London, Check!

Bear with me as this is my first official blog post of my travels. As stated on the @seasonthree_blog Instagram post on day 1, I will be posting summaries of the places I visited after I leave them. I will be posting the majority of the photos on the Instagram account and only posting key photos on the blog. So, you’ll need to follow both to get the full experience!

My flight over could have been better, a grumpy lady was sitting in the middle seat on my long flight to London. I was at the window and a nice gentleman was on the aisle and this cranky lady was not enjoying life and sitting in the middle. She smelled of body odour, which didn’t help my flight experience, and she sassed the flight attendant trying to do her job. On an 8-hour flight, I maybe slept for an hour and the food was gross (I flew WestJet FYI).

Navigating the trains from the airport to my hostel was stressful. I’m SO glad I set up my eSIM before leaving because I relied HEAVILY on the data to tell me where I was and when I needed to get off (this was before I knew about the Citymapper app). Once I got to my hostel I just slept which I think I really needed. On the 8th, I started my tour of the city.

London is big! Lots of people, lots of underground trains, lots of buildings both new and old, and LOTS of history! I was in London for a week and feel like I covered everything I wanted to see and do! I relied on the train system to get me to places I wanted to tour (especially once I knew about the Citymapper app). I asked the odd person to take a photo of me but a lot of my photos are just random pictures of buildings that I thought looked cool.

I probably didn’t feel settled until the end of my time in London. I made friends with girls in my dorm room at my hostel but haven’t yet cracked the code to meeting people in the social spaces of the hostel yet. After a day of touring the city mostly on foot, my body and personality needed recharging anyways.

My favourite part about my time in London was seeing Wicked live, the Tower of London tour, the British Museum, and on my last night I got to see the London Eye, Big Ben, and all the surrounding bridges and buildings on both sides of the Thames lit up in all sorts of colours. I had nearly run into people a few times when I was gawking at the buildings around me.

The British Museum was incredible! I was so overwhelmed by the history there. There is a heavy influence of Roman and Greek culture in London and seeing the Ancient Greek exhibit was the best! Since I’ve reread the Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief book series, watched the TV show, read The Song of Achilles, and currently reading The Heroes of Olympus book series I felt drawn to this exhibit.

Even the Ancient Egypt exhibit was cool too! In my family, if the 1999 movie The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser, is playing on a weekend morning we will most likely put it on. We all scoff at this movie but end up watching it for the rest of the morning anyway! And I must admit I was comparing the movie to the facts I was reading about in the museum. I didn’t see the Book of the Living or the Book of the Dead and no high priest seeking revenge was resurrected, but I did read about Amun-Ra the sun god, Amenhotep the king, and the scarab beetles which always make a gruesome appearance in the movie!

Let’s talk about Wicked though. This was the real reason why I started my European tour in London. I booked my ticket to see Wicked before I booked my flight to London. I’ve wanted to see Wicked live since high school I’m pretty sure. I knew it was the prequel to the Wizard of Oz but I don’t think I really knew the storyline. I was pleasantly surprised by the story and can empathize with the Wicked Witch of the West. I loved the set design and the costumes from the show. I was seated 5 rows from the front so I really felt a part of the production. Now I have to rewatch The Wizard of Oz and compare notes!

Overall, I don’t think I could live in London. It is a great and historic city but I didn't get the warm fuzzies from this place.

Thanks for reading along! It’s so hard to capture everything I did and saw in a summary post but I think you guys get the picture!

See you for the next blog post!