Telephone Booths, Big Ben, and Double-Decker Buses

Climbing the stairs at Westminster station, I wasn’t prepared for the view that greeted me. As I ascended the last few steps, I looked up, and cliché as it sounds, I couldn’t believe my eyes. Big Ben was literally right in front of me. That welcome to London remains one of my favorite memories of the trip.

London was my very first taste of Europe. Ten countries in 30 days means not much time allowed for each stop; thus, we barely scraped the surface of the beautiful city. However, we did get a wonderful sampling of all it has to offer. We traveled all night and arrived in London around 11 am, and we hit the ground running. London provided our first experience with the joys of tackling public transportation armed with a suitcase packed for a month, and we spent a whopping 3 hours getting from the airport to our hostel. (The hostel is a whole different story that I won’t get into here. I’ll leave it at small, cramped, and slightly scary - you can use your imagination.) We literally dropped off our bags and then set off to explore London. Of course, our first pictures were by the classic red telephone booths. Touristy? Yes. Necessary? Also yes. It was amazing to see all the truly breathtaking London landmarks I had only dreamed about before - Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, double-decker buses... We even dropped by a bakery claiming to have the “best Cornish pastries.” I’m still not entirely sure what a Cornish pastry is, but it was pretty good. That first night we all met up to see “Wicked.” It was wonderful, but the adrenaline that had kept me going all day started to wear off around twenty minutes in...

Our second day in London, a group of us went running through Hyde Park – absolutely beautiful in the early morning. Part of the study abroad included business visits throughout Europe, and we had our first visit to Citigroup that morning. The rest of the day was ours to experience London. A ride on the London Eye was simply amazing and well worth the winding line. And I can now say I’ve had a dance party with a panoramic view of London… Other stops for the day included the famous department store Harrods, St. Paul’s Cathedral, a delicious cafe, and an entertaining but unsuccessful attempt to find the Beatle’s Abbey Road. Snapping pictures in front of the lit up Tower Bridge was the perfect end to a packed day.

The next morning we had to bid London goodbye to head to Paris, but a small group of us squeezed in one last site with a quick trip to the Tower of London. We took advantage of every last minute we had in the city, cutting it rather close as we sprinted back to the hostel for the appointed departure time...

All in all, not a bad way to start the trip. London was a fine welcome to Europe.

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” – Anonymous