My trip to London!

 As this is a personal blog, I figured: why not talk a little bit about my experience in London. I think on previous blog entries, I might have mentioned this trip, but this time, I wanted it to be a little more specific. What did I do, where did I eat... So, let's start with the beginning. Basically, I have always wanted to go to London. When I was little, about 8 years old, I would say, my family and I went there to visit my uncle, who was working in England at the time. However, we didn't stay in the city center, or even anywhere nearby, for that matter. We visited the town in which my uncle was living (I can't remember the name) and some villages from around. One day, I remember we did go to central London and strolled around the city. We saw St. Paul's Cathedral, visited Buckingham Palace... I was very young, so I can't remember most of it. The thing is that I loved the city, and seeing it over and over in movies or series made my interest in it grow a lot. Since before the pandemic, I was always telling my parents "we should go to London again". Actually, they ended up pretty tired of my persistence. After two years of not being able to travel, direct airplane tickets to London were put on sale from my city. It was the perfect opportunity! Without thinking twice, my parents bought them, and started planning an amazing trip.

My brother and I were thrilled when we got the news, and we waited with our fingers crossed, hoping that the COVID situation wouldn't mess our plans. Thankfully, it didn't, and in April we were able to leave as scheduled. The plane arrived quite late the first night, and we hadn't brought anything for dinner. We were hoping to find some fast-food place near the hotel, but we were so tired when we got there, that we decided to go to sleep and have a bigger breakfast the next morning. We would stay in London for five days more less (from Saturday night to Thursday morning). We stayed at a Holiday Inn near Earl's Court. It was honestly quite nice. The staff was great and the bedroom was really comfortable. It wasn't very big, but it was just what we needed. Breakfast was included and it offered a variety of hot and cold dishes to choose from.

The first morning, we woke up early and had a filling breakfast. My brother and my dad got so full. They wanted to try everything! When we left the hotel, we took the metro to the City. We strolled around, saw the skyscrapers and visited some really cool vintage markets. 

However, it wasn't a working day, and the City looked unusually empty. There was hardly anybody in the streets and all shops were closed. That day, my mum wanted to show us the area where she had lived for a few years when she was younger. We got to see her university and her house, and then we headed to a pub to have the traditional Sunday Roast. It was amazing. We ordered two Roasts and some vegetables as sides. I loved the place and the weather couldn't have been better. 

In the afternoon, we took the metro again to Saint Paul's, then we walked to Tower Bridge. When we were done, we decided to go back to the hotel area to have dinner there. We actually ended up having dinner in that neighborhood most nights. We tried this vegan-Thai place that looked really good, and indeed it was. The food was delicious, although my noodles were way too spicy (i'm not used to intense flavors) and my father had to force me to change dishes with him, because he said I was going to be sick if I kept eating them. His food was quite nice as well.

The second day, we had planned to go to Buckingham's palace to watch the Changing of the Guard. As we had arrived early, we were able to go around Hyde Park. When the "show" was over, we walked and visited Harrods, a very luxurious mall. There, we got some Easter-themed snacks and ate them sitting in Hyde Park.

me and my Easter muffin :)

After this pause, we visited Covent Garden and for lunch we had sandwiches in a little square nearby. In the afternoon, we went to Piccadilly, Chinatown and saw the Big Ben. This was probably the day we walked the most. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant near the hotel and called it a night.

The next morning, we decided to take things slower and woke up a little later. We visited Notting Hill, which was beautiful and then went to Camden Market. I would have liked to see the market of Notting Hill, but it was Tuesday and it's only opened on Saturdays. There were still some shops, but it wasn't the same. Camden was really cool. Every street was filled with colors and weird things, and every showcase was different in its own way. In the market, there was a section destined only for food. You could see stalls selling food from all over the world: from pizza to noodles or sushi! There were so many to pick from. At the end, we decided on Korean chicken with noodles, which was really good. 

The part that I liked the most about that day was the night. We went for a late walk around Covent Garden, Piccadilly and Chinatown. Although I had already seen them, everything changed at night. The lights, the atmosphere, the people... It was such a wholesome moment, I felt as if I would cry. Everything was perfect. I was with my parents and my little brother, in a beautiful city, and I felt the luckiest person in the world.

The last day arrived. We woke up and decided to visit James park that day. It had a beautiful Japanese garden inside of it that had so many animals. We even saw a peacock! Later, we returned to the City, which was full of life this time. My father had wanted to visit the Docklands since we started the trip, so we decided to go and have lunch there. I hadn't expected what I saw. It was a beautiful place! We had our last traditional British meal at a pub called The Dickens Inn. 

That night we were going to go to an Indian restaurant in a district we didn't know, and we decided to take a bus to get there. It drove us through streets we had never seen, all while the sun set. 

It was amazing. And I can say no less of the food of later. I had had Indian food once before, but not as good as this one. It was probably my favorite meal of the trip.

I was kind of sad when the trip got to an end, but it honestly couldn't have been a better experience. My parents are amazing, and the fact that they still do all of this effort for my brother and I reminds me of how lucky I am to have the family I have.