I Say Let the Distance Bring Us Together Again

CAUTION: Long blog post. Proceed at your own risk.

I have been facing pressure of the motherly variety of late, so here I am with what even I will admit is a late post. But I just wanted to let you all know that I have perfectly legitimate reasons for being slow on the update over here. It's called midterms, and after three weeks, I am finally done (by the way, whoever decided that I should have four exams over a three-week period needs to have a stern talking to). But even this long and testy week could not be outshone by the sheer brilliance that was London.

Now, as an avid and (dangerously) obsessive Harry Potter fan, London was a dream come true. Nearly every other stop on the Underground was a Harry Potter reference, and even if they weren’t, their names simply screamed British. It was all immensely enjoyable.

Laura and I arrived after an obscenely early flight, running on nothing but 2 hours of sleep and the uncontainable excitement to see our respective roommates studying in Ireland, Kelly and Kim. Unfortunately, they were stuck with a Friday class and wouldn’t be flying in until the evening. Thus, Laura and I passed the morning watching the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, where we were serenaded with “Thriller” and a Beatles mix by the band (think the ND Marching Band with giant fuzzy hats and guns).


After the total chaos (I’m fairly certain that half of London was in attendance) I met up with Kelsey, a friend of mine from high school who is spending the semester in London. After realizing that we had lost our map, Kelsey pointed us in the direction of Big Ben, and we were off.


Now, here’s the thing about trying to find stuff in London: it’s hard. On each corner are arrows that conveniently point you in the direction of things such as Parliament, Westminster, and Buckingham. What Laura and I quickly noticed, however, was that these only pointed you in the correct direction roughly 62% of the time. In this way, we found that it took us a few hours to find everything that we wanted to see, including the Tower of London. You would think that one would be able to see a tower in the London Skyline. I’ll save you the trouble: you can’t. Take the Underground, and even then it requires some hunting. But it’s totally worth it, despite the rather steep 17 pound entrance fee. That’s worth it to see the Crown Jewels alone—the Tower of London is housing some major blingage, let me tell you. We’re talking thousands of diamonds here, some that are a few hundred carats each. And the views of the Tower itself are rather fantastic, as well.


That evening, after a flight delay and a few hours spent eavesdropping on British men’s mysterious conversations in the rail station (“I’m freakin’ booted and suited!”), we finally located Kim and Kelly. After a loud and tearful reunion in the very busy station and a whole lot of public judgment, we made our way to South Kensington, where we were very graciously being housed by a friend. The next few hours were spent sitting up with each other, eating junk food and talking and joking and simply enjoying each other’s company after over 2 months of separation. All was right with the world again.

The next day involved a wonderful tour to Stonehenge and Bath. Due to some confusion on the Underground, we were nearly 25 minutes late for our bus, which was miraculously still waiting for us. No one was angry with us for being late, although we were teased for the rest of the day. What a fantastic country. This would have never gone down back in the States. Stonehenge is initially very cool, but after about 5 minutes you come to the slow realization that it is really just a pile of giant rocks. Kim, Kelly, Laura and I decided to spend the remaining 55 minutes taking candid pictures with the stones in the background and debating the origin of the structure (if you ask me, it was TOTALLY the aliens).


We then moved on to Bath, which is an incredibly beautiful and fascinating city. We toured the Roman baths, where I was able to listen to commentary by my favorite author, Bill Bryson. After being carded at a local bar/restaurant (first time ever!), we made our way back to London. The rest of the evening was spent looking around Piccadilly Circus and the theater district, where it took us 45 minutes to find a restaurant that wasn’t bursting at the foundations. After having a delicious but shockingly expensive meal (London’s the most expensive city in Europe for a reason) and putting up with the death threats of our slightly neurotic waitress, we dropped another 18 pounds (really London?) to go on the London Eye, the largest Ferris wheel I’ve ever seen. The view from the top was totally worth it, however.


We then made our way to King’s Cross, where we were determined to find Platform 9 ¾. It proved to be a rather challenging endeavor, especially seeing as it was between platforms 8 and 9, not 9 and 10. Get it right, London. After meeting a trio rather amusing and inebriated New Zealanders celebrating some obscure Kiwi holiday on the trip back, we made it back to West Kensington and called it a night.


Or not. Laura and I had a 3:30 am taxi reservation in order to get to the proper Underground station to meet our 4:10 am train, which would take us to the airport in time for our 6:10 am flight back to Rome (oh travel, how you own me). We said our goodbyes to Kelly and Kim after too short a reunion, and once again parted ways. That is, until Round 2 in Rome ☺