On Friday morning at 4:15am...I woke up to finish packing and getting ready for London! Other than the fact that i went to bed 3 hours before that, I was extremely excited for London! Our flight was set to depart at 8:15am, but it ended up being delayed for a half an hour. Once up in the air the flight was only an hour and 10 minutes. The only nice thing about Ryanair is that you don't get assigned seats, so with that being said you can pick any seat on the plane. So the Api girls and I went for the seats over the wings. We had ample leg room, it was crazy, I never knew you could have that much space on a plane! We got to London-Stansted around 10:15am, the drive to our hotel was about an hour drive, but were we stayed was in the center of London. Once we got to our hotel, that was situated right in the middle of Trafalgar Square and the River Thames, we met up with the London Api contact. She was super nice and took us out to lunch and showed us a couple of good places to shop. She also showed us this places called Neal's Yard, which is down an ally, its an off the wall coffee shop and some cute little shops. Its painted crazy bright and cool colors. Most people don't know about it because only allies lead to this court yard sort of area with the shops. We then went to the British Museum. One thing I find awesome about the Museums in London are that they are all free. In the British Museum they have the original Rosetta Stone, ancient Egyptian Mummies and a TON more. You could probably spend all day in there and still not get through everything. We spent a good hour inside, but we were all super tired, so we decided to leave and get coffee. Also we had to go meet up with the other Api groups that were coming. We got to the hotel and the other groups weren't there yet, so we took and hour nap...so need! Once the Cork, Galway and Dublin groups arrived at the hotel we went over to the London Eye. It's a giant Ferris wheel that extends 443ft in the air to over look London. Its said that you can see 30 miles on a nice clear day. When we went up it was around 7:30pm so it was dark and the city lights lit up the sky! The city of London is beautiful at night! After the 30 minutes experence we split up and went out to dinner. Us, the Limerick group, and a couple of the people from Cork group went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant. The food was really good. Afterwards we went to Sherlock Holmes Pub, for a pint.
We wanted to start off the day nice and early so we could experince as much of London as possible. We left around 8:30am to get some breakfest and coffee at a local cafe. Then we were provided with a 48 hour hop on hop off bus tickets from Api. With our hop on hop off bus tickets we get a ferry ride as well, so we took the ferry from the London eye up to the Tower Bridge. We walked around the Tower of London for a while then I went with a couple of people from Cork, Allison, Sam, Hannah and Braden. We toured London together for the afternoon.We caught the bus to Westmister Abbey. This was where the Royal wedding was held. It a beautiful building on the outside and unfortunately we were not able to go inside. It closed at 1:30pm on Saturday and we got there at 1:45pm. We were able to see the beautiful architecture on the outside though. We also got to see the arch where they walked through after they were married. We then walked up to Buckingham Palace and walked around there and then spent some time in the park outside of the Palace. We were so blessed with BEAUTIFUL weather. The whole weekend it was in the 60's and sunny! After a while I had to get back to the hotel to meet up with the Limerick girls for dinner. I walked back to the hotel, it was a beautiful walk, in beautiful weather in the busyness of a Saturday afternoon. It was so awesome to spend some time with the Lord on the walk back home! The Limerick girls and I went out to dinner and to Wicked, but to get there we got to experience the Tube...which actually isnt all that tricky to use. Wicked was an AMAZING musical! I HIGHLY recommend it to everyone and anyone! Also, it was just awesome to experience a musical on the West End! It was extremely well put on and the actors and actresses were amazing as well with wonderful voices!
SUNDAY
Once again we thought we would get an early start to our day so we could experience as much of London as possible. For the third day in a row it was a beautiful day outside. I woke up to a beautiful view of the sun rising from the hotel window. What a great way to start the day. His creation is so extravagant and beautiful, its so awesome how he reminds us how wonderful His creation is. As some may know I was able to go to Hillsong's home church in Sydney, Australia. Well they have a branch in London as well, so on Sunday morning I got up and walked about 25 minutes to church. It was right on Oxford street, in Dominion Theater. It was so awesome to be able to start of the morning worshiping the Lord with a 1,000 other individuals. It reassured me that no matter where I am in the world I am here to live for the Lord in all I do! Afterwards I went shopping on Oxford street for a little while, it is one of the most popular shopping streets in the world. Then i met up with Jordan in Trafalgar Square and we went to the Photo Gallery and National Gallery together. We walked around and got some Starbucks coffee and Nutella Crepes...so good! Our time in London was coming to an end, but it was a wonderful weekend, filled with wonderful weather! I definitely want to go back there in my life some time. There is so much that London has to offer, from musicals on the West End, to all the wonderful history and beautiful buildings. I had a fabulous weekend, but also I am very exhausted.
Until next time...
~Nicole
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