This past weekend our group took the train down to London for the weekend to experience the breath-taking experience of seeing Big Ben, Tower Bridge, London Tower and so much more.  To say that the weekend was incredible would be an understatement.

I woke up around 5:30am Saturday morning, hopped in the taxi by 7am and were off on the train by 7:30am.  The first stop was High Street Kensington so we could stop in at the hostel and drop off our bags.  The walk wasn’t too bad and the hostel was very nice compared to what I was picturing.  All of the girls stayed in one room, luckily we got our own room, and Zach, the only guy on the trip, was in a separate room with a couple different guys he did not know as well.  After the bags were dropped off, we hopped back onto the tube and headed over to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of the guards.  The sidewalks were filled with people lined up to watch, which seemed like a lot to me, but apparently wasn’t many at all.

As luck would have it, right when we arrived in England, their 50 degree weather disappeared to Valparaiso because it was quite chilly in London and apparently 55 degrees back at home.  Anyways, after, we ventured through the Queen’s park and over to see the miraculous Big Ben and the Clock Tower.  Most people believe that Big Ben is the huge clock tower, when in reality it is the bell inside of the tower.  The tower itself was just renamed a couple of months ago to The Queen Elizabeth II’s Clock Tower in honor of her diamond jubilee.  There we all took numerous pictures of the tower in awe and amazement.  It was definitely a sight to take your breath away.

We continued our way and saw the great London Eye, the fourth largest ferris wheel-though don’t let them hear you call it that-in the world.  It was closed for yearly maintenance though so we couldn’t actually go on it.  There are 32 pods that represent the 32 districts in London.  Entertaining enough, there is no pod 13 for the British are very superstitious.

Across the river we saw the London Bridge and well as Tower Bridge.  Maybe people confuse the two.  The London Bridge is not the beautiful bridge, but actually quite boring.  It’s the Tower Bridge that everyone loves to look at and take photos of.  Of course next to Tower Bridge is the London Tower that I will write more about in my next blog.

After sightseeing for a while, we hopped on one of the on-and-off buses and took a tour around the city.  We saw every well-known and tourist spot there is to see in London as well as learned a lot about the city itself. Such as, there are dragons in every entrance and exit in the city of London.  When you are entering the city, the dragons will be facing you, when exiting they will have their backs turned away from you. We also learned about the bubonic plague and how the saying “God bless you” came from the time of the plague and that people would say it because once they began to sneeze, they would only live for another 48 hours.

Another tour some of us went on was the Harry Potter tour that took you all around the city and showed you the places that the movie was filmed and inspired by.  We saw The Ministry of Magic, Gringotts Bank, Diagon Alley and a few other little places throughout the different books.

There were many other places we went, like Piccadilly Circus where we saw the play 39 Steps, Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square.  The trip was truly amazing and felt like it was more than just a mere two days.  I can’t wait to go back and experience more of the city because it is just not possible to see it all in two days.