Ok, I am totally cheating on this blog and using a lot of when Beth wrote in her blog (we did do the same things afterall), so thanks Beth!
A couple of days before we left I started getting really sick (bronchitis). I was so sick in fact that my boss made me take off of work the day we left so I could relax and get better. This was a great thing (even though I used an extra vacation day that I wasn't planning to use) because not only did I get to relax, but I was also able to prepare for the trip and get a lot of stuff done, which is always a good day as far as I'm concerned!
We left for London that night and had an easy flight. I slept most of the way (thanks to my friend "the sleeping pill"). When we arrived we found our hotel fairly easily, which was amazing since I had no clue where I was going. Staying in the hotel was SO amazing as compared to hostels. I was very glad we had decided to stay there instead of somewhere where we'd be in bunk beds and sharing bathrooms with strangers. . .While we were in London the weather was great the whole time. Hannah and Simon thought we were getting spoiled because it's not always so beautiful!
Friday, May 29th After checking into our hotel we headed to the Thames for a boat cruise. It was nice to see the city before we set out to explore it the next day. The driver was really funny and i twas nice to just sit and look at the sights. We walked around a bit and then headed to Piccadilly Circus to meet up with Hannah and Simon for dinner. We decided to get some authentic English food, so after following the 'blip' on Simon's iPhone we arrived at The Chippy, a fish and chips restaurant near Soho. The food was great and it was fun to begin to catch up with Hannah and Simon. We walked around a bit after dinner and then got some ice cream at Rendezvous, a really cute place we had ice cream at the last time we were in London. We were pretty tired after all of our travels that day, so we said our goodbyes to Hannah and Simon and went back to the hotel.
Saturday, May 30th: We started the morning at the Tower of London. We went on the audio tour, which was cool because it had accounts from prisoners and the Beefeaters. The tour was beautiful, but nothing was quite as impressive as the jewels! It's amazing to think of the history each crown and jewel holds. And it's so crazy to see diamonds as big as baseballs. Eventhough I had seen this stuff before, I was newly amazed. Our tour of the tower lasted about 3 hours, so by the time we were done we needed lunch. We walked the streets of London and stumbled upon a fun pub called the Walrus and the Carpenter. After lunch we walked to St. Paul's, which was my request because hte last time I was there it was undergoing restoration, so I was anxious to see it without the scaffolding. The the dome there is the second largest in the world. There is a balcony way up in the dome called the whisper room--you can whisper to the wall and a person across the dome can hear you. We of course, decided to make the climb, and I do mean climb, to the room. It was a GIANT spiral staircase that went on for what seemed like forever (since the dome is something like 800 feet, I am assuming around 6 floors). It was fun to try out the whisper, though you did feel a bit silly talking to a wall. :) No dome climb would be complete without a few more flights of even smaller, steeper, spiral stairs, so we went all the way to the top. Despite being completely out of breath by the time we reached the top, this was my favorite part. The top of the dome is outside and you can walk all the way around to see most of London. It was beautiful! From atop St. Paul's we were able to see our next destination: walking across Millennium Bridge to visit the Globe theater. Apparently our bird's eye view didn't help us too much though because we accidentally started walking parallel to the Thames instead of straight towards it...whoops. :) Our diverted journey did take us by some beautiful buildings though. Once we were back on track we walked over the bridge to the Globe Theater and then went to the Tate Museum of Modern Art. They had an interactive exhibit there that was pretty cool. There was all this unfinished wood and you were supposed to climb it or balance on it or do other things based on the instructions. It was neat. Our feet were beyond tired at that point, so we decided to call it a night and headed back to our hotel to eat dinner at the restaurant nearby and to play cards. It was a long, but fun second day.
Sunday, May 31st: Leave London, head to Benton (Hannah and Simon's house).
We left our hotel and took the tube to Paddington station to catch a train to Diddcot. Hannah picked us up from there and we set our exploring their cute village and surrounding areas. We had a mini 'pub crawl' (that's what I am choosing to call it) along the Thames, starting in Benton at a grill for lunch then heading to Henley-on-Thames, a cute little town on the river with shops and pubs. It was so nice out that we relaly couldnt think of much better to do but sit in pubs and drink cider. Well, everyone else had cider and I mostly stuck to bacardi breezes and sprite since I was worried that alcohol might mike my bronchitis even worse. We stopped at the Angel on the River and then headed to Wallingford where we had another cider at the Boat House. I liked this place best because it had a really nice patio right on the river. It was absolutely beautiful the whole time we were there, so sitting outside was awesome! After our cider we had excellent Indian food at another cute place across the street from the pub.
Monday, June 1st: Oxford
Beth, Mike, Hannah and I went to Oxford on Monday and it was so beautiful! Unfortunately simon woke up with the flu and couldn't join us :( But, we toured the area and did a little shopping. Highlights included going 'punting' on the Thames and getting a delicious milkshake. I was pretty sick this day, but I still really enjoyed it. Mike was our "driver for punting and he did a great job of navigating that little boat with such a big stick! There were a couple of detours through some low-hanging trees and a couple of minor collisions with other boats, but in general it went just fine. It happened to be graduation day for some of the Oxford-ites, so that was prety cool to see them in cap and gown. I bought a t-shirt and talked for the rest of our trip about "my time at Oxford". It was jolly good fun.
On Tuesday we left EARLY from Hannah's to go to Brussels, but I'll tell you about that later. Cheers!
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