Stonehenge and Stuff

Today we woke up early to make our way to Stonehenge. It takes about two hours to get there and luckily we all slept the entire way there. I wasn't that interested in seeing Stonehenge at first but I actually was more impressed then I thought I'd be. I enjoyed the audio tour and just being in the country where it was quiet and there were sheep all around. It was super cold though which I was not expecting.

My post Stonehenge snack:

On the way back, we all fell sleep again which was a great way to kill a few hours. From here, we made our way over to Notting Hill and the Portobello Road Market area. There were lots of cute shops and stores and we even got lunch at this really cute Filipino cafe that had porch swings as seating.

Here's a picture of the bookstore from the Notting Hill movie.


Next, we did some more shopping and had dinner at this delicious restaurant called Queen St. Then, from there, we walked around Covent Garden where we went to Oliver Stone's restaurant, Union Jack, for a second dinner and dessert. Reason #32 why traveling with your cousins is awesome: we are all serious food champs!!

Now we are all packed up to leave early tomorrow to go to Amsterdam. It's 2:45 and our train leaves at 8am. Goodnite!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

London Landmarks

So after complaining that it was so hot in our room, we woke up really chilly and bundled in our covers from the cold air that came in overnight. In general, today's weather has been awesome. Although there were a few short scatters of rain, it was generally sunny but really cool and breezy.

We spent most of today hitting up all the tourist destinations. We walked to the London Bridge and then walked along the Thames River to the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.

From there, we walked over to Buckingham Palace where we saw the changing of the guards. I am super short and there were crowds of people so I didn't actually see it, but I can imagine.



From there, we went to lunch. We decided to have Indian food because London has a large Indian community and presence in London. I must admit, for someone who doesn't always love Indian food, it was pretty delicious!


From there, we walked over to Westminster Abbey, the Parliament buildings, Big Ben, and the London Eye. I told you we got a lot done today!!

Cheerio from London

So begins our family adventure in Europe! For this trip, family doesn't just mean me and William. It means a group of 8- me, William, my big brother David, 4 of my cousins: Kevin, Jennifer, Jessica, Velma, and Jennifer's boyfriend, Ship. We grew up together, seeing each other 1-3 times a week but now we live in different parts of country, so we are excited to spend some serious travel time together. We are probably going to get to know each other REALLY well. We are leaving from different departure cities but we will begin our 16 day adventure in London. I hope these blog posts help our family and friends follow along...

Here is me and Will with our backpacks packed ready for some fun!!

Will and I were the first ones to land in London. After getting on our flight at 7pm, we landed in London 7 hours later and it was 7am local time. Even though we only got about 1-2 hours of sleep, we were ready to go! It was too early to check into our hostel so Will and I went and dropped off our backpacks and spent the morning hanging out in the Covent Garden area since the rest of the family hadn't landed yet. There were lots of cool stores and shops to check out. Then we headed back to our hostel to meet my cousins and brother.

After meeting up with them, we explored other parts of London. We walked through Hyde Park, which is basically their version of Central Park.

 
We went to the famous Harrod's department store and enjoyed their amazing food floors with fancy chocolates and other delicious delicacies. Then we went to Kerbishers and Malt, one of Yelp's highest recommended fish and chips places in London. While the fish was delicious, the chips were just ehhhh. I prefer fries that are thin like McDonalds, not meaty steak fries like this place. Then we got dessert at a little lounge/bar before calling it a night. We are all ready to get a full night's rest after pulling all nighters.

And yes, I did say hostel, not hotel. So while I have done the whole backpacking thing and staying at hostels and was great at 17 yrs. old, since I am now a grown up with a job, I would generally prefer to stay somewhere nicer. For all of the other cities in our European adventure, we have rented really nice, modern private homes/vacation rentals through AirBnB. However, with London being super expensive, the number of homes centrally located and able to accommodate 8 adults being very limited, and having a range of budgets to accommodate, we decided to just go with the Clink78 hostel.

While it is a totally fine hostel, it definitely won't be the best part of the trip. The hostel is totally safe, clean, and has all the necessities but warm rooms and showers with buttons that have to be pushed every once and a while to keep the water pumping are some of the first world problems (or I guess U.S. world problems since England is first world) that have us looking forward to our future destination lodgings. Note: being hot brings out people's crankiness levels to different degrees. :)


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad