Our flight to London was three hours. Somehow I was more cramped up after our London flight than the one to Iceland. So, England is five hours ahead of New York time. Joy, that took a while to get used to since I still wasn't used to Icelandic time. So when we got to England we went to a Hertz place to rent a car. It took forever, the lady that was talking to us there took forever to do everything and by the time we were done there it was dark out. Oh, here's an interesting thing that makes Caroline laugh every time I talk about it, so on our way to the hotel we were staying at, we got lost. Yeah, getting lost in a different country, that sure is fun. Especially when it's dark and you have yet to have dinner. I didn't get dinner that night. We spent three hours trying to get to the hotel when it only should've taken one and a half. It wasn't as bad for Zia, because she went to sleep, but I was up the whole time, reading (what else was I going to do?) so it was hard to ignore my growling stomach. We finally got to the hotel rather late and then Zia made me sleep on the cot instead of a bed, gee, thanks sis. At least we had adapters this time. The cot wasn't too comfortable and made a lot of noise when I moved. We were all in one room together so it was kind of crowded. Plus, Zia and I don't exactly get along, so...
The next day we went to my dad's friend from college's house in Oxford. Howard is a professor at Oxford University so he showed us around. Oxford is a place where some of Harry Potter was filmed. It was really cool. So I should probably explain a packing thing before I forget. So my dad tells me it's going to be cold on this trip so to only pack like three pairs of shorts and a few short sleeved shirts. That turned out to be untrue so the whole trip I was pretty much rewearing the same outfits every other day. Of course when we visit and I bring a minimal amount of short sleeved stuff the UK magically decides to have only hot days. I mean, it was nice for pictures, not so nice for sitting on top of a tour bus. Also, it seems that not a lot of places in the UK need air conditioning, since it's cool and rainy most of the time. That was a high complaint of mine, I'm hot-blooded so I get hot really easily and not having air conditioning didn't bode too well with me. Another complaint of mine was that the wi-fi in all the places we stayed didn't work too well, and since we were in a different country we couldn't really use our phones.
Back to Oxford, it was interesting to walk around, we stopped at a place for lunch and got sandwiches, I got a tuna melt on a panini. After lunch we went to a bookstore in Oxford. It was so much fun seeing the British version of the covers to all my books. Apparently they don't have hardcovers of Cassandra Clare's books, that would depress me if I lived there. I finished Last Sacrifice while sitting in the room where they filmed The Great Hall in Harry Potter. After walking around Oxford all day, I was really hot and ready to go back. We stayed at Howard's house for dinner, he has three kids, John (18) Sophia (15) and Francesca (11). It was fun hanging out with them, Francesca had a lot of energy.
The next day we went to my dad's friend from college's house in Oxford. Howard is a professor at Oxford University so he showed us around. Oxford is a place where some of Harry Potter was filmed. It was really cool. So I should probably explain a packing thing before I forget. So my dad tells me it's going to be cold on this trip so to only pack like three pairs of shorts and a few short sleeved shirts. That turned out to be untrue so the whole trip I was pretty much rewearing the same outfits every other day. Of course when we visit and I bring a minimal amount of short sleeved stuff the UK magically decides to have only hot days. I mean, it was nice for pictures, not so nice for sitting on top of a tour bus. Also, it seems that not a lot of places in the UK need air conditioning, since it's cool and rainy most of the time. That was a high complaint of mine, I'm hot-blooded so I get hot really easily and not having air conditioning didn't bode too well with me. Another complaint of mine was that the wi-fi in all the places we stayed didn't work too well, and since we were in a different country we couldn't really use our phones.
Back to Oxford, it was interesting to walk around, we stopped at a place for lunch and got sandwiches, I got a tuna melt on a panini. After lunch we went to a bookstore in Oxford. It was so much fun seeing the British version of the covers to all my books. Apparently they don't have hardcovers of Cassandra Clare's books, that would depress me if I lived there. I finished Last Sacrifice while sitting in the room where they filmed The Great Hall in Harry Potter. After walking around Oxford all day, I was really hot and ready to go back. We stayed at Howard's house for dinner, he has three kids, John (18) Sophia (15) and Francesca (11). It was fun hanging out with them, Francesca had a lot of energy.
So the day after visiting Oxford, Zia, my dad and me took a bus to London. The bus ride was one and a half hours long and unfortunately the 'free wifi' on it didn't work. I slept most of the way since I had nothing to read. Apparently Zia enjoyed taking a bunch of pictures of me while I slept. After we got off the bus, we walked around and found a tour bus, we decided to start off with taking the Big Bus tour Red. Sitting on the roof was hot and it was hard to understand the person commentating since he 1. had a confusing british accent 2. was speaking way to closely to the microphone. We got off at a stop near an area with a blue rooster statue. There were a bunch of money making things there, like one person was drawing incredibly detailed pictures of all the world's country's flags in chalk on the flagstones, there was a dance show/tricks show, a yoda etc. After crossing a few roads and walking around to random places we stopped at a cafe to eat lunch. I got a smoked salmon sandwich, salt and vinegar crisps, and a berry smoothie. The wifi didn't work there either.
