For my first trip abroad, I decided to go London! Even though I had only been in Barcelona for two weeks, my roommates and I were craving a visit to an English speaking country, so London was the perfect fit. We arrived in London late Thursday night and our Airbnb was located right above Kennedy’s Fish ‘n Chips (a locals favorite!), so naturally that was our first stop. On Friday we spent the day being tourists and went on a double-decker bus tour around the city. Our first stop was Buckingham Palace. The detail of the palace gates and the architecture of the palace was jaw dropping. My first thought after seeing how enormous the palace is, was, “has the Royal Family even seen the entire palace yet?”. We were able to see the changing of the guards which was a pretty big ceremony.
After spending some time at my future palace, we hopped on the bus to our next destination, Kensington. We walked around the cute, quaint streets and stopped for lunch. After our lunch break we headed over to the London Eye and Big Ben. These monuments are even more breathtaking in person than they are in pictures. Of course with my luck, the London Eye was closed for maintenance, so instead we took a boat tour down the river and saw the London Bridge and Tower Bridge.
After a long day of exploring, we treated ourselves to a fancy dinner at Sushisamba, which has views that overlook all of London. On Saturday morning we headed over to Abbey Road to see the Beatles studio and famous cross walk. It was nothing like what we were expecting, but it was definitely humorous. We had assumed that the crosswalk was blocked off to traffic, but little to our knowledge, it is an exceedingly busy road. People would constantly hold up traffic to try and take a picture of themselves crossing the street and the drivers would get so annoyed and everyone honks at the tourists.
After almost getting hit by angry cab drivers, we walked over to Picadilly Circus and Oxford Street, where there is great shopping and restaurants. Apparently we did not get the memo that there was going to be a Donald Trump protest that day and we were stuck in the dead center of it, unable to move. Once we escaped the protests, we went to a delicious Thai restaurant for a late lunch/ early dinner and then hit up a few pubs later that night. Sunday morning we got breakfast at a café near our apartment and then headed to the airport for our flight back to Barcelona. All in all, it was an unforgettable trip and I will definitely be going back to London.
Sydney's Euro Tour 2017 