London: Mind the Gap and The Other Abbey Road
Day One:
I landed in London early Tuesday morning and it’s been a whirlwind ever since. I met up with a few other SASers at the airport, dropped my largest duffel off, and we headed towards central London. It didn’t take us very long to figure out the Underground and we found the hostel pretty easily. Once we got all settled, Lauren, Samantha and I went on a New London walking tour. It was great because we got to see all of the major sites and our tour guide was super chatty. I’m hoping to do another one of New Europe’s walking tours because they did a phenomenal job. London has been so good to us, it’s been a beautiful few days and this was no exception. We walked around and saw Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square and Hyde Park. I’m amazed by the architecture and history in each place we’ve been. I loved hearing about the historical significance of each place we visited.
After the tour, we were escorted to a cute little pub, and joined by our tour guide and a talkative traveler that was also on our tour, Ramon. It was nice getting to share some of our culture and hearing about theirs. I wish we could havestayed in a few of the places longer, but jetlag kicked in and it was definitely naptime. After a few hours, we joined back up with our little group and hung out talking with the other people in the hostel. Tuesday night wasstill early for a lot of the SAS kids to be in, so we had the chance to talk with people from all over the world. We made friends with people from as far as South Korea and Australia, people traveling for months on end, and people just dropping in for a few days. I loved hearing the stories they had about traveling and hearing all about the different countries they’d been to. There’s something super comforting about the hostel environment. I found myself at ease talking to so many people from different walks of life, and yet being able to completely relate.
I have to say, sharing a bedroom with 21 other people is a completely weird feeling, but for the most part, fairly enjoyable. I loved meeting the few non-SAS kids that managed to slip into our room, and seeing them over the next few days. I’d like to say that I’ve become an expert on navigating the London Underground (mostly in part to Lauren, because let’s be serious here—my sense of direction is mildly nonexistent), and I loved how easy and prompt their public transportation is. My only downfall to London so far is how expensive it is. I’d heard it’s one of the most expensive cities in the world, but I hadn’t expected simple things I’d taken for granted to be so much!
Day Two:
On Wednesday, me and a few other SAS kids decided to head out to Camden Markets. As we headed off to navigate the Tube, I happened to look up right at the exact moment Maren, a girl from my sorority, locked eyes with me from a Starbucks! She’d been lost and as no one has wifi, no way of finding me or the hostel. Complete serendipity, London style. I went with her to go check her into the hostel while the others grabbed food, and ended up running into two more SAS kids that I’d talked to before only on Facebook! They had heard about the markets and decided to join us! Our little group grew to seven: me, Summer,Samantha, Byron, Erin, Trevor and Maren! Luckily for us, both Erin and Byron had been traveling for a few days already and had gotten the gist of the underground and we made it out to Camden Markets with little trouble.
The market has definitely my favorite place so far. It was really colorful and the smells coming from the food carts were divine. Everywhere you turned, there was another stall selling jewelry, clothing, food, and trinkets. I was in market heaven. When we’d first arrived, we happened upon a small part of the Markets: Inverness Market. I was disappointed at first because I thought that was all Camden Markets had to offer: I’ve never been more glad that I was wrong. The more we walked, the more we saw. I loved seeing the people bartering, and the collection of thousands of people who had come together just for this market every single day. It took every ounce of willpower not to buy everything I could get my hands on.
I ended up having a chicken fajita from this tiny stand and I have to say: I will never eat a better one again. It was delicious. I was a little put off by all of the stall vendors shouting and trying to get your attention. I know it’ll only get worse with each country we visit, but I ended up going to the stand that just smiled and kept cooking. After several hours of walking (and I’m sure the formation of at least 4 new blisters), we settled down at a pub for a bit. It was nice getting to know more and more SAS kids, and we even had one more join our group! Since Byron haddone SAS before, we were able to grill him for information about the program. I’m pleased that I didn’t sign up for too many of the sponsored trips, just because he’s insistent that the ones you plan yourself are not only more enjoyable but have an air of flexibility and spontaneity that comes hand inhand with being tourists in countries that don’t have a single ounce of English.
After Camden markets, we headed back into the city and found ourselves at Green Park outside of Buckingham palace. We had our hearts set on the larger park, so we walked across London until we reached Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. Our group split up and the ones who stayed walked down to the riverfront. It was really cool to see all of the different kinds of people who had gathered to ride paddle boats, sit in the giant rentable chairs, and skateboard. We ended up walking around the park for about an hour until we came to the edge of the Kensington Gardens. The gardens that Albert had built for Victoria were absolutely stunning. I easily could have stayed there allday, if not for the blisters on my feet. I’m super glad I got Keens before I left just because my feet were ripped up from walking in my Rainbows/Sperrys.
