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.

Arriving in London, I thought it would be an automatic, “oh my god, I’m here, I can’t believe it!”, but it really wasn’t.  There was no huge moment of realization and it actually took until we saw Big Ben in London that it did start to sink in that I was truly 3,950 miles from home.  There are many differences here in England from home and many things that are different from what I expected.

Of course there are the obvious things such as the cars on the opposite sides of the road that everyone already knows about.  However, they look significantly different than they do back home in the US even if they are the same brand like Ford or Toyota.  Another huge difference is the food.  I had already heard that burgers taste differently because their cows are treated and fed differently than ours are in the US and I can confidently agree with that statement now from experience, they taste significantly different.  Not bad different, but just not what you would expect when biting into a burger.  Of course the first night in the pub, that’s exactly what I ordered.  Pubs are quite different from our restaurants or bars as well.  First off, you don’t have someone waiting on your table, but you go up to the bar, order your drink and food, pay and then sit back down.  They will bring you your food and that’s about it, and they will bring it out as its ready, not everyone’s together.  If you are just going for drinks, but don’t actually want to order something, they do want you to pay for water just because they don’t like it when people are taking up a seat and not spending money.  In restaurants, if you want your check, you have to ask for it, they will not just bring it out to you.  All of these are good tips to know when eating out inEngland.

When walking around, the city itself is so significantly different from anything I have ever seen before.  The streets are so narrow you wonder how those huge double-decker buses even fit on the streets.  A general rule for walking around the town, always stop and wait for the walking signal, cars, buses and especially bikes will not stop for you.  Bikes here are treated like cars, they drive on the road and have their own lane and they will hit you if you walk out in front of them.  Pedestrians in no way have the right of way in the roads.  We always have to be very careful and look every which way before we cross because most times we cannot even tell which ways the cars are coming from.  It really did not come as much of a shock to me when I heard that kids here do not learn to drive until they are 17 and do not get their licenses until at least 18, if then.  If you think driving in Chicago is bad, you can’t even begin to imagine what the lane changes and crazy driving goes on in England.  The traffic patterns still have yet to make sense to me and people should really be saying that those English drivers are bad, not the Chicago ones.

While walking the streets, I noticed that there aren’t garage cans spread along the sidewalks.  It’s actually a bit of a search to find one.  Surprisingly enough, the streets aren’t filled with litter.  If walking in the City Centre around 6:00pm, it was very shocking to notice that the stores were beginning to close, so if you wanted to go shopping, you have to make sure to do it earlier in the day.  However, while shopping earlier, something that is quite common I have found to know is that there are street performers either singing or playing the guitar all along the streets.  It’s very interesting to me as well as very enjoyable to hear.  In general while walking, the British will not make eye contact with you if you are passing them.  In my opinion, I have found that the men are much friendlier than the women as well.

A few things that I was told to prepare for that I don’t find accurate exactly was first that the portion sizes were very small.  I did not seem to think they were small but actually quite large in some pubs.  In London, it seemed like every place we passed had a huge section of fried too as well.  At the hostel we stayed at, breakfast included fried bread, a fried egg, fried hash browns, a fried tomato, fried sausage and ham that were all cooked in a large pan filled with about an inch of oil.  They also served baked beans which everyone in our group decided to pass on at 8:30am.

The girls in our group were also told to make sure to pack tampons because they were very hard to find inEngland.  I have been to many different grocery and pharmacy stores-similar to a Walgreens, CVS, or Walmart back home-and have seen tampons sold at each.  On the other hand, I wish we were told that zip-lock baggies were not sold in theUK.  The British seem to love their saran wrap and use it for everything.  A few people had told me that North Face jackets were slightly frowned upon as well as sweatshirts with hoods, however, I have seen many people wearing both and many people also wear jeans out and about.

Overall, I have to say that I am loving my English experience and learning all of the differences between America and England.  It is fascinating to witness everything and I cannot wait to have more interactions with the British to learn more about their culture and ways.