Last but not least, London. After our Top Deck tour, Daisy and I stayed in London for another week! That left plenty of time to explore the city and even meet up with some friends.
Our tour guide was staying at the same hostel with us so we spent an evening chatting with him. He suggested some places to go to and we talked about what his plans after quitting his job. One of the best part of travelling was meeting people we don't normal talk to. It's even better because since we're freshly out of high school, we're interacting with real life adults!!! It's always good to get different perspectives and see new worlds, like literally, we were seeing a whole new side of things (punny).
The first day we had in the city, we met up with my blogger friend Yuen! It was the first time we'd seen each other, ever. We've only talked online so we it was really exciting to see her face to face.
> Her blog <
> Her insta <
We took her to a Vietnamese restaurant and it turned out it was first first time eating Viet food in London!
After a day of shopping we finally said our goodbye. Daisy and I ended up deciding to buy grocery while in London so we could make our own dinners to save some money. The total cost was a lot cheaper than eating out, in fact I think the amount we paid for cooking supplies would have only covered one dinner outing.
The second day was dedicated to visiting the National Gallery. BUT FIRST, we came across platform 9 and 3/4(!!!!!)
Okay now we're talking. Getting me some Botticelli fix.
I was freaking out because I was seeing so many of the paintings I'd study in the past and it just made me so frickin happy. This post would be very long if I show you all the pictures I took of the paintings, so below are just SOME.
Monet.
And some Van Goh.
Afterwards we went to get some Japanese food before paying a visit to the Covent Garden Market.
We came across Laduree and got to try our taste buds. They are definitely worth the hype. I have never had a salted caramel macaron as heavenly as their's.
On the way back we decided "why not" go to the British Library while we're at it. We didn't make it inside and was distracted by their book store. We lost track of time and didn't realised we spent an hour in there sitting on the floor reading books. By the time Daisy checked their phone we quickly left to try enter the library before dark. Turns out we can get into the building but to get to the actual books, we needed a library card... Good thing we got our fix in the book shop.
As you can tell our day was very eventful so we had to stop at Costa to catch our breath on the way back.
The next day we had planned a date with our old friend Shakira!
Got got lunch with desert at Paul. Shakira being as wonderful as she is, had little gifts for us ♥
She took us to all the fancy department stores were I couldn't touch the price tags without burning my hands.
We ended up buying overprices but delicious chocolates.
That evening we got to meet Shakira's boyfriend and we all went out for dinner. Daisy and I didn't get home till late and by then we were so tired.
On day forth day of adventuring we decided to take it slow and just walk about.
We'd walk from King's Cross to our hostel countless times and always passed Honest Burger. It was only right we finally stepped foot inside.
If you can't already tell from the exterior, yes it's a hipster haven.
The food was so good! The service was very friendly and attentive to boot.
We tried to make our way to the University of London just for a kick. We had trouble finding the main building but we found ourselves in the middle of a farmers' market. Once we got out we made our way to what we believe was central to the University. The weird thing we realised about London is the lack of Asian faces we saw but guess where we found a bunch of them? Yeah. At the uni campus. We probably illegally invited ourselves into one of the building and admired the interior before decided to get the hell of there before we got in trouble.
On the way back to the hostel, like we hadn't even walked 10 meters, we realised we were right next to the British Museum.
Yah know what we did next.
A SAMURAI ARMOUR!
THE Cleopatra.
It was a pretty door and it had my favourite number.
That night our friend Danielle (remember her from the tour), reached London and stayed at the same hostel! We had a good catch up and decided we'd meet her again at breakfast before she left for Australia.
On our fifth day we set out to see the Buckingham Palace because Danielle had insisted we must. She also recommended the Nandos in London so we grabbed lunch there before training out to the landmark.
SO MUCH TOURISTS.
We had to wait a while to get our photos.
"LOOK AT THIS FUCKING LEAF"
Might as well go admire the Victoria memorial while we're at it.
We realised it was much easier to get a photo of us with the palace from the memorial. Haha look at all those tourists crowding. Keep in mind it was raining so the turn up was pretty big on such a horrible weather. Imagine it on a clear day....or worse...SUMMER.
The underground in the area had wall art.
We popped into a gift store on the way back and came across some gems amongst the cards and other treasures.
The next day was our flight but it wasn't until night time so we had the whole day left to ourselves. We were too lazy to travel far in fear of transport/timing issues so we only trained to Oxford st to do last minute shopping.
I didn't take any photos during the day except this failed #ootd shot in a changing room. Might as well show off my make-up so here it is cropped.
We booked a taxi for the evening and he got us to the airport without a glitch. I am so glad we decided on a taxi because I cannot imagine lugging our belongings through the undergrounds. The fare was relatively affordable too. The ride was 1 hour and we paid 25 pounds each.
We had dinner at the airport. I have no idea what I ordered but it tasted healthy.
I did actual LAST MINUTE shopping and then we made our way to the gates. We bought ice cream from the venting machine and just relaxed.
The ride home was long and I got real bad motion sickness on our last flight from Sydney to Auckland. I don't know how I survived but I made it.
Looking back at my Europe trip I know I'll treasure those memories forever. I had so much fun and found so much beauty. It will be a long time before I get to travel far again but that's okay, travelling is in my vein and I'll find my way around the world eventually.
Related to this post:
No comments:
Post a Comment
I try to reply to all comments! ♥