Hello from Cardiff, Wales! Stand ready for a recap of my second trip to London, England.
For 2 1/2 days, I was back in the busy city of London - and I stayed quite busy myself while there. I arrived Thursday afternoon, navigated myself to my hostel in King's Cross/St. Pancras area, and then met up with my traveling companion. Unfortunately, while we were in the same city at the same time, we were unable to stay in the same hostel due to low availability of rooms. In fact, because there were so few rooms open to rent, I ended up having to switch hostels the third/last day I was there. My second accommodation was actually better all around - people, bedroom, common space, general friendliness - so I was pretty happy. My first place was a bit like a box; the room was really tiny and had 2 bunk beds that were almost entirely enclosed. You had to squeeze into a little opening in the bed to get under the covers, and because it was literally like a coffin bed, there was hardly any light in there. I also stayed with only dudes the first night, including someone who left the room at 4:00 am after making a ton of noise and an old man who left two hours later and also made a sh*t ton of commotion. Just not the greatest experience. Thank goodness I met a really cool girl at my second hostel. We actually went out to a pub for some drinks that night since I'd never been to a proper English pub before. My first night in London, I met up with my uncle who was in town for business. He took me out to an amazing Pakistani place right by his hotel near Oxford Street (aka, swanky place) and we talked about law-related things since he's a very successful bankruptcy attorney. Unfortunately, I was not that hungry at the time because I'd stuffed myself with Nando's - a famous British chicken restaurant - as soon as I got off the plane. I knew I should've denied myself, but I was so hungry from not eating all day that I couldn't help it. Granted, I managed to eat a decent amount of Pakistani food that night anyway. Because I'm a food champ like that. I also took my first taxi in the UK that night! And I didn't get kidnapped by a serial killer-taxi driver who made me take any pink pills in Russian roulette style (any Sherlock fans out there?). I legitimately was a little scared to get into one of those taxis after watching that episode of the show. But I was fine; in fact, seeing London from a taxi is actually very beautiful in its own way. The next day I planned to meet up with my friend who's been living outside of London for the past 3 years. We coordinated a rendezvous point in front of Westminster Abbey, but it took awhile to find each other due to crowds and not seeing each other for two years. Once we did finally get to each other, we headed to Soho for some shopping - including for a small, digital alarm clock because my iPhone decided to die for good that morning. Really unfortunate timing, especially since I only needed this particular phone for another 2 weeks until I returned to the States. I then had no clock, alarm clock, or way of accessing the internet to let my parents know where I was/that I was okay. Afterwards, we headed towards the British Museum. This was not so much a cultural trip to a museum as a way to use a free, clean bathroom. Since I'm not a complete heathen, I did wake around through several exhibits that I hadn't seen the last time I was in London. Then we went down the street to a little cafe that I fell in love with 2 years ago. They have really delicious cream tea, aka big, fluffy, traditional current scones with clotted cream and jam as well as a hot pot of English breakfast tea. I had been dreaming about cream tea for days by this point, and this place delivered yet again. Mmm. Then we hopped on the tube and ventured into Shoreditch. This area of eastern London has a cool, young, hipster vibe to it; there are tons of coffee shops, little book stores, and vintage clothing stores/markets. I seriously wanted to buy all of the jean jackets and boots that I saw. But I restrained myself! Onto Westfield mall to visit the second Apple store of the day. Upon talking to one of the help people, I am told again that even taking a look at my poor phone will cost me a good chunk of money. I definitely wasn’t going to pay 200 pounds to fix a phone that I’ll be upgrading in the next few weeks once I get back to the US. Then this guy told me that there was another option: buying a second-hand phone from the Game store downstairs. But before dealing with yet another technological pursuit that was likely to end in frustration, we headed upstairs to the food court to eat at Wagamama’s, a popular Japanese chain restaurant in the UK. This was my second time eating at one of these places (actually, it was in this mall the first time, too), and it was just as good as my first time. I ordered spicy pork belly ramen, which was a fantastic life decision. We also got a dish of fried squid with sweet chili sauce. So tasty. Post food coma-inducing goodness, I went to Game and bought the cheapest used phone that was compatible with my phone carrier. It was still 70 pounds, but my friend convinced me that having a phone was a good idea considering that I’d be traveling alone for most of the next two weeks. So I sucked it up and handed over the cash. I actually felt quite sick afterwards, since I never spend this much money on anything - especially when traveling. My everyday costs consist of food, transportation, and living arrangements. I buy a magnet in each city I visit, and sometimes a print/postcard, but that’s all. I even denied myself from the fabulous denim jackets I saw at Bershka, a popular European clothing store, which was super hard. I’m trying to be an adult and practice delayed gratification, and it’s mostly worked out so far. Then my friend and I parted ways and I headed back to King’s Cross. But before I left the mall, I decided I needed to take out more cash. London = expensive, even with denying yourself anything extra (or healthy, when it comes to food while traveling. I feel so fat nowadays from lack of fruits and vegetables). My card got denied from several different ATMs, even when using multiple denominations of money. Turns out I had pretty much used up all of my savings that I’d accumulated through working and grants from my university. Shout out to my mom and dad for helping me through this situation and allowing me to not starve. The next day was spent at Westfield mall - again. My phone ended up not working properly and needed to be completely reset back at the store. But before I ventured back to Westfield, I had to switch to my other hostel in London. Again, I cannot stress enough how kind and open to questions these people were. Flash forward to 6:00 pm and one mezze plate of hummus, halloumi cheese, pita, salad, and bulgar later, I finally leave the mall with a phone that worked slightly better, but not perfectly, and not a single shopping bag in my hand. After going to a pub, I repacked my luggage and prepared for my 9:30 am bus to Cardiff. Unfortunately, I did not end up sleeping well that night at all. An older woman arrived at the hostel right before everyone was going to sleep, and proceeded to make a fuss about lack of luggage storage in secure lockers. I willingly gave her mine, since I was leaving first thing in the morning and was likely going to be the last one awake. Then, as soon as she climbed onto the top bunk above me she promptly began snoring like a truck driver. And it lasted for the entire night. It wasn’t even just snoring; it was gagging and coughing on top of it, aka really bad sleep apnea. Which she probably knew she had, meaning she just didn’t care about how that would affect the other people staying in the hostel that night. Ughhhhhh. So it was obviously not a good night's sleep. I did sleep on the 3 1/2 hour bus ride to Cardiff, but bus sleeps are never great - and my neck got really sore from the position I slept in. But, in spite of horrible snorers and general bad luck, I successfully made it to Wales, my second country within the UK! - Hannah
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Hannah BisbingStudent @ Penn State. Figure skater. Writer. Traveler. Coffee fanatic. Foodie. Semi-professional people watcher who recently returned home from backpacking around Europe. All photos taken by me, unless otherwise noted.
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