london

I spent a lot of time on my trip coming up with one specific word to describe the country (or city) I went to (no clue why but it felt very important to me), for London, the word was 'Noble'.

Coming from a small town in Canada, showing up at the Heathrow airport hit me hard. Thanking the gods that our first country was English speaking (and full of friendly persons), because we would have been stuck in the underground from the get go. 

London's such a huge city, and the first thing I noticed tugging (avoiding near death experiences since they drive on the wrong side of the road) and lugging my suitcase up all the subway steps to the pimlico station, was that holy moly the buildings were tall. 

proof that apartments are tall and beautiful

Maybe it's just the way the streets are oh so tiny, but it looks like London has no choice but to build up. The next thing that caught my eyes were the vegetation! I figured that Canada and England would have the same climate, but apparently that's not the case (sorry I even packed my scarf), and therefore the plant life was so quirkily different! I couldn't help but take quite a few photos in every country of them, here's London's:

Staying in hostels for the first time ever was such an odd and generally good experience. Once you get over the whole hey this person can easily steal all my stuff and murder me in my sleep- it's actually really fun. No more privacy, and finding a shower that isn't taken is hard, but overall for the cheap price of everything it's worth it. Recommending the hostel I stayed it, that was probably the best of six (and cheapest) of my trip, Travel Joy Hostel (or The King William IV) was incredible. Location wasn't so bad if you don't mind walking a tiny bit. (Close to a library too!)

It just looks like a traditional English bar- which I guess it was! It was neat having a food place/bar downstairs, and they gave a lot of free stuff because of that. Can't get over how nice we had it. We made friends with boys from Bulgaria who barely spoke English but managed to beat us in scrabble anyways. They asked if I knew where Bulgaria was and I said only because of Victor Krum. 

The first day there we walked to Buckingham Palace, which was relatively close. With weird luck we ending up coming across the changing of the guards- which we didn't know what was going on besides a gathering of plenty of tourists and men playing instruments in their tall furry black hats. Spent hours there thinking we were going to see the queen. 

annnd more

I love the way the black and gold is used in all the colours schemes around the palace, and I found it used a lot in fencing all over Europe. It's given me inspiration for countless things like clothes and cupcake decor. Another thing used a lot was the lion imagery- in statues mainly since they're everywhere in Europe. Lions are the Kings and Queens right? So it made so much sense here in London. What didn't make sense was why they felt the need to put a penis on the statues but hey I mean I guess I wouldn't want to be a castrated statue.

On our way back from the palace we came across a showing of Wicked, which is my all time favourite broadway play, even if the book was weird and not at all like the play, so of course we ran and made it within five minutes from opening time. I love the story of Elphaba and Glinda. And, of course, the songs. 

The highlight, and probably number one thing I was (sadly) excited for was The Making of Harry Potter.  I have to admit- I cried. They put you into this movie theater room right away and have Daniel, Emma, and Rupert talk to you and go through these doors, and then the screen moves away and there were the doors- the doors to get into Hogwarts! Too much to handle, plus I cry over everything. For a while I was, and still am, really into movie making. It was crazy to see how much work went into it all. The wigs and the dead bodies and the makeup and costumes and oil paintings and offices and holy moly there's just so much. The making of the creatures was what got me. They first have artists paint their versions of how they see things and then create them afterwards. I think I know what my dream job is. Imagine reading a book and picturing a scene this way and it gets made the exact way you envisioned it? crazy. 

I tried to narrow down the photos but ended up just posting twenty instead, because if you can't afford to go there or are no where near England, then by all means I'd want to see every little detail too. 

The thing about travelling is that you're constantly yelling at yourself. Remember this, feel that. Don't think about home. Live. But what does that mean, if you're telling yourself to live isn't that the opposite of living?

On the very last day was when we went really into London. It's weird watching Sherlock and thinking (or loudly screaming) I went there! I know the angle the street takes and the views on the opposite side of it.
It's weird how we don't take the time to do architecture like they did. Parliament was something my sister and I stood just looking at it for twenty minutes. The only bad thing I can say about downtown London is that the bathrooms cost money. 

Another amazing thing London gave us was Pret, which is the best ever coffeeish shop that was affordable and full of healthy foods. If you have one in your town consider yourself lucky. 

Anyways, enough talking, here's another spam of architecture and sights. 

And now I've extorted all of my London photos. For most of the trip I thought the camera might be broken, since I couldn't view photos after I took them. Thus no Amsterdam photos but Iphone quality. 

The thing about London is that spending money is easy, looking at sights is easier, and feeling happy is easiest.