STORIES: June 27-29 // London, England

June 27-29 // London, England

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Let me tell you the tale of my extremely accidental but totally illegal entrance into the UK. I went to London last weekend to visit an old friend. I had the most amazing time, but let me start from the beginning. I went to work on Friday, trying not to geek out as London was the place I wanted to travel too while being in Europe. I managed not to freak out until about an hour before I left, I squealed on my way out because I said I was going to London in a couple hours and my coworker told me to be a total tourist. She was probably amused as people from Ireland can go to the UK with no problem, they often will go spend summers there and work like you would go home and get a summer job. Just for shits. I'm more than a little jealous.

I made it home with just enough time to pack my backpack, make sure it doesn't. look to big as I'm flying Ryan Air and they tend to be fussy with their rules. I ate my dinner, really quickly, too quickly actually and raced out the door to go catch my bus. The bus that proves to be the most stressful experience. I walked to Dawson Street, where it was supposed to pick me up. I've got a bounce in my step and my music is blasting and I'm walking like I own the place because I actually know where I am going and I am not lost. Knowing where I'm going = owning Dublin. My logic is flawless, I know.

I made it to Dawson Street and to where the 'stop' was supposed to be. It's under construction, so I go to ask a nearby bellhop where to go and he points out a bus stop up ahead. I thank him and head on my way, just to see a bus come and pull in and leave before I can jump on it. Damn it. I have to wait another fifteen minutes.

...Fifteen minutes go by and THE BUS PASSES RIGHT BY ME EVEN THOUGH I HAIL IT. I'm slightly frustrated, no longer having a skip in my step and I run after this bus. I stop when I realize he isn't stopping at the next bus stop either, he's just driving. A really nice man tells me that it doesn't stop here, even though I saw it earlier, but the stop is supposedly close so he walks with me to the next stop. (Irish people are so nice). I make it to the stop but he says he doesn't' think there will be another one for a long while, maybe an hour. I can't wait an hour at this point, I will miss my flight. The internet says it comes every fifteen minutes, but the internet also said it picked me up on Dawson Street. And it did not. We start walking to another stop that will take me to the airport, but it could take an hour and I end up turning around and waiting at least until 8:15 so I can see if the bus comes or not before I try another mode of transportation. Thankfully it came and I climbed on and headed to the airport. We were there shortly and security took two minutes.

Only two minutes.

I'm not lying. Even with Magnus (my insulin pump). They just told me to walk through, they didn't pat me down or wipe Magnus down to make sure he wasn't a bomb. They even had enough time to re-scan my backpack and confiscate my peanut butter. (It's a paste, not a food. Who knew?!) In two minutes. I was quite pleased. I walked out and the gates weren't even posted for my flight. I had a long night ahead of me so I made my way towards the starbucks and got a coffee, waiting to go to my gate.

I get on to the flight with no problem, half an hour late to leave but no problem. They serve proper chips (fries) on flights here. However they were out on my flight. I'm pretty sure there hadn't been more of a tragedy. Well, aside from my two most important films to watch with my best friend coming out this summer, when I am lacking my best-friendness. I'm still not over that.

The flight was short, maybe just over an hour and I got off with no problems. I made my way through customs, my passport ready because lets be honest, all American's really want the stamp in the passport. I can only see two gates at this point, one that says 'EU citizens' and another that doesn't say anything but 'Checking Goods' and 'Not checking goods' (or something along those lines). So I go into the 'Not checking' enterance since I am not part of the EU anything. Well it just filters me into a giant mass of people who went through the EU doors. I think the customs gate must be up ahead so I keep walking. I round a corner, nothing, maybe it's farther. I keep going until suddenly I'm outside the airport. No passport check, no customs sign. I just stop for a second and turn right back around. I don't want to get in trouble for illegally being in England and I definitely want my passport stamped! I walk back in, and pretend not to notice the 'no entrance' signs.

...I set off the security gate. The doors closed, locking some poor people behind in the airport and I stand there trying to look innocent even though I know fully well it was my fault. I finally look back out the way I came and there is a guy who works a shop in the airport and he asks me what I forgot. I make my way to him and say I didn't forget anything but no one checked my passport. He tells me it's alright to just go. I hold out my passport to show him I am not part of the EU or UK or anything and he just waves me off. So.. hesitantly, I leave to go to my bus stop.

By now I am mentally freaking out. I'm thinking Ireland is never going to let me back into the borders and I am going to get arrested for sneaking into a country and I would just be saying it was a mistake and I tried to fix it but the shop person sent me on my way and I didn't try any harder. I blame the fact that it was after midnight, it'd been a long week and I was tired for my mental freak out. It only took a few minutes for me to remind myself that they don't always stamp. I could have come via a ferry and they wouldn't have stamped my passport.

I suddenly feel loads better and go get into the A9 line for my bus, which isn't there yet. It's only a little after midnight and my bus isn't scheduled to leave until 1:30. It pulls in early though so I go and hand the lady my ticket, she asks where I'm getting off, signs my ticket and lets me board. I figure I'll just sleep until the bus starts to move at 1:30 and then figure out what stop to get off on.

Nooopeeee. I should have known. It left right away. So, I half slept as I waited to get to my bus stop. I have no service in the UK so I can't send my friend a message saying I'll be there an hour early. I borrow some nice girl's phone and send her a message. The last stop is mine so I get off, it's two in the morning, I'm in London and I have no idea where I am.

And oddly awake. I'm very awake actually.

This lovely girl lets me call my friend so I sent her a message and then sat down on the steps and wrote in my journal, and drew. It really was lovely. By the time my friend got there and we were heading back to her place, the sun was coming up.