The group met back up together and walked from the park down to the original Hard Rock Café for dinner. It was fun just sitting around and talking after a long walking day. We got to see the Hard Rock Vault which had hand-written lyrics by The Beatles! The rest of the night was spent hanging out on the roof of the hostel and then at a pub with a few friends.
Day Three:
HARRY POTTER DAY!
Thursday morning was a pretty lazy one. We were all wiped from jetlag and the night before so the group of kids heading to Harry Potter spent the few hours in the morning relaxing. It was definitely not a prediction of how the day was going to go. We all met downstairs in the lobby of the hostel to find our first real London weather. It was rainy and muggy: a perfect day to spend at the Harry Potter studios. We’d all become experts on the London Underground but it took a special skill tonavigate the tube, above ground train, and a bus all the way out to the studios, with thirteen of us: John, Erin, Jessica, Samantha, Jay, Kelly, Neah, Meredith, Emily, Summer, Sophie, and Naomi. But despite our late start we all managed to get there in one piece by our tour time!
The studios were a geeky bookworm’s dream. It was everything I’d ever thought about while reading the books. I was amazed at how detailed everything seemed to be. The props wereunbelievably amazing, and it’s sad to know that some of them won’t even be seen with that much detail in the movies! We saw things like the Gryffindor common room and dormitories, the Weasley house, and the Ministry of Magic sets! Myfavorite part was learning about how they did some of the special effects for the movie: using an LED light suit on a bloodhound to film the doe patronus. It was really fun to share the experience with other likeminded book and movienerds. I got to take pictures on Hogwarts bridge, in front of Privet Drive, and in front of the Knight Bus.
I even got to try butterbeer! Note: tastes like foamy butterscotch, not exactly what I’d pictured but still delicious. We spent over 3 and a half hours in the studios but I still could have kept going. There were so many detailed things to look at that I just didn’t want to stop. We passed a room with all of the scale drawings of each set and prop, and it’s stunning just how much detail and care went into making the movie perfect. For the fifth movie, they’d made 15,000 prophecy spheres for the scene where it goes crashing down, only to later decide to recreate it digitally. My favorite room in the studios had a large-scale model of Hogwarts Castle and grounds, and it was absolutely breathtaking. I could have stayed in that room for hours just looking at everything.
Emily and I broke off from the group after we got back into London in search of non-pub food. We happened across this little deli right down the road from our hostel. For only 3 quid, the sandwich was absolutely fantastic. I’m pretty sure my dad would have even approved, and that’s saying something.
When we got back to the hostel, I met up with Lauren and we decided since we’re only in London once, there was something we had to do: ride the London Eye at night. I can now say that I’ve run all the way through the underground and downtown in order to get tickets before it closed. It was worth every penny. London at night is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The entire city is lit up at night and you have a perfect view of Big Ben, the House of Parliament and Westminster. The entire ride is about 30 minutes above the city and it’s such a different view of London. When I think about London, I think of how crowded and how busy the city seemed, but looking down on it from 440 feet in the air, it looks incredibly peaceful.
Both exhausted, Lauren and I decided to stay in and hang out on the roof with the other SAS kids. It was fun seeing the hostel being taken over by all of us, and I couldn’t even tell you all of the names of the people I’d met those few days in the hostel.
Day Four:
Friday was the craziest day we had in London. I headed out from the hostel with a much smaller group of four: Emily, Stephen, Lauren and I. The goal was the hit several museums like theNational Gallery and Albert and Victoria, then the gardens, Camden market (they’d never seen it) and Abbey Road. We got off to a late start, but since we’d mostly been eating pub food, and Lauren hadn’t really eaten anything (she’s gluten-free), we stopped at this Spanish restaurant for breakfast. Easily the best food I’d had in London so far. For a moderate price, I got eggs with Manchego on toast. And it was sogood. It as the first “real” meal we’d all had in several days and worth the time and the money to stop. On our way out, we swung by Borough Street Market which had the most amazing little food carts: with everything from fresh hand-caught fish to hand-made balsamic and olive oil to cheese stands and fruit/smoothie carts. We were in food heaven. The cheese and balsamic stands made me wish I’d found the market a few days earlier because I definitely would have stopped there for breakfast and bought bread and cheese there.
