No, we did not run a marathon while in London, but it sure felt like we did! Saturday morning saw a 6am wake-up call, and we left our hotel no later than 6:35 in the morning to catch the 6:56am train to Stratford. Yes, you read that right -- more on that soon! We were on our way to visit the 2012 Olympic Stadium, but it was quite a ways away from our hotel. We figured it would be smartest to start out with this trip and make our way back into the city. We arrived at the London Bridge after a very pleasant 45-minute train ride in which I got to read some of my latest book -- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen. I felt very English reading Jane Austen while in England! We transferred to the tube for the 20-minute ride to Stratford - home of the 2012 Olympic Stadium. Y'all, I was so excited to be going to a city by the name of Stratford. I am not sure if y'all have gathered this, but I loved my high school, and I was so excited to be back in my element! I took more than a few pictures over at Stratford - once a Spartan, always a Spartan.
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| Stadium |
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| Aquatic Complex |
We headed back to the underground to head over to the London Bridge, London Tower, Millennium Bridge area so that we could check those things off of our list. When we stepped off of the tube, we must have looked lost, because someone asked us what it was that we were looking for. I admitted to him that this was going to be a rather silly question, but could he please point us in the direction of the London Bridge. With a chuckle, he told us how to get there and to the Tower Bridge and to the Tower of London. We were set! We headed off in the direction of the London Bridge and guys, I am not going to lie - it was kind of a let down. Sarah and I both looked at each other and laughed as I asked her, "Is this it?" We decided that we just had to walk across it, just to say that we did, and it put us near our next destination: Millennium Bridge. Millennium Bridge, for those of you who don't know, is a bridge used in Harry Potter. So you KNOW that I was excited about this. I felt so cool crossing something that was used in a movie of my favorite book series. Naturally, Sarah and I had to have a picture (or two) on this bridge - nice and windy!
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| London Bridge |
We then decided to head over to the Tower Bridge (much prettier), but we stopped along the way to snap a few pictures of The Globe Theatre. You would think that as an English teacher this would have excited me. It really didn't. I am not really into Shakespeare, mostly because of the language, but it was still cool to see the place in which his plays were performed. I am taking a class on Shakespeare once I return to Austin so I hope this helped me to get into the spirit of the plays! We were finally ready to make the trek over to the Tower Bridge and y'all - it was so cool! It was absolutely beautiful and we even got to see it when it was raised! We crossed the bridge to take us to the Tower of London where we debated paying the 16 pounds that it cost to take a tour. In the end we decided to pay the price and we were sure glad that we did! With our stomachs full of some freshly roasted almonds bought from a street vendor (a must-do, right?), we were ready to explore the place that is full of English history. While I am not one for American history, I really enjoy English history and learning about such royalty - makes me wish that I was royal! Anyway, we explored the tower a bit before wandering into the room we were most anticipating: The Crown Jewels. Pictures were forbidden (although I did sneak a picture of the Diamond Jubilee), but I truly hope that you get a chance to see these beautiful jewels. I can only imagine how much they must be worth and I loved seeing all of the crowns, rings, and swords that are used at the coronation of a new king or queen.
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| Globe Theatre |
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| Jokesters |
We were pretty famished after our walk through the Tower of London, so we set off to find the restaurant about which we were so excited: The Texas Embassy Cantina. What is really cool about this is that this was the actual Texas Embassy when we were our own country. As soon as Texas joined the United States, Texas Embassy became a restaurant specializing in "authentic" Tex-Mex. We were so excited to finally find the restaurant after a bit of wandering only to see a sign in the window that said they had closed. FIVE days before we got there. We forced smiles so that we could get at least get a few pictures out of it, but we were not happy campers! We were so excited to get a little taste of Texas and we were let down when we saw that we were five days too late. We wandered around for a good hour trying to decide where to eat and we finally decided on Pret A Manger again. I had the exact same thing and it was just as good as it was the day prior. With some food in our bellies, we were ready to head to our next destination: King's Cross Station.
Now, I am not sure if you gathered my love for Harry Potter when I talked about the Millennium Bridge, but going to King's Cross, more specifically Platform 9 3/4, was fulfilling a childhood dream. As was expected, there was a crowd of people surrounding this "platform," but Sarah and I managed to snap a few pictures before heading off to Hogwarts. Just kidding, but I wish I wasn't! We then headed over to Platform 4, the true set of the Harry Potter films and snapped a few pictures there as well before heading over to Buckingham Palace.
Not to sound like a downer, but although it was cool to say that I saw Buckingham Palace and that I strolled through the park to get there, it really wasn't that cool. For such an important place, I was expecting to be blown away by the beauty of the place. I really wasn't, but I guess I am glad that I saw it! After our disappointing experience at Buckingham Palace, we set off for Harrod's again so that we could more thoroughly (attempt) to examine all seven floors. We just so happened to visit the store on the opening day of a sale, so it was extremely crowded, and that combined with the chaos of the layout of the store made for a tough shopping trip. We still enjoyed our time and I purchased a few small things, mainly to say that I made a purchase from Harrod's!
We were then ready for something to eat (as usual), so we headed over to a frozen yogurt shop in Covent Garden that we had spotted yesterday on our way to Cyber Candy. You didn't think a girl with the blog name "fitness&FROYO" would miss out on the chance to try frozen yogurt in a new country, did you? Well, the name of the place was Snog and it was delicious. I had a mix of natural and chocolate with blackberries, bananas, and blueberries on top (miss that fresh fruit!) and it really hit the spot. It gave me the last bit of energy needed to explore the four-story M&M World!
We almost didn't go because we were pretty darn exhausted, but we decided to just go for it - YOLO, right? It was really close to Snog and word on the street was that they had crispy m&m's (only the best kind!) so we headed on over there to stock up on m&m's. Y'all, this place was awesome. It had every color and every different kind of m&m, it had everything m&m that you could possibly think of, and it had a remake of the famous Beatles album cover on Abbey Lane. Sarah and I did not make it to Abbey Lane unfortunately, but I guess that means we will just have to make a return visit!
I made a couple purchases for some people back in the States, and we were finally ready to head back to our hotel in Horley. We left our hotel at 6:35am and we didn't return until 10:04pm. And we never stopped moving - we certainly got our money's worth out of that trip! Instead of going to sleep like normal people would, we spent time uploading pictures to Facebook and laughing at the memories of the weekend. It sure was a great one, and one for which I will forever be thankful!
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