Meeting London

I wish I could go back to England. The opportunity to widen my horizons was such a blessing; I encourage everyone and anyone to travel. The night life in London was incredible. There are many different areas of life in the London area. A few that I visited was Soho, Covent Gardens and China Town.

Soho is said to be where the “Londoners” hang out. What astonished me was seeing local bar goers walking around in the streets with pints of beer. This is not uncommon to see. It is legal to venture the street with your drink. I thought this was awesome! It created such a relaxing and enjoyable scenery. 

         Covent Gardens was also a very lively part of the city that many tourist journey around. It has great markets and small restaurants and pubs that were very welcoming. One area of town, which I cannot remember what it was called, had an amazing Indian restaurant. I ordered a chicken curry and it was absolutely phenomenal! With my meal I also had a yummy mango smoothie that was meant to soothe my pallet after dinner. As I sat in the restaurant next to a large window looking out into the city, I felt overly blessed to be able to experience the exciting life that is out there. It opened my eyes to new cultures and I realized there is so much out in this world to see than what we have in America.

After dinner, a friend and I searched for a nice pub to enjoy a few drinks in. First, we set off to find the rest of our group, but we ended up finding this amazing bar called, “The Adventure Bar.” Oh, and it was sure an adventure. This bar was underground in a basement. Definitely something I was not use to. The dim red lights and the funky music really set the mood for a fun and unique time. After a couple drinks at the bar we finally ran into a few others from our group and everyone else ended up loving the bar just as much as us!

The Beginning!

During the summer of 2012 I embarked on a 10 day European trip. I was traveling with a student group of 16 from the Flagler College Communication Department. We traveled to London, England and to Paris, France and I saw the coolest things ever! While flying over to Heathrow I met this charming young English woman. She told me about all the great places to go in London and explained to me how much fun we all will have!

We landed! I was beyond excited to see what England looked like. As we were landing, I looked out my window and saw the cutest little cottages and the green landscapes. It felt like we were all flying into a movie set. We were all pumped to see what lied in England for us!

Seeing as how my favorite color is purple I was very happy to notice that England had PURPLE taxi cabs! Unfortunately, I was unable to ride in one, I still snapped a picture! This picture was taken right outside the Heathrow airport. To my surprise, stepping outside I was freezing! Being a native of Florida for generations, I thought since it was the middle of June it was going to be warm summer weather. Well, I was far from right! I was absolutely freezing! It was in the 50s, I could honestly say that their summer was colder than our last winter. Burrrrrrr.

Luckily I brought a few cardigans, but honestly, that really was not enough. I should have known better and brought jackets and sweaters. I guess it’s more of a “better luck next time” kind of thing. This photo above was taken on our first train ride in England. It would be an understatement saying we were tired. We were utterly exhausted. Flying 8 hours over night and barely getting any sleep and then waiting a couple hours in line to be able to even exit the airport was beyond tiring. However, we were finally at our destination, and we all were eager to start our adventure!