Long Weekend: London 2016

Originally, we planned that our last big trip in Europe would be a road trip around England and Scotland right before we moved back to the US. Then, we looked into the cost of such a trip and decided maybe we weren't THAT interested. Greg was very insistent that he wanted to the London one more time before we left, so we decided that one long weekend trip was probably within our budget.



We've been to London before and managed to pack in seeing most of the main sites, so this trip was more relaxed. We flew Ryanair again, which I will be more than happy to never do for the rest of my life. This time, our flight was delayed due to weather (a very surprise snowstorm) and we didn't arrive in London until 2 AM. For those that don't know, the Underground doesn't run at that time so we had to get a cab to our hotel. Did I mention our flights to London were only 4 euros a piece? Well, you get what you pay for...

Rather than heading straight to the main tourist attractions, we took a trip to Cecil Court. Cecil Court is a street in London which is lined with antique book stores. I collect antiquarian books, so I was excited for the chance to explore the shops. Most were reasonably priced, and you could find almost anything you were looking for. Greg was on a Tolkien kick and was able to pick up a Folio Society edition of Lord of the Rings and a particular printing of the Hobbit that he wanted.

Cecil Court

The evening before, at the airport, a received an email saying that I had been accepted into one of the top ten nursing graduate programs in the country. Since I hoping to become a nurse-midwife, I was pretty excited when one of the stores we visited had a manual published in 1779 about the practice of midwifery. The shopkeeper told me the story of the book originating from the University of Birmingham and being, essentially, the only of it's kind. He also gave me a deal because he was feeling nice. Or maybe he liked my accent. Probably was just feeling nice.

We also visited several book and antique markets around the city. We didn't spend too much money, but saw plenty of pretty cool things.

That evening we ate at a pub, which is always a bad idea for us. We've never had positive food experiences in London. The food was at least actually warm this time, but I spent the night throwing up mushy peas. We decided to only eat at American restaurants from that point forward. I know, it's not exactly taking in the "culture", but my stomach does not enjoy British food.

We spend the next day walking around the city and visiting Harrods and the Tower Bridge Museum. It was pretty inexpensive and entertaining. We already visited the Tower of London and the Parliament Building during our last visit, so we skipped that this time. Harrods was huge and we ended up not staying there very long but Tower Bridge was fun and wasted some time before we met up with one of Greg's cousins for a night out. After a few hours at the pub, we took a detour to King's Cross where a memorial was set up at Platform 9 3/4 for Alan Rickman, aka: Snape in the Harry Potter movies. It was an interesting experience. I grew up on Harry Potter and would definitely consider myself a huge fan (and Slytherin, of course).

I hate heights.

Skyline from the Tower Bridge

Memorial for Alan Rickman at Platform 9 3/4

All in all, our visit was relatively uneventful. London is Greg's favorite city, so he enjoys just visiting no matter what we do. He particularly enjoys the Underground and simply riding a train around for a few hours is enough fun for him. I was happy to indulge one of my very few hobbies. We'll definitely miss being close enough to take a short trip to such a fun city. Easy travel around Europe is one of the only things that I will really miss about Germany.