The perfect beginning
I SEE LONDON
This past weekend Obie and I took our first trip -of many- outside of Liverpool. We easily decided on London as our first destination.
We were so excited to leave that we arrived at the train station an hour prior to our departure on Friday evening. I now realize this isn’t really necessary like it is for flights because we already had our tickets and we didn’t need to check our luggage or go through security. (Okay just now thinking about how we didn’t have to go through security and I’m a little sketched out lol.)
I was feeling nervous because the train to London was the only train on the board that didn’t have a platform number (of course). So after sitting anxiously for about five minutes I decided to ask someone at the ticket desk (you should keep in mind at this point there was still an hour until our train was scheduled to arrive so I probably didn’t need to be in panic mode just yet.) The lady at the ticket desk informed me the train would be arriving on platform 7. Obie and I had walked past platform 7 and it looked closed, or under construction or something. I began to get a little more nervous. After asking someone else I was told that platform 7 didn’t open until 30 minutes before the arrival.
Relieved, Madison and I sat back down and waited for the train to arrive. The train ride made me a little more nauseous than I had anticipated. I knew there were things such as being carsick and seasick but I’d never heard of train sick? What do you do? Do you look out the window? It’s mostly just a fast blur of colors or darkness in this case because it was the evening. Two hours and 45 minutes later, we arrived in London.
Madison and I hustled off the train where we found ourselves crammed in a mob of people inside the train station. It was literally a madhouse. We squeezed our way through the crowds that were barely moving forward and eventually made it outside the station.
I waved at a few taxis, none of which pulled over. I looked at Madison and we wondered if I was doing something wrong. We hail taxis all the time in Liverpool, but the streets were not as wide or nearly as busy. Maybe they do things differently in London? We weren’t sure. All I knew is what I had seen in the movies. (Can you see my Kansas side coming out yet?) I tried adding a hop or two or making my hand waves a bit more dramatic. It must’ve worked or someone felt bad enough for us because eventually a taxi pulled over and drove us to our hostel.
On the ride there I was oohing and ahhing and pointing at random buildings that probably had a simple purpose, but looked so grand and elegant because they were in London.
Once we arrived the hostel I was impressed, it looked cute from the outside. And I thought to myself, maybe the cheapest hostel in all of London won’t be that bad.
*Disclaimer: Obie and I are in Europe for four months. At first that seemed like such a long time, but now I already feel like the time is slipping through my fingers. We have so many dreams and places we hope to see, which is why choosing very cheap hostels is cost efficient in helping us achieve our goal of truly seeing the world.
Our total for this hostel rang in for only 9 pounds a night. With that price, neither of us was expecting much.
I’ve heard several stories about hostels, so my bar was pretty low. Madison and I knew we weren’t going to spend much time here, so when we walked to our room and it kind of smelled oddly of turkey, we just tried to ignore it. We went to check out the bathrooms and quickly decided that we were not going to be using the showers in this hostel.
The sink had one temperature, ice cold.
Madison thoroughly checked for bed bugs and it seemed to be safe. The sheets were a bit grungy, as was the comforter, so Madison and I opted to sleep in our coats instead. We survived.
After locking up a few valuables in our lockers we tried to pick out a place to eat. It was 8 pm and we hadn’t eaten since around 3:30 so we were ravenous. I searched on my phone for areas to eat near our hostel, which quickly led me to the understanding that there wasn’t much near where we were staying except hole-in-the-wall, slightly sketchy, there’s a very good possibility you will get food poisoning here, kind of places.
We decided to make our way to the subway (which they call the tube in London) and see if we could find somewhere to eat more towards central London. We stuffed our faces and then headed off to an Ice Bar. I’m not sure what I was expecting upon arrival, but I definitely wasn’t expecting a room completely made of ice, and that’s exactly what the Ice bar was. Madison and I pondered how they possibly could’ve constructed such a place, complete with ice sculptures of gorillas, while also agreeing that being a bartender in an ice bar would be the worst job in the world.
The next day we got ready bright and early to head to our reservations at Sketch, a location Obie and I had found on Instagram and decided right away that we just had to go there. From the adorable pink room, to the funky looking egg bathroom with neon lights, we knew this would be the perfection place to start our first day in London.
