Londres...tu no me gustas...

Tower Bridge

I am going to be honest. I do not like the city of London. I think I am the only person I've ever heard utter those words. I do not like the weather. I don't swoon over British accents. One serving of fish n' chips was enough to last me a lifetime. St. Paul's Cathedral does very little to my spirit. Never in this lifetime will you see me fork over 20 pounds to ride the London Eye. The best part of London very well may be Oxford Street where all the shopping is, but even that consists of maybe 8 different stores that are duplicated once or twice as you go further down the street. Chicago's Magnificent Mile would K.O. Oxford Street in 30 seconds flat.

So now that I have that out of the way and I have offended some people including my best friend, I can start to talk about how, despite my general dislike for London, I was able to experience the pure joy I felt when I was finally reunited with my gringo friends ALEX JILL AND KEVINITO IN LONDON.

The train ride from Ourense to the airport in Santiago could not have taken longer. I slept the entire time at the airport to try to pass the time before my flight. The flight itself to London Stansted took years, and the bus from Stansted to downtown London was late in departing and I swear the bus driver took the long route for a more scenic view. AND FINALLY, ALEX, JILL AND KEVIN COULD NOT HAVE TAKEN LONGER TO ARRIVE TO THE HOSTEL FROM THEIR GHASTLY HARRY POTTER MUSEUM. But finally the moment arrived when I was reunited with them, and it was unreal and joyous  :) :) :)

We immediately went to grab a bite to eat despite our having eaten 3+ meals already that day. I finally got to quench the craving for Indian food that I was so longing for. That's one thing I'll give you, London. You've got 5 different Indian restaurants on every block of the city.

English Breakfast

Our first adventure together started at the London Bridge the next day. It's a filthy old bridge, but you can't not see it. We walked our way toward Tower Bridge, which in my opinion is the best sight of London. We stopped by a restaurant for some traditional English Breakfast. I will give a nod to London for this, too, because it was delectable and I all but licked that plate clean. Here ends the photos of the food I ate on this 10-day trip, because from here on out I was either a) starving and thus impatient, or b) too mesmerized by the mouth-watering food, thus impatient, and in any case I just did not stop to take a picture of my food before consuming every last bite.

Next we made our way toward St. Paul's Cathedral, which is... cute. Hahaha I know Alex will hate me because she is in love with this place but I don't know, St. Paul's just does not do it for me! I have seen numerous cathedrals that are far more beautiful during my travels in Europe. (Here we go. Pretentious Euro Chick comin' right atcha). We went inside to try to sneak a peak without having to pay the 20 pound entrance fee, and I appreciated the heat inside more than the design of the ceilings. I don't know what my problem is!! Maybe I'm just not easy to please!!

Modern Art

Next we stopped at The Tate Modern Art Museum. I'm a bit of a sucker for art museums so this was quite the treat. My favorite piece was constructed from nails in a swirling pattern that gave this illusion of movement and kind of messed with your eyes!

Bread Pudding

Our last stop before heading back to the hostel was Borough Market! I'd actually never made it here in my last trip to London, and I did enjoy it more than I expected to. I mean, how can you not enjoy walking around tasting various cheeses, spreads, jams, and meats? It was like I was back in Jewel-Osco on a Saturday morning heehee. ALSO this is where we each got our dinner, and I found this awesome Thai food whose curry and chicken were insanely delicious and perfectly spicy. It was this awesome shade of green but, again, I went straight to eating this and had no time for photo nonsense. To top it all off I purchased an enormous slice of bread pudding for us to share. This I did happen to take a picture of, but as you can see it's already partially consumed.

Oh, and did I mention that this day happened to be my birthday? :)

We made our way back to the hostel, where Alex, Jill and Kevin took naps and I...starting working on my hair. It's my birthday. I do what I want. That includes taking 1.5-2 hours doing my hair. Hahahahaaa we had a fun night out in London, went on a pub crawl and met some interesting people. I really do feel like I'm getting a bit too old for pub crawls, though. 23 years old, sooooo wise now!! It's funny to remember a year ago for my 22nd birthday I was hobbling around on crutches, and I was totally delirious from my ACL surgery medication. That birthday I made it almost an hour at the restaurant before the incessant throbbing in my leg caused me to call it an early night. A year later, here I am celebrating my birthday in EUROPE, wearing heels all night without the slightest hint of knee problems, alongside some of the greatest friends I have. I'd say that was a nice amount of progress over a year's time!

