Brace yourself for the week I "carpe diemed" with two of my best gal pals in London and beyond.
Day 1
After our fun-filled day in Oxford, we woke up in the magical land of London. We discovered that our hotel was near Hyde Park and that Kensington Palace was just on the other side, so we decided to make that our first adventure. On the way, we got brunch at a place called Café 19 (that would become our regular). Apparently, we have good taste because Robert Pattinson has ate there as well (my high school heartthrob.) I got my all-time favorite meal- French toast with bananas and sausage. (click photos to scroll)
We took a lovely stroll through Hyde Park and made our way to Kensington Palace, Kensieton Palace, same difference. We weren’t sure if we were at the right place because it isn’t what you might picture when you think of a “palace.” It looks more like a nice brick mansion. This is where Princess Diana used to live and where her son Prince Will and Princess Kate now live. I was in fan-girl haven. My mom has always been a huge Princess Diana fan. I must have inherited the gene because I am a huge Kate Middleton fan/wannabe. The living quarters are private, but we did get to tour the State Rooms. They were very antique and grand.
We were in for a treat because got to see a fashion display called “Fashion Rules Restyled,” featuring 18 couture gowns worn by Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Margaret and Princess Diana. There were even original design sketches with fabric swatches framed on the walls and fashion magazine covers. My favorite gown was an ivory silk satin ball gown with intricate beading designed by Norman Hartnell for the Queen to wear on a state visit to France in 1957. It looks like something out of a real fairy tale. Oh wait, it is. (first gown in gallery below)
This reminded me of a special day in 2011 when my mom took me to see Princess Diana’s traveling fashion exhibit at Union Station in Kansas City. What made it extra special was that I had been crowned Miss Missouri’s Outstanding Teen the day before. We were exhausted from the crazy pageant week, but the five hours of driving were totally worth it to see many of the iconic pieces worn by our favorite princess. We even got to see her unbelievable wedding gown.
After enjoying cute crown cappuccinos at Kensington, we went to see the gardens. They were gorgeous, but unfortunately there were no sightings of Will and Kate out for an afternoon stroll.
That evening we grabbed dinner at a pub and saw “Romeo and Juliet” on the West End at the Garrick Theatre. We pre-booked these tickets because it starred the main actors from the newer Disney “Cinderella” film and we LOVE that movie. Lily James who starred in the movie as Cinderella played Juliet. Richard Madden who played Prince Charming in the movie played Romeo. Sadly, his understudy was filling in for him because he was injured. But we had a pleasant surprise that Derek Jacobi who plays the King in Cinderella played Mercutio. He was delightful and stole the show! Lily James did a lovely job. It was such a pleasure to have the opportunity to watch her act in person.
Day 2
Emerald persuaded my still sickly booty out of bed and we seized our second day in London. We had brunch and then bought a double decker bus tour called the "Big City Bus Tour" that was good for 48 hours. (Confession- they didn’t validate ours for two days, so it really turned into 96 hours. #Score This may seem dishonest, but trust me, we spent a lot of money in taxi fares on this trip, so we weren’t hurting the London economy by any means.) This was a good way to get around the city and see the major landmarks. We had headphones to listen to interesting historical narration that corresponded to where we were. It also played royal classical music, which made the ride even more magical! Not long after getting on the bus, we realized we were close to the Sherlock Holmes museum. Emerald is a diehard fan, so we hopped off the bus. We then realized that the museum is separate from Sherlock’s address, 221 B. Baker Street, but that we weren’t far away. That was what Emerald really wanted to see so we walked there to fulfill her dream of seeing the iconic door next to Speedy’s Café. I have got to watch those shows!
From there, we realized we weren’t far from King’s Cross Train Station. Emerald and I had on our London bucket list that we wanted to stand at Platform 9 ¾ from Harry Potter, so we headed that way. En route, we came across a giant, GORGEOUS Victorian building called St. Pancras International, which is a hotel and translation. We were lured inside by its beauty. I loved that amazing discoveries like this were around every corner in London.
We made it King's Cross. Being the Potter-heads we are, waited in line for an hour to take our picture on the platform. Lexy graciously followed along with our nerdy shenanigans.
