Throwback Thursday!
We'll begin the Throwback Thursday saga with my earliest notable international trip. Sure Toronto, Canada and the Canadian side of Niagara Falls was cool, but I was young enough to have little memory of it. Therefore, we will begin with London, England.
Back in 2016 I went to London with my family. Even though this was not a trip I had any part in planning, I'm going to include it in my blog since I can reflect on the trip and use it to recommend travel itineraries to others. But I digress. My first overseas flight brought excitement and admittedly some nerves. We departed from the ever chaotic Chicago ORD and flew to Copenhagen, where we would catch a connecting flight to Heathrow in London.
It was to our extreme dismay that, after waiting for what seemed like hours on our way through immigration (Heathrow is arguably a shit show) and then arriving at baggage claim, my bag, and my brother's, was nowhere to be seen. Travel Tip #1: Never put anything valuable in your checked luggage if at all possible. We spent the first several hours of our trip going shopping for the necessities - underwear, extra shirts, and pants. But that just goes to show you that you never know what's going to happen - but if you've got your phone and wallet, you can likely scrape by. Happy ending is that we did in fact recover our luggage about 4 days later.
"Mind the gap between the train and the platform." I can still hear the voice in my head like it was yesterday riding the subway from Heathrow to the heart of London, subway map in hand. The more experienced I've become traveling, the less I find myself needing a map, but I highly recommend searching before hand which stop is yours and how to get there so you don't look like one of those lost tourists in the subway station. As an aside, I ask that you forgive the photo quality of this post overall, as I had very little experience taking photographs.
London at last! As we spent numerous hours walking around the city we saw some of the must-sees. I would certainly spend a day wandering around Westminster Abbey. See the famous Big Ben, the London Eye, and then take a leisurely stroll through St. James's Park on your way to the Buckingham Palace to watch the changing of the guard. Then walk back up The Mall toward Trafalgar Square. You'll find that a quick detour to the Piccadilly Circus puts you near China Town and also by the Tube (the subway). If you have extra time, I strongly suggest a walk through Hyde Park to see the Kensington Palace or visiting one of the many museums in the area.
A hidden gem to write about. The name of the place was "Café in the Crypt." A cool place to grab a small bite and something to drink when passing time or passing through.
Of course everywhere I go there's something Korean. At the time, I had been studying Korean for about half a year and was very passionate about the music. It seemed fitting that we would find something Korean on the trip! My parents insisted that we get a picture.
At this point, I no longer remember how long we spent doing the above. It was likely one or two days. We had decided to split our trip a couple days in London, a few days in Paris, and a few days again in London, then flying home. The below screenshot is from our very cool train ride between London and Paris. For all of you Harry Potter fans out there - we departed for Paris via the King's Cross Station. While there isn't a whole platform dedicated to 9 3/4, there is a plaque.
But we'll talk about Paris in another post. This one is about London!
When we returned, the days of our trip drawing to a close, we still had so much left to see. First up being a re-built Globe Theater. For all you out there who are Shakespeare fans... or perhaps for those of you having horrific flashbacks to your 10th grade English classes. While the original Globe Theater burned to the ground, was rebuilt then demolished, then re-built, it still performs plays and is worth a visit/tour.
If you walk across the river and East, it's likely that you will pass over the London Bridge. Famous from the songs. But keep going far enough and you'll arrive at The Tower of London. Here is a castle structure and within is where the Crown Jewels of England are kept.
Right next to the Tower of London is Tower Bridge (pictured below). You can actually walk up into the bridge across a see-through floor spanning between the two towers.
Next on the list of things to do was take a trip to the outskirts of town. This is where you can find the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Observatory Greenwich, and the Prime Meridian. The prime meridian is the line of 0° longitude, the starting point for measuring distance both east and west around Earth. The creation of the Observatory and the Prime Meridian established Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), which every time zone is based off of.
The last place I'll talk about in this blog post is The British Museum. Now, I'm not really a museum girlie, but this one is a must. Among various exhibits and artifacts, perhaps the most famous is the Rosetta Stone. The Rosetta Stone is a large stone tablet that was discovered in Egypt in 1799. It is important because it allowed researchers to translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing for the first time.
Also of note, but not pictured, would be an evening stroll on a Jack the Ripper tour! For those of you who like to have nightmares.
Of course, this isn't an all-inclusive list of what to see when in London, there are plenty of other hidden gems and you could easily spend a week here seeing all the city has to offer. Get lost and have fun a little. But make sure to keep your wallet and phone on you! In the future, I think I'll brave a trip to Stonehenge (located roughly a 2 hour drive from the city center). And yes, I'll probably drive. But more on driving on the wrong side of the road for another post.
That about wraps it up for this Throwback Thursday. Thank you all for reading. And as always ~ Wishing all the Wanderlust ~
-Maddie
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