After lunch we got back on the bus, except we got on a Big Bus Tour Blue instead of Red because the Red took forever to find. I liked the Blue one better 1. because we got free headphones 2. because we got to listen to a prerecorded voice that was easy to understand. We went past the bank where they filmed Gringots in Harry Potter. I think our next place where we got off was a cathedral because I wanted to go to Blackfriars Bridge and that was the closest place to it. Problem, I hadn't looked up what Blackfriars Bridge looked like so it took a bit to figure out which bridge it was. Blackfriars Bridge really was the only reason I wanted to go to London. Why? Because of a book, obviously. The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare to be specific. Yeah, I was really happy that we went to Blackfriars, though, I was ready to go back right after, haha.
We left Blackfriars Bridge and next went to a Starbucks nearby, I got a grande Caramel Frappuccino, and guess what? The intranet actually worked there, so I bought the first two books in the spin off of the Vampire Academy Series, Bloodlines. After Starbucks we walked around, I bought another postcard (Postcard count 3). Then we got ice cream, and I'm not even kidding I saw a kid with an ice cream cone as long as my arm, that was just gross. Then after getting ice cream we went on a water boat tour down the Thames. The boat tour was definitely my favorite, the guy commenting was easy to understand and it was funny. Also, the wind downed the heat amount. We went to Buckingham Palace and watched the guards for a bit, it was rather boring, do those guards ever get hungry or hot on the job?
We almost missed the bus back to Oxford, my dad lost track of time, imagine what we'd do if we'd missed it. Actually, I did imagine it as we ran to the bus, I'm guessing we wouldn't sleep on benches but the image did pop into my head. I couldn't get into Bloodlines (click here to read my review on Bloodlines) on the bus, so I just slept on the way back too. So when we finally got back to Oxford it was dark but I absolutely refused to go back and not have dinner again, after walking all around London in the sun yeah, I was hungry. So we stopped at a food cart/truck. Have you ever had a gyros sandwich? Those things are amazing, we got something similar to that at the food truck thing. Pita bread, spicy/sweet sauce, lamb, mayonnaise, salad. Yummy. It was delicious. The fries, excuse me, chips, where pretty good too. Zia and I had already eaten 1 1/2 of the sandwiches before my dad actually came out to eat.
See you guys at part three :)
After lunch we got back on the bus, except we got on a Big Bus Tour Blue instead of Red because the Red took forever to find. I liked the Blue one better 1. because we got free headphones 2. because we got to listen to a prerecorded voice that was easy to understand. We went past the bank where they filmed Gringots in Harry Potter. I think our next place where we got off was a cathedral because I wanted to go to Blackfriars Bridge and that was the closest place to it. Problem, I hadn't looked up what Blackfriars Bridge looked like so it took a bit to figure out which bridge it was. Blackfriars Bridge really was the only reason I wanted to go to London. Why? Because of a book, obviously. The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare to be specific. Yeah, I was really happy that we went to Blackfriars, though, I was ready to go back right after, haha.
We left Blackfriars Bridge and next went to a Starbucks nearby, I got a grande Caramel Frappuccino, and guess what? The intranet actually worked there, so I bought the first two books in the spin off of the Vampire Academy Series, Bloodlines. After Starbucks we walked around, I bought another postcard (Postcard count 3). Then we got ice cream, and I'm not even kidding I saw a kid with an ice cream cone as long as my arm, that was just gross. Then after getting ice cream we went on a water boat tour down the Thames. The boat tour was definitely my favorite, the guy commenting was easy to understand and it was funny. Also, the wind downed the heat amount. We went to Buckingham Palace and watched the guards for a bit, it was rather boring, do those guards ever get hungry or hot on the job?
We almost missed the bus back to Oxford, my dad lost track of time, imagine what we'd do if we'd missed it. Actually, I did imagine it as we ran to the bus, I'm guessing we wouldn't sleep on benches but the image did pop into my head. I couldn't get into Bloodlines (click here to read my review on Bloodlines) on the bus, so I just slept on the way back too. So when we finally got back to Oxford it was dark but I absolutely refused to go back and not have dinner again, after walking all around London in the sun yeah, I was hungry. So we stopped at a food cart/truck. Have you ever had a gyros sandwich? Those things are amazing, we got something similar to that at the food truck thing. Pita bread, spicy/sweet sauce, lamb, mayonnaise, salad. Yummy. It was delicious. The fries, excuse me, chips, where pretty good too. Zia and I had already eaten 1 1/2 of the sandwiches before my dad actually came out to eat.
See you guys at part three :)
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