atmosphere and we could see the London eye from where we were sitting. We also had a lovely romantic stroll along the river. It was a pretty solid evening.

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The fourth day, we had booked an art walking tour. After the street art tour in Barcelona, Hannah and I have become street art walking tour enthusiasts. No really though, they're super cool. This tour was at least as good as the Barcelona one and then we were right by Brick Lane, so naturally, we had Indian food for lunch.

This friend was painted in only 8 hours! It's hard to tell, but it's actually HUGE. At least 20 feet tall.

The question mark on that building has a story. While at first glance, it doesn't look like anything too special, it was created by a street artist and the police. Street art is often illegal, so sometimes there are people who come around and paint over street art in the brown color of the question mark. Long story short, the street artist, over the course of several days, got these people to create the shape of the question mark by writing "buff this" "and this" and "here" where they were going to paint over it. I know I didn't explain well, but if you want a better explanation, I'd be happy to talk about it for a very long time! It's so cool :)

In contrast, however, many artists in London have gotten permission to create their street art. This means they could publicly work on the piece, and didn't have to worry so much about how quickly they could make it. This particular one was created by cooling the aerosol cans so it would create more texture. 

This one is especially amazing in person. It was created by putting a layer of plaster over the bricks, and then carving back into it to create texture and a picture. It's amazing!

...and then to add more art to the day, we made a quick visit to the National Gallery in the afternoon. It was really cool to see some Van Gogh, Botticelli and my favorite da Vinci piece, Madonna of the Rocks. I think what I like most about art museums is seeing artists and pieces that I recognize, and I almost have enough art history to recognize stuff! There were a fair number of pieces and artists that I knew though, so that was cool.

Then we went back to China Town for dinner, and bought West End theatre tickets on a whim. We saw The Pajama Games which was a lot of fun, and made for an excellent evening.

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Our final day in London was Camden Market day. I'm a huge fan of outdoor markets, and there are a lot of great food stands there. We had Turkish food and a crepe for lunch. Yum!

Then we revisited Buckingham Palace because we learned that the guards can choose to walk back and forth 15 paces whenever they get tired of standing still, so we thought it would be a fun game to go see when they got tired. We were right, it was a fun game. 

We also made a quick trip to the Victoria and Albert Museum. We were pretty proud of our frequency of museum visits this trip. There was a really cool theatre exhibit there, and we made a quick stop to see some Raphael paintings. Definitely worth the visit. 

Then...our big moment that we had been building up to: our final evening. We went to The Shard, that gigantic building, for a fancy cocktail, and then to The Globe to see Titus Andronicus. It was so amazing, and such a fun night!

We both wished we had more time at The Shard, but it was still an amazing view from the 32 floor, delicious and overpriced cocktails, and we had gotten dressed up for the occasion so it was fun to feel fancy. 

There was a rainbow. Could it be more perfect??

Let me just say that seeing Titus Andronicus was actually the perfect end to our time in London. It was such a fun show, and so so cool to be in The Globe theatre. The performance was amazingly done and we were just so thrilled to be there.

So that's it. Five days in London, but I'll say that I would definitely like to return some day. It's a great city!

I'll Have A Pint

Hannah and I got on a really early airplane to Dublin. We've gotten pretty used to travel at random hours of the day but it's always worth it--and this was no exception.

I was impressed by how much we were able to pack into one weekend. It was actually the weekend, which didn't matter at all for me, but it did make me realize that I hadn't known the day of the week in quite a while. Wait, was it the weekend? I'm pretty sure it was...

Our hostel wasn't far from things but certainly not right in the center like it had been for London, so we had a bit of walking to do, as usual. It was a nice walk though, so we didn't mind.

Hannah really wanted to go to a museum about Medieval life in Dublin, and even though it was touristy and definitely not something I would have picked on my own, we had a lot of fun. Also, we got to go into the Cathedral and climb the Bell Tower with the ticket so I'd definitely say it was worth it.

We took a lot of ridiculous pictures in the museum. The rest of them are on Hannah's camera though, so we'll just have to wait until they get onto Facebook :)

The view from the Bell Tower. 

