London, or should I say, FUNdon!

For the second week of spring break, my friends and I traveled across the universe (well, across the pond) to London. The four days we spent there were full of excitement; there's so much to see and do there, and I don't think we could have fit it all in even if there were eight days a week. 

We arrived on Wednesday and wasted no time in seeing the city. The bus from the airport dropped us off in the city center (not in the middle of the freeway this time!), and we decided to walk the two and a half miles from the bus stop to our hostel. Along the way, we passed Trafalgar Square, which is focal point of London for celebrations, protests, and maps. Anytime directions are given to "London," or any distance is measured from London's city center, they're from Trafalgar Square. Trafalgar Square contains the National Gallery, the smallest police station in London, and, of course, some pretty cool statues of lions.

Fun fact: the person who built the lion statues in Trafalgar Square had never seen a lion before, and he modeled them after pictures of lions and his pet dog. So, the statues are said to have the heads of lions and the bodies of cocker spaniels. 

Our walk also took us past the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Bank of London, London Bridge, and Leadenhall Market, which is the street that inspired Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. The London Bridge was very anti-climactic; it looked much like any other bridge, and I wouldn't have thought it was special if there wasn't a nursery rhyme about it. The Tower Bridge, on the other hand, was beautiful, and I loved the greenish-blue color it was painted and how it almost looks like a castle. 

After we checked into our hostel, we bought a ticket to ride the Tube and headed into the theater district. Although the Tube can seem overwhelming, I thought it was pretty easy to use. We never got lost and I never needed anybody's help in any way when trying to navigate the city. In the theater district, we met up with some friends who go to BC and are studying in London. Every time I get to see someone I know from home when I'm abroad, I get so excited because these friends know their way around the cities they're studying in and can show me the best things to do; it's definitely nice having a little help from my friends when I travel. 

The Tube stops at midnight, so after dinner and more walking around the theatre district we had to get back to our hostel. We stayed in a hostel right across from King's Cross Station, and while the location was convenient, the experience was kind of weird. For the first time, we were in a room with strangers. When we got back to the hostel after dinner, no one else was in the room except for my friend and me. The next morning though, there was a woman in her sixties and a girl who didn't speak English in the bunks across from us. They seemed really nice, but it was kind of scary seeing them in the morning. We were asleep when they came in and didn't hear the door at all, so it was like they came in through the bathroom window or something in the dead of night. 

Thursday morning we woke up bright and early and did yet another walking tour. For anyone who's planning any trips abroad, there's a company called Sandeman's that gives great free walking tours for a lot of major European cities. We did a tour with them in Berlin too, and both were awesome! The tour guides are really dynamic and informative, and you get to see a lot of the city you're visiting. Our tour of London lasted for about 3 hours, and I'll do my best to recreate it here with pictures and interesting things we learned. 

The tour began at Hyde Park Corner near the Duke of Wellington statue. Arthur Wellesley, a native of Ireland, was the first and only duke of Wellington. "Wellies," aka rain boots, are named after him. 

We then walked past the Commonwealth Gates are a memorial to countries that sent 5 million or more volunteers to fight for England during the two World Wars. This pillar honors the volunteers from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. The Commonwealth Gates are at the beginning of Constitution Hill, which is the long and winding road along which multiple assassination attempts on Queen Victoria occurred. 

At the other end of Constitution Hill lies Buckingham Palace, one of the parts of London I was most excited to see. Our tour was during the changing of the guards ceremony, and we got to stop and see part of it! 

Her Majesty was here when I was! When this flag, the Royal Standard, is flying, it signals that the Queen is in town. The Royal Standard is divided into four parts: two for England, one for Scotland, and one for Ireland. 

This is Clarence House, which is where Charles and Camilla live. 

Attached to Clarence House is St. James' Palace, which was built by King Henry VIII and is the Queen's official residence. St. James' Palace is guarded by Welsh guards. We got to take pictures with them, but unfortunately couldn't make them laugh. 

The Crimean War Memorial has a statue of Florence Nightingale, who is famous for recognizing the importance of sanitation in hospitals. Our tour guide pointed out how ironic this is because even today many people in England don't refrigerate their milk, eggs, and butter, which, of course, causes them to get sick. 

We passed through Trafalgar Square again...

