London 2017!

As some of you may know, London is my ABSOLUTE favorite place in the world!
I love the diversity, the food, the entertainment, the shopping, the culture!!
I've been to London four times now, and each time I want MORE!
Someday I hope to live there - if not for life, at least for study abroad or an internship.

Where we stay!!

This summer I spent two separate times in London.
When my dad and I first got to Europe, we stopped in London for two days before heading to Scotland with the rest of the team.

Usually when I fly to Europe I get zero sleep and then I am a complete waste of person the next day. Surprisingly, this year I did not get any sleep but I was completely awake when we landed in London!
We knew our hotel would not be ready for us at 8 in the morning so we headed to a club outside the gates to eat breakfast and take a shower.

We took the heathrow express train to paddington, which is perfect because our hotel is right next to it.
When we arrived at our hotel, we were pleasantly surprised that our room was ready already!
Then I crashed. Asleep I went, from about 10 am to 4 pm.
Afterwards my dad and I went down to one of my favorite places....OXFORD STREET.
The shopping!!!!
I was now VERY awake. For dinner we went to my favorite place because I could not wait any longer. WAGAMAMA!!!
When we finished with wagamama, we made our way back to our hotel down Oxford Street when suddenly appeared a wild PRIMARK.

I follow British YoutTubers pretty closely, and despite my LOVE for all things U.K. I had never been to Primark before!!! And it was definitely something I was looking forward to during this trip.

Primark is crazy. Especially the one on Oxford. It has all things you could ever want or need. Clothes, Homeware, Make Up, Shoes, Luggage!? All for good prices. GOOD PRICES.

My dad warned me of how intense this Primark was but YOLO. I was going in. Y'all, it was an hour before closing. And it was STILL like Black Friday at Walmart CRAZY. Like people have literal baskets of clothes. Theres no room anywhere! People are trying clothes on in the middle of the aisle. There are FAMILIES all OVER the place. I was not prepared. But I TRIUMPHED ON!!!
I spent the entire hour there, I circled the store twice. This place was like forever 21 on steroids. I ended up with 7 items for 40 POUNDS!!! That is insane!!!

We took a double decker bus home and enjoyed the sights.

Sadly that night's sleep was NOT good.
I woke up at 2 am and could not fall back asleep until 6 am!!!
I told my dad I was going to sleep in - assuming he would wake me up around 10...nope....almost 2 pm and my dad is like "hey maybe u should wake up" YEAH PROBABLY.
Anyways, with basically the whole day gone ):
We went to Camden Road (or is it street?) on a Saturday. it was crazy full! But it was so fun! I loved seeing a different part of london that I had never seen before! There were hundreds of street vendors selling anything from keychains to clothes to realllllly good looking food.
Afterwards we met with a woman who my dad was helping with flights at a pub near paddington where I had snitzel of all places. I ate the entire thing which I don't think has ever happened to me in the history of ever.

The next day our group arrived and we left for Scotland! But don't worry, I returned back to London a few days later.

On our first day back to London it was HOT!!!

the good ol BIG BEN!

I went on this same trip last year and was FREEZING and this year I had shorts on and was sweeaaaating.
We started the day off by taking the train back to London, then going to our hotel to get our rooms. After we went to see the changing of the guards. We then went to a church service at Westminster Abbey and it was aMAZING. I loved it!
We walked towards our dinner (which was WAGAMAMAS!!!) so we passed Big Ben.
We needed to cross the bridge, but it was currently closed because of an 'incident'. The Manchester Bombing had only happened a few days prior, and London was on serious look out. We got the all clear but it was such an intense feeling.
We found WAGAMAMAS and I got the pad thai. yummmmmy.
Afterwards, we walked more around the city. We saw several police vans being hurried off towards different areas of the city. I never felt unsafe or nervous about the circumstance we were under. There were police EVERYWHERE.

The next day was just as hot and I thought the world was ending soon bc London is never this hot.
We started the day off on Baker Street at the Sherlock Holmes museum.
Afterwards, we headed towards the Palace to see the change of the guards!
We then made our way towards St Paul's Cathedral, which you may also know as the place where the lady from Mary Poppins sings feed the birds!
We had lunch down in the crypt and I made my way towards the gift shop and went a lil crazy. Its London, I can't help myself.
We were busy this day bc the next thing we did was go to the Globe Theater and watch Romeo and Juliet. The Globe is the place where Shakespeare performed!
We got standing seats and my feet were DEAD by the end! But the performance was good. They did a different take on Romeo and Juliet and they were painted as clowns. It was such a great take on Romeo and Juliet but I wish they had done it in a black box theater! The setting of the Globe calls for more of a classic take on Shakespeare.

Globe Theater!!!

With that being said, it was still super fun and a worthy experience!
We moved on towards dinner where ate at a place called Giraffe. It was interesting but I got guac which is all I really need in life.
Finally, at the end of the day with my aching little feet, we went to see Wicked! Wicked is not my favorite musical if i'm being honest. I LOVE the music but the story line...eh. But it had been probably around 8 or 9 years since I last saw it so I said OKAY!
The singing was AMAZING!!!! I loved it, but as always, the story line just doesn't work. One girls critique though.

The next day I woke up insanely early to catch a flight to Germany for my cousins wedding! Which concludes my time in London and the U.K.

Scotland 2017!

Photo by ian g black!!!

