Weekend Trip to London!

This past weekend I was lucky enough to be able to visit my friends Christina White and Bryan Wachter in London, England. Christina and Bryan moved to England at the beginning of September with a study abroad program with their college (SJU-CSB in St. Joe, MN). So far they've been loving being there and have learned enough about the city and how to get around it to be wonderful tour guides for me. Christina and I met 3 years ago now during my first summer working for club care at Victoria Elementary. Luckily, we were both moved to work at Clover Ridge Elementary for the last 2 summers and have grown to be really great friends. Even though I just met Bryan (yup, they've been dating for a while :) this summer it was fun to be able to get to know him a little better this past weekend. 

The weekend started with my roommate Ashlee and I heading off to the train station after school on Friday. She has a cousin who's living in London for the year so we traveled over and back together. To get to London you take the Eurostar train from the Brussels Midi train station for 2 hours in which the train goes through some beautiful Belgian countryside, under the ocean, and into the center of London. When we got off the train Christina and Bryan were right there waiting for me. I must admit that it's so much more exciting meeting friends in another country than at home! After we got to where their flats are in the South Kensington area we went out for a classic English meal of Fish and Chips at a local pub-and yes, it was delicious! Later that night we headed out for a drink at another pub with some of the other people in their program. They were all really fun and nice people!

Saturday and Sunday were dedicated to being total tourists, haha. Christina and I headed out on Saturday morning to the National Portrait Gallery and National Gallery which were both amazing. I'm still in shock that all of the museums are free in London. We saw works by Monet, Manet, Renior, Degas, Klimt, and some other greats. Some of the pieces that I had seen photographs of were definitely a lot bigger (or smaller) than I pictured them. Lets just say the pictures definitely don't do any of them justice! After spending a few hours in museums we walked around Trafalgar Square and then ventured over to see Big Ben, Parliament, the London Eye, and the River. After seeing some of the amazing sights London has to offer Christina, Bryan, and I took a walk around their "neighborhood" of South Kensington where we walked to the Beautiful Royal Albert Hall and through a beautiful park (I think it was called Kensington Park?) to Kensington Palace. Unfortunately Prince William and Prince Harry live out in the country now so there was no spotting of them, drats! For the rest of our stroll we perused the wealthy part of town with some of the 20-25 million dollar pound houses on it. I may or may not have picked out a few to live in when I strike it rich...Christina and I spent the rest of the day shopping (because we always go shopping when we're together) before we met Bryan and another girl, Katie, for an enjoyable dinner at an Italian restaurant down the street followed by some milk chocolate hazelnut flavored gelato for dessert, mmmmm!

Sunday morning began at Paul's cafe and delicious pastry shop where we had amazing french croissants and coffee. After enjoying a peaceful breakfast we took the tube (London's underground metro system which is the oldest around!) to Green Park where we walked through the lush grounds to Buckingham Palace. To our luck we got there right as they were changing guards which was really cool to see. They do it once a day at 11:30 AM and tons of people come to watch as the horses lead the new guards, complete with red uniforms and awesome hats, into the palace gates. After all of the excitement subsided we headed towards downtown through the other end of the park where we saw lots of cute ducks, an ugly duckling (AKA baby swan), lots of birds, lots of beautiful flowers, and an amazing bridge overlooking the palace on one side and downtown on the other. Once we were back downtown we saw Big Ben again, Westminster Abbey, and some really cool street performers. While we were walking across the bridge we met a funny little french man named Jacques Lebeau who was painting these amazing little portraits of different sights in London. When we asked him if he used acrylic he replied "of course I use acrylic!" As a souvenir I bought one of his pieces that has Parliament and Big Ben on it. I love it and am definitely happy I bought it! Before I left we ate some traditional London pasties. They're basically like a pot pie that's wrapped up and can be eaten like a calzone. I got a Chicken and Vegetable one and it was awesome! After meeting Ashlee at the train station we checked in and slept on the 2 hour train ride home. Thank you Christina and Bryan for an amazing weekend, I had so much fun!! Here are some of my photos from my trip and the link to see more of my photos on my facebook album. 
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2068152&id=59201520&l=a3e846fa9e