LONDON

My first weekend traveling experience was to London!  And although I have only been to a few places in Europe, I have to say that by far London has been my most favorite!  We had an AMAZING time!  Ellis, Marissa and I left Rome on Friday at 10am and landed in London around 12:30pm.  We immediately knew we were going to love London when the radio station in the bus from the airport into town played some of our favorite oldies songs (in ENGLISH, inlcuding "It's a celebration!") hahaha. 

We were off to a good start until we reached our Hostel.  It was located right across the street from Hyde Park, so we thought that it must be somewhat decent enough for 5 girls to stay in.  But after we walked into the room, saw that another random girl would be staying in there with us, the floors we stayed brown with things growing on them, they only provided you with one thin sheet to sleep on and no towels, the "white" walls were brown and peeling, and you couldnt even flush the toilet paper in the bathroom (it had to be thrown away), we knew that this was not a safe place for us to stay in.  Words cannot really describe how terrible this place was!  I literally burst into tears when I saw the room.  So we cancelled that and went on the hunt for a hotel.  I am not sure why we thought it would be ok to stay in a hostel in the first place, but you live and learn!  With an experience that terrible, we knew things could only go up from there, and they did.  It turned out that we were able to get a great room for all of us in a cute little hotel near Earls Court for both nights.  It was a great location for us because the Earls Court "tube" station was right around the corner, so it was quick and easy for us to move around London in such a short amount of time. 

While we were on the hunt for a place to stay, we did also get to walk through Hyde Park, which was beautiful and full of GREEN, which we do not get to see a lot of in Rome.  It was a nice Friday without rain, so we enjoyed walking through the park.  A little bit later, Charlotte arrived in London and we got her settled in and headed out to a pub while we waited for Elizabeth to arrive.  We were so thrilled to see something other than wine, pizza and pasta on the menu in the pub!

Elizabeth arrived around 8pm and Will Starnes finally made it in around 11pm (his flight got delayed in Madrid for a few hours).  We went to bed early so that we could wake up early for a full day on Saturday.  And that is what we did!  We ate breakfast at the hotel at 8:30am and then hopped on a guided open double-decker bus tour of London by 9:30am.  This tour was the best decision we could have made because we were able to see all of the main attractions in London without wasting time trying to figure out where they were and with a guide to tell us important and fun facts about each spot along the way!  We really enjoyed the tour! 

Once we finished the tour, we headed to eat some Fish and Chips for lunch at the Silver Cross pub.  It was delicious!  Next, back to tour inside the Tower of London.  It was beautiful, and I could not believe how big the diamonds on some of the Royal crowns were!  Amazing!

Next, we went for a boat cruise down the Thames River from the Tower of London to the London Eye. We were so lucky that it was a sunny and clear day in London on Saturday!  After the cruise we stopped back by the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey and Buckingham Palace.  The Queen was not at the Palace, so we were not able to see the changing of the guards.  They were also not offering any tours of the Palace this month.  But that is ok, I guess I will just have to go back to London sometime again! haha

After dinner, Will really wanted to see Abbey Road where the Beatles famous picture was taken, so we hopped on the tube and headed that way.  We had the best time trying to get the perfect picture of us all walking across the street at the same crosswalk!  Then back on the tube to take one last look at Big Ben at night with all of the lights lit up! Very beautiful!

Our flight left London at 7am, so we had to wake up super early to get back to Rome.  We all cried when we left because we loved London so much!  It was a little taste of home with a unique European flare; It was a wonderful weekend!