This past May I had the privilege to go back to one of my most favorite places - Edinburgh, Scotland.

I went with my dad's business - GoGlobal, and one of his tour groups!
This was my second time going to Scotland, and I enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time.

My dad and I went to London a few days before the others so when they arrived in London, I was already adjusting to the time change.

To get to Edinburgh we took a train that lasted around 4 hours. It had about three to four stops before Edinburgh, and continued on after. It was such a great experience and I was glad I got to see the countryside. There were so many shetland ponies and sheep!

When we arrived in Edinburgh, we walked to our apartment on Windsor street. It was huge! There were four bedrooms with 15 beds total. 3 and a half bath, with a kitchen and a living room. One of the rooms had 7 beds, which we nicknamed the orphanage room, and that is where I slept with 5 other girls.

The first night in Edinburgh we took it easy. We went to a grocery store to get food for breakfast, and then we got pizza. Afterwards we played Heads Up and took an early night.

One the second day of Edinburgh we walked ALL over the city!

My dad made sure to show us all the interesting parts of Edinburgh. This included the Palace, the Parliament, and the Royal Mile.

After lunch, the group attended the walking tour of Edinburgh. I did not partake in this as I had done it the year before. It was so fun the first time! We had such a great tour guide. The tour included St. Gile's Cathedral, the Royal Mile, and even the cemetery that J.K. Rowling found some of her muses in.
The group said their tour guide was just as amazing as mine was last year, and that he did the nightly Ghost Tour that started at 9:30. We all wanted to go so bad and were excited!

That night we ate food at a pub with amazing service. I had a little embarrassing but super funny moment with one of the waitress when I thought she was my dad.

After dinner we did more walking around Edinburgh. We walked down Prince's street and eventually ended up by the Castle. My friends and I popped into a pub to use the bathroom and when we came outside. IT. WAS. POURING. Luckily I was wearing a rain coat, but most of the team was not.
I walked outside the pub and what was usually a very crowded street was completely empty - including my dad and the rest of my group. I kept my cool as I low-key glanced around the road trying to find someone when I heard my name, "KASIA!" but still no face to match the words! God? Is that you?

the good part about intense rain is no one is crowding your pics!

No. it was my dad, he was hiding in an alley way with the rest of the group. I found them eventually but we laughed about the incident for quite some time.

We made our way up to the Royal Mile - it was around 9:00 pm. I'm not kidding when I say that it was POURING. I had not been that soaked since the first day of my junior yr of high school!
Terran, Savannah, and Mike went to buy ponchos from a souvenir store and came back in these giant yellow bags.
The yellow bags were not successful and caused a lot of laughter.

The saddest news was that it was torrential downpour and we couldn't do the ghost walk.
By the time we got back to our apartment around 9:20, the rain lightened up, but we lived around 20 or 30 minutes away from the royal mile.
We decided to call it a night because we were FREEZING from the rain.

The third day of Edinburgh started with a trip to one of their art museums.
Majority of the group went and hiked a hill surrounding Edinburgh, but due to my insane hatred for mornings, I decided to take it slow and attend the museum with my dad and another group member.
The museum was amazing and had such great pieces!
After the museum we met up with the rest of the group outside St. Gile's cathedral and we attended their church service. It was a short devotional and a reading from the Scripture.

my amazing salmon!

Lunch was after and we had free reign on where we could eat. A few of us chose a pub called The World's End because it had 'award winning fish and chips', which were amazing might I add.
While we were there, we met some guys from Australia named Liam and Nathan. Hey guys!!!

After lunch the group went to the Edinburgh Castle, but similar to the walking tour, I had already been to it last year. I opted out so that I could go meet my friend Ian G Black, and instagram photographer that I had met last year on my visit!
We met back at the same art museum I was at earlier that day. Ian took me up the Scots monument, an awesome structure that requires walking up what seemed a thousand tiny stairs! (it really is only 289 steps, but it felt like more!)

Dunnottar Castle!

The view once you get to the top is WORTH IT! You can see all of Edinburgh! It was truly an amazing experience and I'm thankful for Ian taking me up there!
Of course we took some pictures while we were together!

After meeting with Ian, we met up with the group and went to dinner at another pub. While waiting for the entire group, I ran into Ian again! So of course, we took more pictures. After dinner we went home and missed the ghost tour - again.

The last day in Edinburgh may have been my favorite! Though most of it was not spent in Edinburgh - it was in the country side.
While majority of our group flew to Dublin for the day, three of us and my dad stayed back to explore the country side of Scotland. It was amazing!
My dad rented a car and DROVE us there! On the wrong side of the road! It was an experience, that is for sure. But we lived. We lived.
Our first stop was the Dunnottar Castle which was about two hours away from Edinburgh. It. Was. Amazing!
This was my first time to this castle and the scenery was breathtaking! I have been traveling since birth, and I have seen a lot of castles. I'm kind of castle snob. But this one, I liked this one! It sat on top of hill surrounded by beautiful water!
The hike up from the castle was a work out but worth it!

After the castle we drove through little villages and ended up in Inverbervie Scotland. We ate at this cafe called Butternut Bistro and I was amazed! It had a great selection of food and all of it was locally made!

We spent the rest of the day driving through the country side. It was such an amazing day!

I loved my time in Scotland. The people there are always so nice to tourists and create such a warm and welcoming environment! I cannot wait for my return!

Here is my video from Scotland! Feel free to watch!