Then we decided to check out Trinity College. It's a beautiful campus and definitely a famous one. It was interesting that a college campus is the destination of so many tourists though. I'm not sure how I would feel about going to school in a place that was constantly filled with tourists. 

The Oscar Wilde memorial was also really cool. Usually memorials are plain and boring, but this one was well executed and super interesting. There were a bunch of quotes and it was also in a nice park, which we walked around for a while.

For dinner, we went to this here pub. I had Irish stew. It wasn't the best Irish stew, but it was still super tasty and a fun meal. 

I really like water, so pictures with rivers are a common theme...

And obviously we had to have an Irish coffee. Super tasty and a perfect dessert after dinner.

The rest of the night, we just walked around and poked our heads into different pubs that were playing live music. Unfortunately, I wasn't feeling super energetic and wasn't in the mood for a wild night, but it was nice to get the atmosphere and explore Dublin a little bit.

And another river picture...

And this friend.

The next morning, we made a visit to an old jail. We went on a guided tour and learned about the Irish War of Independence and what conditions were like at the jail. It was extremely interesting and a well done tour. This jail is also used to film a number of popular films so that was also interesting.

Whoever had this cell had a sense of humor...

And no (touristy) trip to Dublin would be complete without a visit to Guinness. It was another touristy experience but also well done and it was super entertaining. 

There's also great views from the bar at the very top so that was a bonus. 

Beautiful.

That night we went on a literary pub crawl. This wasn't your usual pub crawl. The object wasn't to get super drunk, but rather to visit some pubs in Dublin that have literary significance. We did, of course, have a few beers along the way, but the main purpose was to see some more of Dublin and learn about some of its rich literary history.

The event was lead by 3 actors who performed scenes from various plays along the way. It was a lot of fun and a perfect way to end our time in Dublin. 

The next morning(ish) we had to get up at 4.15 to get on our next flight to London for the next adventure. More on that to come :)

Amsterdam

To be honest, it's a little bit strange to be blogging from outside of the context of my IES program in Italy, but I do want to see the blog through to the end of my Europe adventures. It's been a really good way to keep track of the things that I've done, and gives me an excuse to look through my pictures to pick out some of my favorites.

So...Amsterdam. I had two days to chill in Brussels before meeting up with Hannah in Amsterdam. I literally did nothing and it was glorious and entirely necessary. Monday morning, I had to get up super early to hop on the bus to Amsterdam. Hannah turned out to be on the same bus, coming from London, which was super perfect, so we didn't have to worry about finding each other once we got there.

When we arrived in Amsterdam, we wandered around for a while, generally looking for the hostel but not too worried about getting there as fast as possible. I was a little concerned about what kind of hostel we would find; the ratings weren't fabulous and we were staying in a dorm with 14 beds but it turned out to be totally fine, and in a really central location that was perfect for all of the adventures.

Our first priority was food. We found pancakes. They were awesome.

That afternoon, we walked around and snapped some photos of the area. Amsterdam really is beautiful, and very different from the other cities that I've visited.

In the afternoon, we went to the House of Bols, which was a "museum" about Bols, a kind of liquor created by Mr. Bols in Amsterdam. It was interesting, and we got a chance to smell a ton of flavors and try to guess what they were...neither of us were very good at it.

At the end, we got to sample a drink and a few flavors of the many many kinds of liquor.

The white one was a yogurt flavored liquor. We didn't like it very much but it was fun to try.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around and just enjoying how interesting the city is. 

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Tuesday morning we started out bright and early with the Anne Frank museum. While it wasn't the most cheerful start to the day, it was extremely interesting and definitely not something I would want to miss.

Afterwards, we did more walking around. I guess what our Amsterdam time boiled down to was a lot of wandering around, but I really think I got an interesting view of the culture of the city. We saw the red light district, both during day and at night and met interesting people at the hostel, with interesting perspectives on the city of Amsterdam. 

I think I got a good taste of what it is like there, and while there is a lot about the city that is maybe not so bright and shiny, I really liked the city.