London

This weekend began Thursday afternoon for me. After my last class I boarded a bus into the Stirling train station where I then took a train into Edinburgh where I met with one of my friends (also from Arcadia) who is doing an internship with the Scottish parliament. After dropping my luggage off at his flat, I got the grand tour of the Scottish Parliament. We then enjoyed dinner before catching an overnight bus to London. I had planned to sleep through the ride, but unfortunately I could not get comfortable and managed to only get about two hours of sleep over an eight hour ride. We arrived around 6:45 am and from the coach station took 2 tubes to the Thoresby house. My friend had been a FYSAE student three years ago and lived in Thoresby, so it took us no time to find.

Once we arrived there, we were greeted by my roommate from last semester and enjoyed a simple breakfast of scones and toast. My roommate and I are one of Arcadia’s rooming success stories; we got along with no problems and became great friends. She arranged for a full day of sightseeing for me. She and her friend planned out everything touristy with as little backtracking as possible. The list seemed daunting, but we were able to complete it all and then some. We went to Platform 9 3/4, Buckingham Palace, Changing of the Guard, Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Big Ben, London Eye, Kensington Palace, Hyde Park, Marble Arch, Primark, Picadilly, Cool Britannia, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Millennium Bridge, Cone of Death (Gerkin), Tower Bridge, London Bridge, Tower of London, and the Angel Pub.

For dinner I separated from my friend I had travelled to London with so that he could go to his accommodation and have a mini FYSAE 2008 reunion. I stayed at Thoresby with my roommate for a night of girl talk, Midnight cookies, and catching up.

The next day we woke up early and went to the Tower of London. We ended up spending several hours at the tower exploring. I was beyond excited to see just some of the crown jewels. From there we went for a sandwich and ate it in front of Big Ben. Afterwards we met with my roommate’s parents who are visiting London. We ended the sightseeing with a walking tour of Westminster that showed various locations that were used in the Harry Potter films. Then my roommate and her friends made me an awesome meal of chicken parmigiana and we watched Mulan before falling asleep.

Sunday consisted of travelling back to Stirling. It was sad to say goodbye to my roommate, but we are living together again next year, so it’s only for now.  It only took 14 hours, 2 buses, a train, 2 tube lines, and 1 McFlurry to get back home- it was totally worth it though.

So I finally got to see where my t-shirt came from 3 years ago.

Old & New Friends

I'm not agile.

London Eye

Tower of London Bridge

Phone Booth

Roommates :)

Much needed at the Changing of the Guards

So glad that my friends became friends..

Kensington Palace