Keeping in mind our reservation time and our navigational skills, we left our hostel with an hour to spare. We got on the tube and shortly after were informed that line we were planning on taking was now closed due to a train stopped on the tracks. Frantically we started searching on our phones trying to find another route that would take us to SOHO. My service is very bad and being underground didn’t make matters any better. Once my phone finally loaded and an alternate route appeared, the loud speaker announced the route we had just discovered. Of course.
Once I realized this alternate route would get us to our location with only five minutes to spare, Obie and I began to jog to the next platform. I truly felt like I was a local at this moment. Instead of standing on the escalators to the right, we were hustling up the left side.
I leaped into an over ground train that looked completely full and literally pulled Madison in as the doors were closing on her. We fell into the packed full train while several people gave us unpleasant looks. But it didn’t matter because we made it to Sketch, with exactly five minutes to spare.
After the best breakfast we’ve had since being here, we made our way to Trafalgar Square. To my displeasure, a light rain began to fall. But Obie and I literally didn’t let it rain on our parade and we danced and skipped through the square anyway. (If you don’t believe me, I’m currently editing a video of our travels and you’ll see that we actually did exactly that.)
Next we made our way to Westminster Abbey. Unfortunately, it was closed so we were unable to take a look inside. But the view from the outside was breathtaking. This was my favorite place we visited in London because it truly was magical. It looked even lovelier against the clouded skies.
So you might recall how hype I was to see Big Ben in my last post, but I hate to say that it was not as cool as I was expecting. Big Ben was under construction and barely resembled himself! Obie and I didn’t even realize we were standing in front of it until we made the connection that we were by the house of parliament. I was pretty disappointed that I couldn’t take the classic tourist pic in front of the phone booth with Big Ben in the background, but hopefully when I make my way to London again in March or May, it’ll look like the good ‘ole Big Ben we all know and love. And believe me, I’ll get that basic tourist pic.
Our next destination was Kensington Palace, the royal palace built in 1605. We went inside the palace and uncovered the somewhat confusing yet wonderful history of the royal family. My absolute favorite part was looking at Princess Diana’s dresses. A modern-day princess and a fashion icon with a heart of gold? Talk about #goals.
On the walk back to the tube Obie and I talked about how cool it would be to be born into a royal family with so much history as opposed to being a celebrities child (both would probably be cooler than being normal, but if you had to choose..!?) We decided that we’d much rather be born/marry into the royal family than the Kardashians. Wasn’t a very hard choice after seeing just one of their several freaking awesome palaces. Plus, I’ve always felt a little royal myself (l o l).
The London Bridge was our next destination on our full itinerary. However, it turns out that this bridge was not what we were looking for. What we wanted to go to was the Tower bridge, (which is much prettier). The London Bridge just looks like your average bridge. Obie and I didn’t realize that the London Bridge and the Tower Bridge were not the same thing. Fergie lead us astray with the London Bridge (and again with her rendition of the national anthem- like what the heck Fergie!?!?) When I was grabbing a postcard for my friends and family at a gift shop later that day (I guess this ruins the surprise whoops sorry guys) the cashier comforted me and informed that it’s a common mistake to confuse the bridges. Typical tourist move.
Our final stop of the day was the London Eye. Madison and I tried to book it so that we’d get a beautiful view of London at sunset, however it turns out that’s pretty hard to plan. It was also cloudy from the rain so the sunset wasn’t really visible. Instead we got to see the skyline of London lit up at night, which was equally as beautiful. We struggled to try to get a decent picture of us together that also showcased the beautiful skyline of London. It was a lot harder than I expected and it honestly left me wishing I had brought a selfie stick. We didn’t give up though and we took a billion pictures of that skyline. None of them did London any justice. The view was breathtaking and I guess you’ll just have to see it in person to get the full effect. Nothing beats that.
And so concluded our perfect first day in London. I’ll be posting the about the second day of our amazing trip to London very soon. You’ll definitely want to check it out because not only will I talk about the places we went, but also packing, navigating and all the nitty gritty important parts about traveling.
Thanks for stopping by :)
XX
Isabel
Isabel