Day 2: The Fabulous London

Duh-duh-duuhhhhhhhhh! It was Pride weekend! Which means there was a parade and lots of pride themed things. It was quite fun. Ruth and I slept in until a whopping ten in the morning and slowly got up. We drank some coffee, caught up on each other's lives and then gathered our things and headed into town. The one thing I really wanted to see was Big Ben. I'm only minorly obsessed with Peter Pan and clocks, which makes Big Ben a major obsession. It was just as magnificent as I imagined.

We got off the tube and walked outside and I could see the London Eye. I gaped and took photos like a total tourist until Ruth nudged me and told me to look behind me. AND THERE IT WAS. BIG BEN WAS RIGHT THERE. I squealed.

I took about a hundred photos of Big Ben, so excuse the massive amount on this blog. But he was just so gorgeous! All the gold detail that shined in the sun- oh man. Talk about heaven. And! And! He chimed when I was walking by him.

We kept walking, past Big Ben (which I kept looking longly back towards) and headed to Westminster Abbey. Which was stunning as well. The detail on these buildings were just unreal to me.

My friend asked me, when I was on my way out of London, what my first impression of the city was. Because you can never really get that back, once your opinion of it changes you see things in new ways and it doesn't always mean it's better or worse, just different. So she wanted to know what I thought about London. The thoughts that came through my mind were along the lines of this:

fantastic! Magical, amazing, beautiful, historic- expansive. Expansive. Or large, not only was the city large as in the size (you could probably fit eight Dublin's in London without a problem). But the buildings were huge! They doubled the size of any building in Dublin. I would be walking down a street and would look up and it was just a massive, elaborate and stunning building staring down at me. It almost blocked out the sky and each building was double the size of a Dublin building. It was unreal to me.

I suppose Tokyo was more on those lines, but I have a really hard time judging distance, and I can't compare the two without having been from one to the other rather quickly.

London was just stunning though. Huge, expansive and expensive, but so lovely.

Buckingham palace! The guards were there, you can see them in their little boxes. And the flag was flying, which means the Queen was residing there. How cool was that? (This building was deceptive, it looked big but not huge. Until you saw the side of it and realized how far back it actually went) But see it was surrounded by these black gates with gold adornishments on them.

AREN'T THEY JUST AMAZING! I know a lot of people associate the color red with London, and I do to an extent. But I noticed a lot more of the black with gold than red. That's my color association with London.

This is purely for my friends back home. Guys. I found The Ritz.

After we saw all the main areas I wanted to see, we decided to go to Fortnum & Masons. Which is a beautifully crafted store, all of their items are designed and look delicious or useable. They are also extremely expensive and so mostly we just looked. However they had these really awesome displays outside. LOOK AT THOSE TIES. I mean serious, London, you're giving Tokyo a run for his money here.

After we went here we started on our quest to find some of her friends, following the aftermath of the Pride Parade. We ended up detouring into a few second hand bookshops and I got a lovely copy of Peter Pan, printing in London. It's beautiful and old and the illustrations are adorable. I'll get some photos of it up soon.

We made it to Trafalgar square after a while, the EuroVision winner was singing there. But it was hard core packed, and as much as I like crowds, that was a bit much for me. Both of us were completely knackered, we hadn't gone to bed till after four the morning before. So instead of going out on the town in London, we got frozen dinners and desert and watched a movie. On our way back though, we walked along the Thames, the weather had cleared a bit and it was beautiful.

Hey look! There used to be a bridge here.

But wait! Guys, this is the best part ever. I... was on... wait for it

wait for it...

THE BRIDGE THAT THE DEATH EATERS DESTROYED! LOOK LOOK!

I was more than a little excited. Clearly.

More pretty bridges.

St. Paul's cathedral everyone! It was also, freaking massive.

Oh! And I became a tourist, once again. I had to get some shots by the telephone box.

Then in the telephone box.

As much fun as the telephone box was, it smelled like piss.

On a side note, look at how freaking gorgeous this was. And my camera really didn't catch it. Ruth and I just stopped in awe, the details were so fantastic and the way the sky lit it up. It was amazing.

Incase you were wondering, we had frozen dinner and tea and then apple strudel with custard for desert and champagne while watching How To Train Your Dragon. I was a fantastic day. Really, amazing. And it was only day one.

Day Two: London is still pretty damn awesome.

They have things like this, where they just move gates to other places. Like, Auburn has the front of an old building moved to another, but this is a gate! A really elaborate gate! London FTW.

So here starts my lovely shots of the London skyline. It's probably repetitive. Deal with it.

Oh... Big Ben again? You didn't see that one coming, did you?

Skating park, covered in awesome graffiti.

Oh hai. I am being a tourist again, it's super over exposed but I like the shot anyway.

Yes, I did get a picture with the red double decker bus.

Can you spot Big Ben?

We ended our trip around London, getting better shots now that the weather was lovely at Trafalgo square where it was so packed the day before I couldn't see half of the objects that were actually there. Yes, I did climb a lion and yes, incase you were wondering..

I am as majestic as this lion is.

We went back to Hackney and walked through the flower market, which was packed. People have no realization of staying to the left or right when they walk one direction so it was inefficient and we serpentined our way through. It was beautiful though.

We got a Sunday Roast, which was fantastic. It was so delicious, and then I packed my things and headed back to Ireland.

Incase any of you were worried, I made it back safe and sound. No problems with my illegal entry into England.

Thanks for reading that extremely long winded description of my trip. I really like to travel, more posts will be up soon. <3

(Side note: I am going to be posting my adventures all out of order. It just works better for me this way, I get frustrated at my lack of blog posting otherwise. So! As soon as all my Ireland adventures are up, at the bottom of each post I’ll have a link to my next adventure in sequential order. Until then, enjoy the jumbled mess of my life.)

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Avenley Brianne

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June 27-29 // London, England

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