Next we went to see the famous Big Ben clock tower from Peter Pan and take cute pictures inside a red telephone booth. When in London, right? ;) The clock tower wasn’t as big as I had pictured it in my mind, but it was gorgeous and ornately detailed. It rings on the hour every hour and that is magical. We ate dinner at a nearby pub (You will see a trend with this pub thing, but it’s the main source of food in London.) and saw the London Eye (the world’s tallest Ferris wheel) at sunset. It looked like a painting. We had the quite the evening trying to catch a bus ride home. It took us almost an hour to find the right bus stop, then we were on the bus for over an hour until we finally realized that we were still going to have to take a taxi to get all the way back to our hotel. We had a lot of laughs along the way though. Just Midwest girls in a European city world.
Day 3
We grabbed breakfast to go at our beloved Café 19 and hopped aboard our toughly-loved Big Bus City Tour. We went to the Queen’s crib, formerly known as Buckingham Palace. The grandeur of it lives up to expectations. There were A LOT of people there. It was nuts. I would have never dreamt you could tour the place. Lucky for us, the Queen opens up the palace for seven weeks of the year for tours. We tried waiting in the mile-long line and learned that it was better to purchase tickets for a later time and come back. So that’s just what we sight-seeing-savvy girls did.
While we waited for our tour, we walked to see the gorgeous gothic Westminster Abbey, where the Queen’s coronation was held and William and Kate were married. We didn’t go inside, but I plan to one day. We met a cute puppy dog along the way and that made me so happy! :)
We went back to Buckingham for our tour and it was beyond anything I imagined! I kept thinking of the movie the “BFG” I recently saw in theatres and even saw the magnificent room he had breakfast with the Queen and her corgis in. Each state room was so decadent and rich with gold leafing on the walls and ceilings, rich tapestries and carpets. Entire hallways were filled with paintings and sculptures. Every year the palace hosts a special display. We scored because this year’s display is “Fashioning a Reign: 90 Years of Style from the Queen’s Wardrobe” to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday. We got to see the many pieces of her wardrobe from when she was born to present day. We saw her wedding dress, ball gowns and the many hats she has worn over the years. The crowd-stopper was her coronation gown. It was unlike any gown I’ve every seen, with luscious, intricate beading and floral emblems to represent the countries of the United Kingdom and the states within the Commonwealth of Nations. We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the palace, but here are some courtesy photos to share the beauty I saw.
That evening we went to see the Bolshoi Ballet perform “Swan Lake” at the Royal Opera House. Emerald and I both love ballet and met in dance class at ORU so we were in heaven! This was definitely one of the biggest highlights of my entire trip abroad. We splurged on our tickets in advance when we discovered that the famous Russian ballet company would be performing the most iconic ballet in London for three nights. What we didn’t realize was that we would get to see greatest living ballerina, Svetlana Zakharova perform! She was phenomenal. She danced both the white and black swan roles and did more 32 fouttes at once! I was astonished to learn she is 37. We were over-the-moon that we got to see her perform in person.
Day 4
We were up bright and early, grabbed our Café 19 breakfast sandwiches (you guessed it) to go and were off to the Warner Bros. Harry Potter Studio Tour! We took a taxi to Victoria Station and left from there for the studios in Leavesdon. There was way too much mind-blowing magic about the studios to describe in this post, but it was so surreal to see the sets, costumes and props that brought the Harry Potter books to life. We saw the Great Dining Hall set which of course reminded me of the gorgeous dining hall I ate every meal in at Magdalen. We saw the annex where Harry lived under the staircase at the Dursley’s. We got to go inside the Dursley’s house. We even saw the house Harry’s parents lived in, Hagrid’s hut, Snape’s potions classroom and the list goes on.
The neatest part of the tour for me was walking across the Hogwarts bridge. It wasn’t over a cliff like in the movies, but it was still awesome! It made me think of all the scenes filmed there, like when Neville is running from the Death Eaters in the last film. The grand finale of the tour was the model of the Hogwarts castle. It was jawdropping. I didn’t know this before, but they actually filmed the model for the films and would use CGI to enhance it or make it look real.
I had some delicious Butterbeer of course :) I had it before at Harry Potter World Universal. Only four places in the world serve it and it is so yummy!
