London day 4

Wow it's been so long! The semester has ended, Christmas has passed, and New Year is just next week! I figured I've really got to sit down and continue writing about my travels, so here goes London day 4!

Amalina and I booked our tickets to the Warner Bros. studio tour of Harry Potter, and fyi I am a massive HP fan! Massive, sometimes I think about the whole Harry Potter story and I want to cry okay. Like how George Weasley died in the Battle of Hogwarts and Fred can never conjure the Patronus charm again because all of his happiest memories are those with George. And he's gone... But anyway, so yes I love Harry Potter.

And I was Hermione for my 21st birthday (I should probably blog about that too). 

Okay, I hope that's enough proof for my undying love for HP. 

Before we get to the 4pm tour that we have booked, Ama and I had the entire afternoon free. We went to the Borough Market, which we didn't visit the whole time we were there even though it was so close to our hostel, I don't know why. 

I think we googled on the things we could do around the area, which then brought us to this science and technology museum with FREE ENTRY! So of course we went ahead with it. 

We spent quite some time in the museum because there was so much to see. Then during lunch, Ama realised that we may be late for our scheduled tour at the HP studio! Okay, so I google-mapped the studio and it shows that we'll take about 30 minutes to travel there, which is why we took our own sweet time walking around. Since our tour is at 4pm, we thought we'll leave around 3. But turns out I googled the wrong studio! I'm so sorry. The correct studio at Leavesden will take us more than an hour to get there, and more than £10 on the tube omg. We immediately rushed to the studio, hoping to maybe get a later time-slot for our tour. And when we finally got there, we met some other tourists while waiting for the damn shuttle bus and they were late too yay! 

In the end, we survived and went in with the next tour group. Here goes the most amazing Harry Potter studio!! 

My £4 (i think) Butterbeer in a plastic cup

We also got to take ridiculously funny photos on a broom against a green screen, but they cost £20 per photo which I cannot understand. It was kinda overwhelming walking through the entire set for the films, and I cannot thank her enough. 

Alright alright, so we ended the tour and took the tube back to central London. Had to use our credit card to top up £10 onto our oyster cards because Ama and I had absolutely no pounds left. 

Oh and I really had to use the toilet at the metro station and it costs £1 to get in which I cannot understand again. And as I've said, we had no pounds left and the toilet doesn't seem to accept credit cards wtf. Then this guy came along and just gave me £1! Maybe I looked like I was gonna just pee on the ground already. Which reminds me, some guy in Brussels just gave my friends and I €4 at the metro station to buy our tickets too. They are just really kind and rich people huh. 

It was our last night in London, and our flight to Frankfurt was at like 4am or something. We've checked out of our hostel, and the plan was to just hang around the lounge area. Remembering that there's a microwave at the lounge, Ama and I went to M&S and got some food, assuming that there should be cutleries at the lounge too. We were half right, there were only plastic knives. You never know you could eat spaghetti with just a knife until you have no other choices. Later that night, Ama and I figured that we could actually go upstairs to the common bathroom to freshen up, which was the best news because we have been out the entire day and probably won't have the chance to shower until we reach Kassel. So we took turns to sneak up to the bathroom, and it involves me bumping into people making out in the hallway and them giving me angry stares. I'm sorry, but your grandfather own the hallway ah? Ahem anyway, that's the end to my short four days in London! 

I'll then be starting my exchange at the University of Kassel, where I'll meet some of the coolest people and have the best time there! Just to end things off, I would really love to visit London again. I feel like there's still so much more to experience there. Now that I've been to places that you're 'supposed' to go to when you're in London, I can't wait to explore more! 

Guten tag for now! 

Thoughts

I've been back for a little over a month now, and there's not a day that go by without me thinking about the times I spent in Europe. Every single bit of it. I've said this so many times, but it really has been the best time of my 21 years of existence. From jumping up and down on top of the Acropolis, in the narrow alleys in Venice, and before the tourist-filled Eiffel Tower (yea, we jumped a lot), to our butt-aching 14 hour bus ride from Paris to Barcelona. I look back at it all and how this 2 months of traveling have changed me, I can't quite put my finger on how I've changed but I have, I feel different.

Traveling is both a humbling and empowering experience. Humbling, when you realise how big the world out there is. The people you meet, people who have lived a completely different life from yours. It puts things into perspective. Empowering, because you did it. Say three or four months ago, I wouldn't have thought that I could do what I've done. Sure I know I was gonna go for summer exchange in Germany, and I was gonna lug my heavy backpack around Europe. So many times we rush to book our transportation and lodging, so many times we couldn't find our hotel/ hostel, and one time we were stranded in Venice Mestre because apparently buses don't run on Sundays there and we were rushing for our train to Florence. But at the end of the day, everything will turn out fine. From city to city, I feel more empowered because I can do this.

