Vierte Halt: London

       Well, it has taken me forever to finish blogging about our trip. Now for the last stop though: London. We woke up early in Dublin and flew to London. In London, we were staying with the family of my good friend from Berlin. She was actually flying out that evening to go back to Berlin, but we got to spend some time together and hang out during the day. Seriously I don’t think there could have been a better end to our trip. They were so hospitable and took amazing care of us. When we arrived we had to find out way to her house, but we didn’t really have a phone that worked so we used the, “Do you know where a pay phone is?” trick and someone let us use their phone quickly it was great. We knew getting to London that we wanted to avoid public transportation as much as possible because of some random costs we had, we started walking everywhere on our trip and when possible. With that being said my friend lives in the north of London and the bus trip alone was 20 pounds to get to where we needed to go. So we decided we were going to try and walk to her house instead of take the bus. We realized it was too far from where we were, but once again we got lucky because we got on the bus and only had 20 pounds and the woman said she didn’t have change so we could ride for free. Booyah! In London, you need these cards called “Oyster Cards” and it makes transportation like half the price. We didn’t have these yet though so we didn’t want to ride unless we had to. It was so weird seeing everyone driving on the opposite side of the road. We couldn’t get over it. I kept thinking we were going to crash.

The "London Eye"

        Our first day there we hung out and ate lunch. I think I ate more unique animal food at their house than I have ever in my lifetime. We ate rabbit for lunch and then we had some of the best cheeses. Seriously I could go on and on about how great her parents were. You know those people that you meet that are so wise. You feel as if you are getting smarter just being in their presence. That was how it was with them. After they dropped my friend off at the airport, we went to church with them and then out for drinks after with a couple from the church. We had the best strawberry beer. It is definitely a new favorite. The next day we figured we would do the sightseeing part of London. The family borrowed us a SIM card, so we could call them whenever we needed to and also they had some extra oyster cards that we could use. We went and saw the “London Eye”, Big Ben, the Parliament House, London Bridge, and the Tower Bridge. We also finally got the burgers we had been craving for so long. They were amazing. We went to this place called GBK because the people we were staying with gave us coupons. Seriously, they hooked us up. The funny thing was about the London Bridge. We didn’t really know where it was and good thing we didn’t ask because we realized we were standing on it. It definitely wasn’t that cool and the Tower Bridge was WAY cooler. London we didn’t do as much sightseeing because by this time we were kind of worn out from walking and both of us had pain in our feet. We did go see the Buckingham Palace though, which was pretty neat. There were tons of people; you would have thought something was happening, like the Queen was going grocery shopping or something. But nope, she wasn’t anywhere to be seen. The closest thing we saw to royalty was men on horses with red capes. That evening, the parents said that we should come back for dinner and we can all go out together. Instead, the mom decided to cook and it was honestly one of those most amazing meals I have ever eaten. It was lamb, sweet potatoes, some other amazing vegetable dish, and something else that tasted amazing. For dessert we had this apple almond pie or something. My friend’s dad is really into wine and collects it. So we also sampled different wines. I learned more about wine than I have in my entire life. I never knew how much their is to know and I actually enjoyed the taste, when usually I don’t. I mean I guess there really is a difference between expensive wine and cheap wine.

This picture is for my college teammates.
I use to coach soccer clinics for kids and for some reason
they all called me Big Ben. 

Blonde because there were cheap tickets for it, but I didn’t make Michael suffer. We looked into going to Chicago, Phantom, and some other popular ones, but they were all kind of expensive.

Buckingham Palace

                Our last day was when we parted ways. Thank goodness we didn’t have early flights, but we did fly out of separate airports. Michael was flying home and I was heading back to Berlin. It was sad, but honestly the trip was amazing and I don’t think I would have changed anything about it. It was relaxing and refreshing to get to spend time with someone who really knows me and also see other people. It definitely gave me a desire to travel more and I am hoping to in the future. I figure how often do you get to live so close to all these places and it isn’t that expensive to travel. Might as well take advantage of it while I am here. There were so many other little funny stories, but I have forgotten a lot so I guess this is more just a summary.