Birthday Weekend in London

On March 2, I had to wake up at about 215 am in order to pack my bags and make it to the train station for 315 am for a bus to Pisa airport with my roommate.  When we got to the airport at around 445am we got out bags checked in and went to go through security.  The woman working at the security area told us we could no go through security yet because all of the flights were going to be delayed until about noon because of the fog outside.  We could not believe that we had just woken up so early to find out that we were going to just sit around at the airport for about 7 hours for our plane to take off.  Everything ended up working out once we took a nap and got to London.  We took a train from Stansted Airport and then took a tube to get to our hostel.  The first two nights we stayed in a room with 6 other people and on the third night we stayed in a room with 20 other people!!  By the time we had arrived at the hostel and checked in, it was about 530pm so we spent the whole day traveling.  We decided that because most of the museums would be closing we should just walk around and see what London had to offer us.  We ended up wandering over a bridge and were able to see the London Tower Bridge right next to us.  Then we found and visited St. Paul's Cathedral which is yet again another beautiful church in Europe.  We both were so hungry and thought we should find a place for dinner so we ended up eating at our hostel, St. Christopher's Village, where you get a discount on all food.  We ended up just hanging out that night and visiting my roommate's friend from home who actually works at the bar right next to where we were staying.  It was a weird coincidence.

The next morning we woke up and went on a free tour that our hostel provided.  It turned out to be the best tour I have ever been on.  The tour guide kept me engaged the entire time and told interesting stories about the history of London.  The tour guide brought us to all the royal places of London such as Buckingham Palace.  The best two stories that he told us were about a couple break-ins at Buckingham Palace.  I could not even believe what I was hearing.  We also got to see Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the court houses on the tour.  After the tour was over we were all invited to lunch at this pub where I got to try some genuine English food.  We went back to the hostel after and got ready for a pub crawl that was also set up through the hostel.  My roommate and I ended up meeting some of the Queen’s guards, which means that they are in the UK army.  They were asking us if we had gone to Buckingham Palace and if we saw the changing of the guards.  We said that we had earlier that day and they told us that they were in it.  The next day we woke up and did some more touring around by ourselves to see Abbey Road where the Beatles crossed the road.  We also went to the shopping center called Brick Lane and Camden where they had some mini markets also.  Then we went over the London Tower Bridge, which was amazing! I could not believe how big it was.  Then we ended up going to a mall where we shopped around a little bit and got to go to the movies.  It was wonderful to just be able to watch a movie!  We ended up seeing The Vow, which was awesome!  I had never been so excited to watch a movie in my life just because watching TV is so rare while I am abroad.  Later that night we ended up meeting up with the Queen’s guards to hang out for a little while then went back to our hostel for some sleep.

In the morning I was taking the plane back to Pisa by myself while my roommate stayed until later on that night because there was only one spot available for the flight Monday morning.  I had to wake up at 4am to take a bus to the train station which brought me to the airport.  Once I got to the airport and got my bag checked in I went to go through security.  I had everything back with me on the other side except my suitcase.  A woman came up to me that worked at the airport and was asking me what was in my suitcase, almost drilling me.  I had never been so scared in my life.  I thought that I was going to be arrested or something.  For some reason the security was much more intense in London than it was in Pisa, and their detector was saying that I had something in my bag.  So sure enough it got searched, but obviously there was nothing in my suitcase for me to worry about.  Good thing I got to the airport well in advance because it ended up taking an extra half an hour for my bag to be searched.  Everything ended up working out and I made it back to Florence safely.