I read this article on thoughtcatalog when I was in Germany, it was titled the hardest part of traveling no one talked about. I didn't give much thought to it (so punny), but for some reason, I thought of it after I'm back in Singapore and read it again. This time, I fully understood it. The hardest part of traveling is what happens after you're back. Sure, I was so happy to be back with my family, to unpack all my clothes and not worry about fitting them all back into my backpack again (which I'll tell you was what Ama and I struggled every night before we check out). But looking back, I miss every single moment of it. And looking back is all I've been doing. The hardest part is knowing that it's over. But I'm so thankful that I got to experience it.

London, baby!: Day 3

On the third day, we woke up bright and early! Or maybe we didn't, I don't really remember. But either way, we woke up...

The third day was sort of our free day, the only thing on our itinerary for that day was to catch a musical. So after looking through the many many musicals that were showing in London, Ama and I decided on Wicked. My other option was the Phantom of the Opera, and Ama's was the Lion King. But Wicked was really wickedly good! So we headed down to the Apollo Victoria Theatre to get our tickets, and they were £29.50 for students. Our show was at 7:30pm so we had a lot of time to do nothing. Walk around, I meant walk around.

We headed to the Camden Market, which really felt like Bangkok for some reason.

And there we met this really friendly Italian chef, who insisted on giving us this free pizza. Think he mentioned something about his grandma's recipes and how all his ingredients are from Italy etc. His food really wasn't so good, sorry grandma. He also insisted that we take a picture together and post it to facebook, oh and of course add him on facebook so he can see the photo. Ah, long story short, I don't even remember his name anymore. But thanks for the pizza! 

Ama and I also randomly walked into some cathedral and went up some tower, okay this isn't too helpful. It wasn't any magnificent tower, in fact I think it was only 5 or 7 storeys high. But we saw someone painting the landscape of the little bit of London you can see up there. 

Afterwards, we went shopping for our picnic!! Oh and there I had my first taste of sparkling water, it was so disgusting, but more on that when we're on Germany. 

This guy dated a Singaporean. And this useless information I remember wtf. 

We went to this beau-ti-ful park just across the Buckingham Palace, so here's the little bit of Buckingham Palace we caught. 

Macarons and brownies were more important to us. 

I think it was the Green Park, or St. James Park, but whatever it is, it's an amazing park. (I don't know why I thought of the amazing spider-man Peter Parker when I typed that, but sorry i digress.) 

And here's me doing a pretentious lie-on-the-grasspatch photo, but I really did enjoy lying on the grass patch. There's something about such beautiful parks, and the way it makes you feel. Looking at the kids running around and families having picnic (with more food than just macarons and brownies), it just feels like I really shouldn't be worrying about anything. 

Finally it's time for Wicked!!

It was really really good, I really loved it. It was actually my first musical, and now imma try to watch more musicals/ plays in Singapore! 

The show ended at about 10pm I think and we headed back to our hostel after that. Here's the thing, Ama and I keep thinking that Elephant and Castle (somewhere in London) is really close to our hostel just because we may have seen it when we were walking around on the first day. So everytime when we see that some bus goes there, we'll take it and then walk back to our hostel. But it's really not so near. Every night we'll be freezing and it just makes everything seems even further. That said, we still do that every night haha. 

Alright, day 4 we'll be heading to HOGWARTS! 

London, baby!: Day 2

On the second day of London, we went to the Windsor Castle, Bath, and Stonehenge. Ama and I booked this day tour with Gray Line, and we might have had the grumpiest old lady as our tour guide.

Windsor castle was mag-ni-fi-cent. So much fun being a royal huh. 

Next stop was Bath, a small town known quite literally for their bath. So of course, we visited their Roman Bath. 

Also, in Bath, I got viciously attacked by pigeons while passers-by laugh on (like the one behind me). I fear pigeons for the rest of my life now. 

We didn't have much time in Bath, which was a shame because it's such a beautiful town. Let's just wish that I'll have a chance to return. 

We moved on to the Stonehenge, which was wow possibly the most boring thing ever. Oh yes it's mysterious, but are you serious? (okay this wasn't so good, but at least they rhyme) 

There's really only so many ways to look at stones. 

The surrounding was really beautiful though, with grass so green and sky so blue. So we pondered upon the mystery of these stacked stones for awhile before proceeding to take selfies and pretend like we're lifting the stones. 

It was a two-hour drive back to central London, and when we're back in South Kensington, I had the best risotto in my life. I don't even remember what risotto it was, but I just know it was so good.