A Jolly Good Time in England

Ever since we both knew that we would be studying in Germany this year, my roommate Ashley and I knew we HAD to go to London together. Last weekend, our dream finally became a reality!

Getting there was definitely interesting. Being money-conscious college students who are currently suffering under the dollar-euro conversion rate, we wanted to go for as little money as possible. Therefore, we bought our tickets with Ryan Air, the budget airline that is widely used here. Ryan Air flies out of Frankfurt Hahn airport (which is not in Frankfurt, by the way). To get there, we took a 2 1/2 hour bus ride from the Heidelberg Hauptbahnhof at about 2:30 in the morning. From there we took a fairly short plane ride to London Stansted (which is not in London), and then another 2 hour bus ride to London itself, where we got on the tube to go to South Kensington, the location of the Pepperdine House. By then it was about 10 in the morning London time, so we had breakfast, rested a bit, and then began our whirlwind tour of London.

We saw most of the essential sights: Big Ben, the Parliament building, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey. We went into the National Gallery for a spell (side note: the museums in London are free. I highly appreciated this), ate dinner, and pretty much collapsed into bed (or at least, I did).

Buckingham Palace

Parliament

Big Ben

The next day, we spent a lot of time exploring Camden Market and all the cheap goods they had to sell there. I had limited space, so I only purchased an Oxford University sweatshirt (and some food). After that, we went to King's Cross station to get the quintessential Harry Potter fan picture. We ran around the train station forever trying to find it. We knew it was just a cart stuck into a wall, but we thought that, logically, it would be between platforms 9 and 10. No luck there. So we asked someone, and they told us it was by platform 1. We looked for that, couldn't find it, asked someone else, and they said it was around the corner. Turns out, it's outside the train station, in this little box. Definitely not as magical as you would think. However, it was still worth it for our picture :)

Yay, we're going to Hogwarts!

What it actually looks like.

After that, we went to the British Museum, which was so gigantic we could not possibly have had enough time to see it all. But it was really cool and had so many interesting artifacts. We got to see the Rosetta Stone and an Easter Island statue, among countless other treasures of history.

Since my companions, Mason and Ashley, are both Catholic, they wanted to go to mass, so I went along with them. We rode a double-decker bus (on the top level, of course) to the Westminster Cathedral (not to be confused with Westminster Abbey, which is Anglican). It was absolutely gorgeous inside and out-- possibly the most beautiful church I've seen in Europe. I really liked the inside because it was different than your typical cathedral-- they used colored marble, and in some naves there were mosaics on the ceiling made with glimmering tiles. I was pretty much in awe the whole time.

Westminster Cathedral at night.

By the time mass was over, it was time for dinner, so we headed back to South Kensington and stopped in a little restaurant, where I got fish and chips (which were just okay compared to others I've had) and sticky toffee pudding (quite possibly the best I've ever tasted. It made it all worth it). Since we had an early morning of travel ahead of us, we headed back for the night after dinner. The next morning we left around 8:30 and made it back to Heidelberg in time for dinner and the completion of homework.

I had a fantastic time in London, but I was definitely left wanting more. A two day trip, which we had to keep that short out of necessity, is simply not long enough to see all or even a large chunk of what London has to offer. So, basically, I have to go back sometime :)

Goals for my next trip to England someday:
1. Stroll through Hyde Park
2. Have tea and scones with jam and devonshire cream (and maybe a crumpet while I'm at it?)
3. Maybe see the tower of London
4. Go to Stratford Upon Avon
5. Maybe see Charles Dicken's house, and maybe Jane Austen's too
6. See the English countryside, and possibly go to locations where movies were filmed (Pemberly, aka Mr. Darcy's estate? I'd love to see the place they used for that. Or if there are any locations nearby where Harry Potter was filmed, that would be great too)

And I'm sure there's much, much more of which I simply cannot think at the moment. So, who's with me?