london, england

Okay last but NOT least.... London! Carolyn and I rode the Eurostar from Paris to London and within 2 hours we arrived at King's Cross. We lucked out big time because a friend of the family I stayed with in Spain is from England so when I was asking him about London to get some travel tips before getting there, he told me his parents lived just ten minutes out of London by train and would be happy to let us stay with them since they are Irish and the Irish are very welcoming and friendly. I was so happy about this as it would save us a lot of money since we wouldn't have to pay for a hotel in pounds. So we followed the directions he gave me and made it to his parents home. They were so nice, just as he had said. We talked to them every night after site-seeing before going to bed and they always offered us tea or toast with jam (so British).

Walking through their neighborhood reminded me so much of Harry Potter. I felt like I was on Privet Drive because all the houses had that "look". It was so fun to see all the buildings and houses in England because they all had the old-English look that you would picture them having. Almost as if nothing had changed since my ancestors lived there and I could picture what it would have been like.

We arrived to England on a Sunday and the daughter of the family we were staying with told us that every Sunday there is a really cool market in Camden town (a district in the northern part of London) so we decided to check it out. We loooved it. It had a complete retro feel and sold the most unique things. Later on we ended up riding on top of the classic big, red buses for awhile just enjoying the passing scenery of the streets of England. We were already falling in love with London as well.

The following days we went to all the the main tourist destinations and just walked everywhere and anywhere around London. Strolling through the parks, walking around the different areas of London (Soho was our favorite which is pictured below) and just soaking up all we could before heading back to the different world of the U.S.A.

<---You'll notice in this picture it says "Look Right" on the side of the road. It seems stupid but it was honestly so helpful since most of the world drives on the opposite side of the road. I'm sure they have saved a lot of tourists lives by doing this, including ours.

Also, I have to point out that the taxis (the silver car in the picture) have an 'old-style' look.. just totally keeps the whole London feel in-check. And we can't forget the big, red buses... because where would London be without those?

And one more addition to add to the list of things London just must have are the red telephone booths :)

For all you Harry Potter fans we had to get a picture at King's Cross train station on platform 9 and 3/4 and I was hoping to actually make it to Hogwarts but, no luck.

P.s. Even though Holly (my best friend I met in Spain) is from England, we weren't able to stay with her or even see her while we were there because her family had planned a trip to Tunisia in Africa that same week before I met her in Spain. It was a huge bummer.

We were exhausted by the last day of London because we had been walking around site-seeing 24/7 for the past 2 weeks. To say we were tired would be an understatement.

It was a bitter-sweet feeling to be going home. We had so many amazing experiences in Europe that completely opened up our eyes and we were so happy to have had our 9 week summer adventure but at the same time we were ready to see our families and friends again, ready to see our homes in happy-valley Utah, and ready to enjoy the things about the U.S. that we realized we took for granted (things as simple as public drinking fountains).

The flight home was nice because there were some empty rows of seats so I moved to another one and we each had our own row to lay across & sleep on so the 9 hours went by A LOT faster. Once we saw Utah below the plane we were literally almost in tears... its weird but when you are somewhere on the other side of the world for awhile, you can hardly imagine that your hometown is still going on just fine without you even though you aren't there. It was good to see it still existed though and i'm sure our families were happy to see that WE still existed because I can't say our parents weren't worried about Carolyn & I traveling around Europe. It was definitely was an intimidating decision to make and I remember us saying as we were first flying away from Salt Lake back in June, "wait... are we really doing this?!" We were almost in tears on the way there too. We were excited, of course, but we had NO idea what was going to happen. If the trip would be a success or not. I told my mom right before I left, "I almost wish that I was coming home today instead of leaving because then I would have already experienced everything and would know that everything worked out successfully and that I made it back just fine." But I don't think it could have worked out more perfectly. And it was the best feeling in the world when we came down the escalator at the SLC airport to see our families holding huge signs to welcome us home.

Driving my car again was so nice, seeing Utah around me felt so good, pulling up to my house was so exciting, and laying on my own bed again was heaven.

Life had never felt so good.