// So the adventure begins…//

I don’t mind airplanes. I just don’t like 6 hour flights that transcend time zones and give me 6 hours to sleep. They fed us dinner, snack and breakfast because those were technically the meals we did in the air but that took out of the sleeping time so needless to say we were friggin’ jet lagged when we landed into Gatwick, which is 30 minutes from London. We took a bus from there which was cool cos we got to see the countryside from the train and by countryside it was like going along the lakeshore go train into Toronto. We got into Victoria statie and moving my bags (I packed wayyyy too much) from the station to the tube was retarded. 50 pounds up and down stairs? Not fun. Only one guy offered to help me and that was probably cos I was in his way. Finally we got to the hotel though - we stayed at the Maranton House Hotel in Earl’s Court, Kensington, London - and found out we were on the top floor (it’s like they knew we had stupidly heavy bags) and had to haul them up 66 stairs (mum counted because ‘she was dying to know’)

After that we set out right away with the sightseeing, not wanting to miss a moment even if we were tired. We ended up at the Earl’s Court Pub where I tried John Smith’s Ale under someone’s advisement back home. We had some mixed pub food tray since we were starving and ended up back at the hotel to get something only to fall asleep - oops! When we woke up we went to Piccadilly Circus and wandered around looking at everything. We managed to get tickets to Broadway and headed off to see The Wizard of Oz. It was really good but now that I’m an adult I realize how campy the story is. Mum and I both had trouble not falling asleep during the play and managed to get through it somehow. When we left we ended up back at the hotel and crashing for the night. Not a super productive day but it was fun to wander Piccadilly and see a play.

The next morning we got up and had breakfast while walking to Stamford Bridge London Stadium where Chelsea (my football team!) play. Mum got us stadium tour tickets for my birthday and I bought myself a team shirt. Almost considered getting a Lampard shirt but for 30 extra pounds I decided it wasn’t worth it. It was really cool to get to walk around the stadium even if it wasn’t for a game (tickets are around 150 each, ouch. So I’ll have to find another way to get to a game while I’m here). After that we left and went to this mall for a bit where we wandered around and then went to the grocery store. Mum loved walking around there and found tons of cool stuff. She practically wanted to buy the store and take it home with her haha. After that we got back on the tube and ended up at Westminster where mum wanted to try and get into the abbey. When we got there we were so tired we didn’t realize we were looking at Big Ben until like a half hour later. We were too late to get into the Abbey though, which mum was disappointed about I really didn’t mind too much I mostly wanted us to get in cos we had done Chelsea for me that day. We wandered over to the London Eye only to find out it was closed so then we walked around the Waterloo Pier for a while before hoping onto the tube again and going off to find somewhere to eat. We went to the Aberdeen Steak House restaurant which was retardedly expensive and not so worth it but it was a filling meal which was good because we were averaging eating once everywhere 10 hours or so. Afterwards we ended up back at Leicester Square in Piccadilly and went to see The Rum Diary at the movie theatre. It was cool how they do it, you buy your ticket and then pick your seat. It’s like going to one of those premium theatres back home where you can have alcohol in the theatre. Really small with like 30 seats and it was awesome. Even if the movie wasn’t. Awesome cast, confusing movie. Afterwards we went back to the hotel and crashed again.

The next morning we got up and went out to The Tower of London bright and early. We ended up spending 3 hours there wandering around and looking at everything. We got to see where Anne Boleyn was kept and the changing of the guard. Plus we saw some of the royal crowns which was cool. The oldest they had was 1650 ish which is sick that they’ve kept it so intact. After that we left and had drinks outside of the London Bridge. We decided to try Westminster Abbey again and took the tube back but it was already closed (closed at 3:30pm, how stupid) so then we decided to go to Buckingham Palace and both thought that it was close enough we could walk. Retrospectively, yes… it was close, but we’d been walking all day so we were in pain by the time we got there. Once there it wasn’t nearly as impressive as you’d think it would be so we decided together to grab a double decker and go to Harrod’s. It was only like 6:30 and we killed two hours looking around there and ended up buying a lot of food - good food, tasty amazing food - and went back to the hotel where we had a mini feast on the bed. I ended up falling asleep at 10 - I was exhausted even though mum had wanted to go to a pub for the night.

This morning we got up and packed up everything right away. The hotel was nice enough to let us leave our bags there before we hopped on the tube to go to Richmond where we caught a bus that took an hour to get us to Hampton Court Palace. I had a nerdgasm all over the place the entire time because it was amazingly wicked. We had sorted out that I had 2 hours to see everything and that was cutting it close. By the time we were done we had an hour and 45 minutes to get to the bus station to catch our bus to Leeds. It was a lot of running with 50 pounds of bags and snippy remarks between mum and I but we managed to make it - with one minute to spare. The bus ride was 4 and a half hours long and I slept for a lot of it. Apparently this jetlag thing is still getting to me, hopefully I’ll get myself into a schedule soon. We got to Leeds and managed to get to the hotel - with a lift yay! And had dinner in the in-dining of the hotel. We decided to spend the night in so we got Real Steel on the tv and I came on to blog our so-far adventures. It’s wicked cool here and I think I’m going to love it but I haven’t explored Leeds at all yet so I can’t say for sure. I nearly die every time I hear a British accent though so I’ll probably combust before I get home in 6 months.

That’s it for now, I’ll post some photos following this.