We went back to London and hopped back aboard our double decker bus. We went to see the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London, which is a medieval castle that was built in 1066. As a whole, the Tower is made up of several buildings set within two rings of defensive stone walls and a moat. It is located along the River Thames in central London. The coolest part of seeing the Crown Jewels was seeing Queen Elizabeth’s Imperial State Crown, with the Black Prince’s Ruby and the fourth largest polished diamond in the world at 317.4 carats. It has 11 emeralds, 17 sapphires, 277 pearls and more than 3,000 smaller diamonds. We weren’t aloud to take photos inside the crown jewels exhibit, but I feel very fortunate to have seen them and to even put my face within inches of that crown (through glass of course). Needless to say, there were armed guards outside.
I didn’t mention that our double decker bus tickets included a riverboat tour. Conveniently, the port was right beside the Tower of London. We hopped on and got a beautiful view of the gorgeous bridges that go over the River Thames, including Millennium Bridge that appears in "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" film. We even got to see the Tower Bridge (known as London Bridge) open and close for a boat to pass through! Lucky timing.
When we got off the boat, I decided to do some investigating at the National Theatre to see if I could get a ticket to the play “The Deep Blue Sea” by Terence Rattigan, the playwright we studied in my Modern Class. To my luck, I was able to get a standing ticket for only 5 pounds! I saw the play while Emerald rode the London eye and Lexy went back to the room to rest. I’ve always wanted to ride the London Eye, but I plan to one day with my future hubby. ;) The play was incredible and I feel so lucky to have snagged a ticket to see it. And I did snag a seat for the second half so I didn’t have to stand the entire two hours :)
Day 5
So sad that this was Emerald’s last day with us before she had to go back to school! There was another big thing left on her/our Europe bucket list- Stonehenge! We grabbed brunch at- you guessed it- Café 19 and took some time online finding an afternoon tour to book. (Word of advice, book your tours at least a day in advance to prevent stress haha). We got lucky and found one. A few hours later we were back at Victoria Station and on a bus to Stonehenge, which is located over two hours away from London in Wilshire (AKA- rolling hills and sheep farms). Stonehenge was built between 3000 and 2000 B.C. No one is positive why it was built, but we all know one thing about it- it rocks.
That evening we had dinner at a pub called “The Shakespeare,” followed by convenient store junk food and attempting to recap the Olympics on our tiny hotel TV.
Well folks, there's a recap of my first week of European adventure following my four weeks studying in Oxford with the British American Drama Academy. Was I exhausted? Yes, to the point of having a nasty cold, but I wasn't going to let that cramp my European style! I kept hoping I would run into Prince Harry in London... wistful thinking doesn't get one far in this life.
Weekly woes of three traveling American girls:
1. The Big City Bus Tour (in its defense, it was also a weekly win.) The dreadful night we couldn't seem to get back to our hotel on the bus, I asked the driver where we should get off to be closest to our hotel. He replied, "The Marble Arch." I thought he said, "The Marmalage." I even repeated it back to him. I went and told the girls we were to get off at the Marmalage. We haven't stopped laughing about it since. Those English accents will get you.
2. Trying to find a nice Princess Diana souvenir for my mom. Most of the souvenirs I did find with her on them were cheap and tacky. I finally settled for a screen printed coffee mug, and I'm telling you people, that was the best I could find. England needs to step up their Princess Di memorabilia. I did end up finding a book of collector stamps later.
3. Running out of phone storage at the Harry Potter Studios after the one thousandth photo that day. Apple, why you gotta do me like that?
4. Gonking my head on obscure objects in pubs. Our last night in London as a trio, I was laughing about something at the pub and leaned back, only to bang my head (very hard) into a picture that was hanging in the corner of two walls. I mean, who hangs a photo like that? Keep in mind that pubs are very crowded in London. I have never had a headache so immediately and for so long after hitting my head. Oh well, it provided for more laughter. And I only had one glass of wine..seriously.
5. Getting yelled at by a restaurant manager and employee (at the same time, in front of the customers) after using their restroom. They thought I wasn't a customer. My friend had just bought something and we had ate there the day before. I obligingly purchased some kiesh to go and told the manager and I did not appreciate the way he treated me after we had in fact spent a considerable amount of money there. Yeesh, people. Note to everyone- expect to pay to use the restroom in Europe. At stations, it's 35-50 p (the English way of saying "cents") to use the restroom.
“To live will be an awfully big adventure.”