The rest of our stay in London continued to be amazing. Kate really wanted to see a castle while we were in England, so we all decided to make the trip to the Royal Family's vacation home, Windsor Castle in Berkshire. The castle is considered the largest inhabited castle in the world dating back to the 11th century! We decided to get an early start this morning so that we could beat the weekend crowds and hopefully head back to the city in the afternoon to do some more sightseeing.
(The group oustide the Windsor Castle)
The castle was huge! But the day was by far the coldest one since being there so we were glad we purchased audio tours to spend most of our time inside. One of the first rooms we got to see was the Queen's Dollhouse. Her niece decided to give it to her as a gift because the Queen liked to collect small things. The dollhouse is a replica of the Buckingham Palace with working electricity and plumbing! And the dining room plates are made of actual silver, I'm so upset we weren't allowed to take pictures. We also got to see a drawing gallery filled with paintings and drawings collected by the royal families over the years and the State Apartments which included the King and Queen's chambers, the Grand Vestibule, the Waterloo Chamber, the Crimson Drawing Room, and plenty of others. With help from our audio guides we learned there was a huge fire at the castle in 1992 that destroyed countless rooms and artifacts, but almost everything was restored. After all of this we stopped over to walk through St. George's Chapel (which is also located in the castle) where many royal weddings took place and where many of England's Kings and Queens are also buried. Thank goodness we came early because as we were leaving in the early afternoon we could see the crowds piling in by the dozens. We caught a train to head home, but at our transfer station we discovered that our longer train to Paddington would be delayed due to a person being hit by a train at a nearby station! Very unfortunate, but we didn't have to wait long and we got to Paddington soon after.
From Paddington Station (we couldn't find the bear statue) we took a "tube" to King's Cross station for Kelly's most anticipated part of the trip. We set out to find Harry Potter's Platform 9¾. We forced Kelly to go over and ask a station worker and before she even asked the question he said, "Photo-op over to the left." Well we found it, a small imitation "platform" in a corner of the station titled Platform 9¾ with half a luggage cart coming out of the wall. We all got pictures with it of course and then ran off to avoid any further embarrassment. Photo-op number one: check.
(Off to Hogwarts!)
After our Harry Potter extravaganza we were determined to find Abbey Road, where the Beatles' "Abbey Road" cover was photographed. We actually had no idea where it was, so when we were told to get off at the wrong Underground station and we didn't realize how much walking we had ahead of us. We finally found a Beatles Coffee Shop that told us exactly where to go and we were there within minutes. The crosswalk is still in use today and there were hoards of people holding up traffic just to get that one picture snapped. Some even had their shoes off in the freezing cold to mimic McCartney's album cover trend. Kelly, Nina, Kate and I were determined to have Ashley get a shot of us and our first attempt was a failure due to some screaming teenage girls running across the sidewalk at the same time as us. But the next attempt was a success and we did it just in time. The sun was ready to go down. We got some pictures in front of Abbey Road Studio where over 200 of the Beatles' songs were recorded and read some of the quotes and autographs written on the wall out front. Then it was time to head back for a much needed siesta (yes, we still need our siestas in London) because we had more plans for later that night.
(Reenacting the Beatles' Abbey Road album cover)
After our nap and getting a pizza with everything on it (we only ordered pepperoni) we had plans to meet up with Elizabeth again. We went to this club/bar called "Electric Showroom" on Old Street which is a big nightlife area in London. I got to meet some of E's friends and everyone had a really great time. A few of us even "grabbed" some Guinness glasses from the bar as souvenirs! Finding our way back to the hostel was a bit more stressful than expected (story of our lives). Nightlife comes to a close pretty early in London and even the Tube stops running after midnight. We knew that we needed to take a bus back, but had no idea where to get on and what transfers we needed to make. We ended up having to walk around a lot and finally found a bus that got us to our hostel around 3:30am. It was a tiring night, but we all needed to get some rest for our long day of travelling ahead.
(Electricity Showroom with Elizabeth and company)
Sunday was our planned day of departure. Our flight wasn't until 4:50 that afternoon, so we figured we would get in some souvenir shopping and last minute exploring before we left. Elizabeth told us about this market called the Camden Stables Market. It is a mixture of indoor and outdoor stalls for vending anything from vintage clothes and jewelry to dead fish and foul. The place was packed, and a lot more touristy than expected. Somehow Kate, Ashley and I lost Kelly and Nina in the chaos, but we figured we all had to head back to the hostel to get our luggage so we could just meet then. We ended up running into the girls before we got onto the Tube so everything worked out in the end. The plan was to get our luggage, make our way over to the bus stop and catch the bus (that was supposed to be running every half hour) to the Stansted Airport and make our flight into Santander. Well our 2:00 bus didn't arrive until 3:00 and we didn't arrive at the airport until 4:30. Our gate had already closed, but we made a made rush for security to try and get through at the last minute. Well no one can get past the lines there, so our rushing was useless. We missed the flight. Now we either had to pay RyanAir a 100£ booking fee or figure out another way to get back to school as soon as possible. EasyJet had flights to Bilbao, but not until 5:45 the next night and RyanAir was giving us the same results. All of us had to end up booking new tickets for a RyanAir flight for Monday at 4:50pm which still cost us around 100£ and we would be missing Monday classes. And on top of all this? Spending over 24 hours in the airport. Security wouldn't let us come through before the next morning so we were stuck in the main lobby of the airport overnight on cramped chairs, overpriced food, and no heat to speak of. It was a very rough night.
(Unhappy campers in the Stansted Airport)
Ashley got sick at the beginning of our trip and still doesn't have her voice fully back... And even though I was just getting over my illness before we left for London, we are all coming down with what she has. It's coming on almost 21 hours in the airport... We have finally made it through security where there is a whole new world of shops and food options. But now that I'm finishing this post I don't know what to do seeing as I chose a horrible book to read from the bookstore. Maybe I'll will myself to go spend money on another. My spring break fund is slowly draining... Who knew a long weekend could be so fun yet so disastrous at the same time? I guess we all live and learn.
(We did find five photobooths together!)
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