There's No Place Like London

I think the last time I blogged about London I used the same title, but I love musicals and any time I can throw in a reference from one I will :) My plan wasn't to blog about London until tomorrow morning when I'm getting ready to check out of my hostel, but my body had other plans for me today seeing as though I woke up at 6:15. The good news though is that I got more than 6 hours of sleep which was more than I got the night before on the AWFUL plane ride.

Speaking on my plane ride, if you all have been following this blog for a while now, you know that one of my major goals for this summer is to be less introverted and more willing to talk to strangers so that I can really have the experience of a lifetime. Well, go ahead and be proud of me because in the past 24 hours I've met and had conversations with 3 strangers. The first was a business man at the Atlanta airport who I sat next to at a restaurant bar while waiting for my flight (there's another funny story with this person, but if you follow me on facebook you know what happened there). Then the second stranger was the man who I sat next to on the plane. He was an older gentleman, probably in his 80s and he had visible tumors all over his face. He spent parts of the plane ride telling me his life story about his family moving from Germany and him working on a farm in Indiana his whole life. He travels a lot now that he is older and made sure that once we got off the plane that I found my luggage and knew where I was going. I wondered how many people in this world ignore him or don't talk to him because of the tumors all over his face. I hope that I made his day getting to know him and talking to him. Then my third stranger was this wonderful mum in London who when I was completely lost trying to find my hostel, stopped, helped me get back on track and spent time trying to get to know who I was. I've been amazed by the kindness I've already experienced this trip.

So now, London. First we will take a photo break because I've already written a lot. So here's a picture of Big Ben and of Westminster Abbey.

After I got checked into my hostel, which is an okay hostel, but there are only two plugs per room and I'm in a room with 10 people so that stinks, I decided I needed to go ahead and go explore to keep myself awake. I headed into the center of the city with my goal of getting to Westminster Abbey before it closed. With the number of times I've been in London, I'm amazed that I haven't done all the touristy sites yet. Westminster Abbey is absolutely gorgeous. It is outrageously expensive to get into though which I didn't appreciate seeing as though you really don't spend too much time there and you can't take pictures inside. This is my LEAST favorite rule when traveling. I think you should be allowed to take pictures of everything. The people who are buried there or have some connection with walking in the Abbey amazes me and of course when I got to the altar where William and Kate got married I got just a little bit excited. The highlight of my Abbey experience though was the tomb of Mary Queen of Scots. A lot of you won't know this, but I love history mostly because of my dad and his encouragement when I was younger. One of my favorite periods in history was the time of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and of course Mary. As a Scot, and as someone with the last name Stuart, there is a special place in my heart for Mary and her tragic tale. Her tomb is beautiful and I really think it is a lot nicer than Elizabeths'. I'm glad her son felt she deserved to be remembered in such a way that thousands of people a day come to visit her.

After the Abbey, I decided to walk instead of taking the tube to my next destination which was supposed to be Harp's Pub because I had heard such great things about it. I walked up Parliament Street passing Downing Street, a changing of the guards at a museum, and Trafalgar Square. When I got to Harp's it was super busy and people were outside so I thought there was a line. After a night of observations of the English at pubs, I've come to realize that a lot of people take their drinks and stand outside the pub to drink. I don't really understand this, especially with how awful and dreary the London weather has been. Instead, I ended up at a pub down the road called the Marquis (fitting for me eh Broadway/New York friends??).  I stood out like a sore thumb in London yesterday, and especially the pub, because I was in a pastel maxi dress. Yesterday was not a day for a dress and then everyone in London was wearing black or dark clothing, not pastel. But I got to sit, have a cider and bowl of chips, and watch the world walk by. For the record, there is nothing better than British chips. We need to make them the same way in America so someone work on that while I'm gone. 

Ok, photo break #2. Here's some more from Westminster.

After the pub it was time for my first West End show, Once. I've seen Once three times in New York, but it is one of my favorite shows and Declan (who my sister adores and hates me for seeing) is the lead in the show. When I got to the theatre my ticket had been upgraded a level so that was an awesome start. The show was in the Phoenix Theatre which was the perfect setting for it because it just felt so intimate. Despite my almost falling asleep about 100 times during the show because of how tired I was from practically no sleep the night before, the show was great and Declan was amazing.

So as you can tell, yesterday was a pretty jam packed day. Today will be another long one (especially with me waking up at 6am) as I am headed to the Harry Potter Studio Tour, hopefully getting to check out another couple touristy places, and then going to another West End show tonight, Matilda. I'm going to have about a million pictures from Harry Potter so get ready for those :)