January 17th-19th
On my first weekend trip of the semester, I went to London! We flew into the Gatwick airport and got on a train into the city. We dumped our luggage off at the Victoria station and immediately walked to Buckingham Palace. As we were walking closer to the palace we could see large crowds of people because we had gotten there in perfect timing to see the changing of the guard. You could barely see over the crowds of people with their phones in the air, but I’m really glad that we made it in time to see it.
From there we walked to Oxford street and went shopping at TopShop. The store is massive and it is kind of like a department store because they sell their brand, all different other brands, accessories, cupcakes, and so much more. I didn’t do too much damage there, which is quite out of character for me, but I didn’t have much room in my weekender bag to bring a ton of stuff back to Barcelona so that kept me from splurging. One thing I did get through was a scarf because it was so cold! After popping in a couple other stores we walked back toward the palace through Green Park, so beautiful! At this moment it felt so surreal that I was actually back in this city that I loved so much.
That night we ate fish and chips for dinner and drank raspberry beer, so good! I forced Lily to have a bite of my fish and chips because she had never tried fish before and she was not a fan.
The next morning we got on the tube and went to Nodding Hill to see the Portabello Market and the famous pastel-colored houses. This was definitely my favorite thing that we did the entire weekend. The market had endless vendors of great food, cool antiques, art, touristy trinkets, and so much more. The thrift stores on this street were really cool and I definitely could have spent all day there because there was just so much to see.
Next we went to the Tower of London to see the crown jewels, the ravens, the white tower, the line of kings and their armor, the bloody tower, the medieval palace, the royal beasts, the torture in the tower, and the imprisionment in the tower. From there we saw the Tower bridge of course.
After we went to Peggy Porschen Cakes which was the cutest bakery ever! Right up my alley. Then walked to Harrods, always so much fun to explore that place. Every time I feel like I haven’t even scratched the surface of things to see there.
Later that night we went to Sketch… the worst Instagram trap ever! This place is somewhere that I’ve seen a ton of girls go and post pictures while in London. We were super excited to go because this place is known for having a bunch of different rooms with elaborate themes and cool art. We made a reservation a week in advance to be in the pink room which is called the “Parlour.” Even that far in advance, the only time we could get in was 10pm and I had to put down my credit card information. This didn’t alarm me as it is pretty common for nicer places to do this. We knew it was expensive and the menu wasn’t very appealing we had a cheap Italian dinner first and we wanted to have drinks and dessert after at Sketch, but boy were we wrong. When we showed up we checked in our coats and as I looked around, I noticed that we were very underdressed. I went up to the host and told them my name and I asked if we could squeeze one more person. He very rudely said if we have one extra person we would all have to leave. Which sucked! From there we went in and sat down and there was definitely room at our table for one more person because it was a booth, so annoying. The place was so cool though. The whole room was light pink, and all of the seats were the same color in a pretty velvet fabric. After we sat down and opened up the menus, #1 we had no idea what any of the food was and #2 what we could understand sounded terrible. On top of that, the prices were ridiculous. We very quickly found out that our initial plan would not be possible. When we asked for the dessert menu the waiter informed us that we would be able to see it after we all ordered a starter and an entree. This made us all super nervous because we were afraid that if we just up and left, or if they kicked us out, they would charge my credit card 35pounds per person. After some back and forth with the waiter we ordered a random assortment of starters, sides, drinks, and a dessert and he let us go. And to top it off everything that we ordered, other than the drinks, royally sucked! Everything was so bad and so not worth the price. As we were sitting at the table Emma pulled out Yelp and started reading Sketch’s reviews. They all said the same thing, “this place is the worst!!!!” At the end of the day, we all got out of there with some cool pictures of the Parlor and the egg bathrooms, but never will I step foot in that place ever again.
The next day we went to Camden Market which was a maze of foods from all around the world, art, and lots of tourist junk. While we were walking around I got pooped on by a pigeon on the top of my head. I started to freak out a little but I took a deep breath. Marissa helped me clean up a little and I decided I wasn’t going to let that ruin my day, even though I was super grossed out. After some cider and a burrito, I had totally forgotten about it at all. After that, we got on the tube and went to see the London Eye and street performers there to wrap up our trip.
At the end of the long day of traveling, I took a lukewarm shower and shampooed my hair three times. But when I laid down in my little bed in my little apartment in Barcelona, as cheesy as it sounds, I couldn’t help but smile: thinking back on how much fun I had this past weekend, looking forward to my future trips to come, and being so grateful for the amazing life that I’m living.
Nicole Danigelis 