Ready for the pub crawl on my birthday

Well that was our last night sleeping at the hostel in London. The next night, December 30th, we had plans to sleep at the airport since it was about an hour away from the city center, and we had an early flight. No big deal, right? "WRONG" said EasyBus. "SO. WRONG". But I'll get to that.

Big Ben

During the day of the 30th, we did some more site-seeing which included Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, St. James Park, and Buckingham Palace. However all day I was patiently waiting for Oxford St. I needed a therapeutic Primark visit! And I was ready to buy myself something pretty at TopShop as a birthday gift to myself. After grabbing lunch at a pub off of Oxford St. (everyone else got fish n' chips, while I got this exquisite chicken and mushroom pot pie. Now I kind of wish I'd taken a picture of it, but in this instance I was starving and finished the whole plate within 5 minutes, I'm sure), it was finally time for some SHOPPING!!!!!!!!

...I totally didn't realize it was Sunday, meaning stores only remained open until 6pm, leaving me less than 90 min to do Oxford St. BOOOOOOO. So I essentially only had enough time to hit up Primark, where all I ended up wanting was a pair of false eyelashes that cost only 1 pound. Not really worth waiting in the 20min long line to pay for the items. So I stole 'em! Just kidding. I left Oxford St. empty handed :( But I did get some pretty pictures of the lights!

All of the liiiiiiiights on Oxford St.

Now it was time to go pick our stuff up from the hostel, eat a light dinner, then head to the airport. No rush, our EasyBus coach wasn't scheduled to leave until 23:30, and it was only around  20:00. I had yet another pot pie for dinner, and did not take a picture of this either. We slowly made our way to the tube to get to the bus stop. We must have been moving significantly more slowly than we'd realized, because after finding out we had to take a detour on the tube, a mini panic quietly settled into our group and we realized we might be late for the bus. When we finally got to the right tube stop we hit the ground running with rolling suitcases in hand because the 23:30 bus departure time was only minutes away. We were totally late, but there were some people waiting ahead of us who assured us that the bus hadn't arrived yet. Okay, cool. When I'd first arrived in London, the EasyBus coach at the airport was also about 20 min late. No big deal, our flight wasn't until the morning, anyway.

So then it was 0:30 (12:30am). There was another EasyBus scheduled to pick up at this time, so we should just be able to hop on that bus!...1:00. Nothing. Mind you, this entire time we were waiting outside in the London windy cold, definitely in 30 degree temperatures. I kept pulling more items of clothing from my suitcase to shield myself from the weather. I put my hands in my pockets and dug my face into my two scarves to try to fall asleep to pass the time. Thank God it hadn't been raining, EasyBus woulda had some frozen corpses to deal with! Not to mention some lawsuits.

We saw some EasyBus coaches going the other direction so we asked a few of the drivers what the deal was. They kept assuring us that more buses would come later. We must have seen 10+ buses going the other direction, and we stopped to talk to 3 or 4. None of them were going to Gatwick airport so they couldn't take us. One coach driver told us the next bus would come at 2:00. Ugh, that's another hour!! I asked the nearby hotel if we could wait in the lobby. "Nope, you can wait outside in that corner. It'll protect you from the wind!" THANK YOU, KIND CITIZEN OF LONDON. We asked the next bus driver where the heck the 2:00 driver was. He said "What are you talking about? The next bus isn't until 3:00". ARE YOU TOYING WITH ME RIGHT NOW. WE HAVE BEEN WAITING IN THE FRIGID COLD IN YOUR DANG CITY FOR 2.5 HOURS AND YOU ARE TELLING ME TO WAIT ANOTHER HOUR?

We opted to take a taxi to the airport. And vowed to never take EasyBus again. I do still have words I'd like to have with them.

Finally we got to the airport and I was able to have a wonderful night of sleep. Just kidding. I got woken up 5 or so times by different people telling me to move and such. Each time I had already passed out into a deep sleep, so you can imagine the pleasantry that awaited each person that woke me. It wasn't until we were on the plane to Barcelona that I felt any sort of relief. Ahhhhh I'm going back home to Spain <3