The four of us really wanted to go to what we’d dubbed the “Harry Potter” bridge—the one that is destroyed by Death Eaters in the fifth movie, so we walked in that direction along the water. We passed the Globe Theater, but the line was way too long so we kept going. The bridge ended up being right next to the Globe, and had a fantastic view of both it and St Paul’s Cathedral. While we were there, I noticed a young street performer down by the water so I went to talk to him. As part of my Vicarious Voyage program – where I’m teamed up with a classroom back in the States, I am on the lookout for street performers and musicians. I talked with the guy for a few minutes: he’s played saxophone for four and a half years, learned at school, and plays both alto and soprano sax but prefers alto. He let me listen for a few minutes and then gladly shook my hand as we parted ways. On my walk back up to meet my friends on the bridge, I found a large group of kids crowded around a man with a foot-long, multi-looped piece of string who was making large bubbles for the kids.
Since St. Paul’s Cathedral was in direct walking distance from the bridge, we headed in that direction. We were blessed with another sunny, albeit cool, day and the view of the Cathedral was gorgeous. We stood around taking pictures until I noticed two things: blue trees and a group of women in red hats. I immediately turned around and asked someone about the trees, which had been painted blue in honor of (incidentally) environmentalawareness. Oh, London. As we walked closer, I went up to one of the women to introduce myself and ask if I could take their pictures. As I did so, one of the women told me that they were the Red Hat Society, a group of women past a certain age who dress up in fancy red hats and go out into the city. After a little research back at the hostel, I found out that they were an organization that went back since 1998, and their existence is based on Jenny Joseph’s poem “Warning.” Cool stuff.
We decided that the thing we wanted to do the most was go to Abbey Road, and so we mapped it out and got on our way. It was about an hour out from central London, but we only had to make a few tube transfers in order to get there. Watching out the window, it was strange to see the differences in the parts of the city: from crowded buildings to a little more residential and countryside. However, when we finally arrived at a near-deserted train stop, we came across a giant sign and finally realized it: we’d gone to the wrong Abbey Road. It turns out that the tube stop named Abbey Road isn’t the same one with the street walk, and the studios. Oops. We couldn’t stop laughing all the way back onto the train. It turns out we’d gone about an hour and a half in the opposite direction of where we wanted to be. So, looking at the map, we decided we’d stop back at Camden Markets since it was in the middle.
I wasn’t as in awe with the markets as I’d been the first time, because it was super crowded, but it was still just as cool. I got tocheck out a few stands we didn’t have time to see when I was there a few days earlier. The jewelry stands were especially enticing but I think I’m going to save my jewelry-buying for Ireland. We walked around for a few hours but it was getting late and all four of us still wanted to go to the real Abbey Road, so we headed out from Camden.
It took a while, but we finally made it to Abbey Road and Abbey Road Studios. We absolutely took a picture like the Beatles cover, almost getting run over in the process. It’s a fairly busy road and the locals don’t care at all that you’re trying to get a picture. In fact, I’m pretty sure it makes them more inclined to try and hit you. That’s definitely something I noticed about London drivers: if you’re on a crosswalk they’ll intentionally speed up. We wrote our names on the wall and walked around the area a little. By this point, we were all exhausted and hungry so we headed to Piccadilly to look for food. Big mistake. We’d been running around so much that we’d forgotten it was a Friday night so every single pub we went to had a 40 minute wait at the least.
After grabbing a quick dinner, we headed back to the hostel in order to pick up our bags. Stephen, Emily, and I each had rooms at the Hilton so Lauren decided to join us. Thankfully Lauren and I had left our large suitcases at the airport so between the four of us we had 4 huge backpacks, three giant rolling duffels, one shoulder bag, and one small duffel. That sounds fine, but add in the walk to the metro, the multiple staircases, and then the walk to the hotel from the station and you have hilarious disaster. At one point, I had two backpacks, a duffel and a shoulder bag on, with one hand on a suitcase heading down a flight of stairs. Thankfully we ran into a slew of nice people along the way, and with the addition of a few giggle fits and almost disasters we made it to the Heathrow Hilton. Skyler was already there, so it felt great to check in andcollapse. I had never been more glad to sleep in a real bed. I had more blisters than I could count, I no longer knew what sleep feels like, and I hadn’t had a proper shower in days. But it didn’t matter. London was everything I hoped it would be.
One country down, 13 more to go!