... and then walked through the Admiralty Arch, which contains the smallest statue in Britain, a nose. The nose was put there by an artist who wanted to protest the use of CCTVs in London; the average Briton is caught on tape over 70 times a day. 

Next up was the Horse Guard's Parade, which is where the Queen's birthday parade is held every year and where the beach volleyball matches in the 2012 Olympics took place. 

Behind the Horse Guard's Parade is 10 Downing Street, which is where the Prime Minister lives. 

Westminster Abbey, the Palace of Westminster, and Big Ben are all right next to each other and were the last stop on the tour. 

The Palace at Westminster is where both houses of Parliament, (the House of Lords and the House of Commons) are held. 

Most people think the clock tower is named Big Ben, but it's actually the bell inside the tower that has this nickname. So, no one can technically see Big Ben, you can only hear it. 

After the walking tour we wandered through Kensington Gardens to see Kensington Palace, which is where Prince William and Kate Middleton are supposed to move into this summer! We got a little lost getting there though, and walked down the street that runs parallel to the gardens before we actually found them. The street we were on, Palace Avenue, is where a lot of foreign ambassadors live. When we walked past the Greek house, there were two guards in front of it and a well-dressed woman wearing sunglasses quickly walked from the house into a fancy car. I'm not sure who she was, but it seemed like she was important! Kensington Gardens are adjacent to Hyde Park, so after we found the gardens and walked through them, we went back to Hyde Park and saw the parts of it that we didn't see on the tour, like the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain and the Peter Pan Statue. For some reason, seeing the Peter Pan statue was one of my favorite things in London. I think it's really cool that a city that's so busy and professional has a statue commemorating a story that epitomizes childhood innocence. 

By the time we finished walking around the parks, it was getting dark, so we decided to go to Harrod's, which is a famous department store. Harrod's is huge and has everything from designer handbags to children's toys, but I bet it attracts more tourists than actual customers. I didn't buy anything (obviously), but it was fun to look around and spray some of the 400 pound (pounds as in the British currency, not the weight measurement) perfume that they had in the bathroom on my wrists. 

When Harrod's is lit up at night, it looks like there's a sky of diamonds. 

On Friday morning, we got up early and took the Tube to Abbey Road to walk across it and try to emulate The Beatles album cover. It was a little hard to do because there was a lot of traffic, but we finally got a semi-cool picture. If only I had gone with three other friends...

Friday afternoon we took the train from King's Cross Station (where the Hogwarts Express departs from Platform 9 3/4) to Harry Potter Studios, where we got to tour the sets that were used in the Harry Potter films. I had never been on a movie set before, and it was so cool to see the costumes and the sets and to learn about different special effects. We even got to sit on a broomstick that had a green screen in the background and be filmed like we were playing quidditch.

The Great Hall at Hogwarts

Hagrid's motorcycle, the Knight bus, and the Dursley's house

Diagon Alley...

... and Ledenhall Market, the real street that inspired it

We left London on Saturday afternoon, but we still had time to see a few more things in the morning! Our hostel was right across the street from the British Libraries, which house the Magna Carta, a Gutenberg Bible, handwritten Beatles song lyrics, and diaries from William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and other paperback writers. I could have spent hours here looking at all of the books and exploring the special reading rooms. After leaving the coolest library in the world, we bought a one-way ticket to Westminster, and we walked around there again and across the London Bridge to the south side of London. As we usually do on weekend trips, we walked around with no agenda and went anywhere that seemed interesting. We passed by the Globe Theatre, where all of Shakespeare's plays were originally performed, and went into an art gallery across the street. There was a special exhibit going on in the gallery called Shifting Perspectives, which was a photography exhibit about Downs syndrome. Most of the photos were of children with Downs doing "normal" things that people often think that people with special needs can't, or shouldn't be allowed, to do. A lot of the photos were taken by their parents, or by people with Down syndrome themselves. As many of you who are reading this probably know, special education and equal treatment of people with disabilities is really important to me, and I loved that people with Down syndrome were being represented in such a positive way. 

Like the British Libraries, I could have spent much more time at the Shifting Perspectives exhibit than I did, but I had a plane to catch. For the first time though, I didn't feel ready to leave the place I was visiting!  London is definitely my favorite city that I've traveled to so far, and I hope it won't be long until I get to go again.