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.