London and More

Mom is safe at home back in the States (at least, I hope she is) and I’m back on the homework grind before the next round of visitors make their way to the Emerald Isle. The rest of this semester is turning out to be just as wild and crazy as I’d hoped it would be!

Mom and I had such an awesome week. London is amazing! We got there Thursday night, and our cousins were nice enough to pick us up from the airport. They were so great to us the whole weekend! Friday morning we took an early train into London (her cousins live just outside in a town called Weybridge) and made our first stop to buy cheap tickets for an evening show on the west side. Then we traveled across town to Buckingham Palace where we made it just in time to see the changing of the guard after sprinting across a park and hopping two fences. It’s a good thing we’re agile. We jostled our way through the crowd and got a prime spot where I was able to get a few videos of it! Take a gander here and here. (Kevin, if you’re reading, the second one was taken with you in mind). 

After having our ears assaulted (Just kidding, it wasn’t that bad. I just prefer instruments that don’t sound like screeching animals. I know. How un-Irish of me. I’m over it) we roamed around London and saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye. We also walked down the Thames where we found a cool little market and stopped for some fish and chips for lunch. How very English of us. Later that night we went to see The Ladykillers, which was very funny, and then headed home nearly half unconscious from all the walking and looking and ooh-ing and ahh-ing we did all day. Being a tourist is exhausting!

The next day we headed back into London with our number one destination being the one and only Platform 9 ¾. Oh yes. I stood in line with those 6 year olds and was just as excited as they were when it was my turn to pose at the little half-carriage sticking out of a fake brick wall. It was the best. But what we did next was next was probably my favorite part of the whole trip, and trust me, it’s hard to top anything Harry Potter related. We headed over to Abbey Road where I took the quintessential walking pose while crossing the cross walk. There’s a webcam right outside the Abbey Road recording studio that faces the cross walk that my dad had found online a few months earlier. We called my Dad to tell him to get on the webcam and  it was so cool! He watched us walk across Abbey Road and we talked to him on the phone and waved at the webcam while a very confused and concerned group of tourists carefully nudged away from us. It. Was. Awesome.  He was able to see us in London in real time. That one goes down in Conard family history for us. The rest of the day we spent roaming around. We went to Covent Square which is this cool market place where we got awesome paella cooked in a pan that was literally big enough to fry a whole cow (sorry to my vegetarian friends for the reference) and putzed around some cool arts-and-craftsy type shops. We headed back to Weybridge early enough to do dinner with our cousins before leaving for the airport. Their 9 year old son (the middle of three boys) set up a great disco ball for some mood lighting while we ate dinner. Fantastic. The boys were so intelligent and so polite! I wonder if I could raise my kids to have British accents … 

All in all, it was a fabulous week. Not only did I get the chance to explore more of Europe, but I got to share the experience with my Mom. It was very special. (Awwww don’t you just want to melt and throw up). But really, it was another great experience here and I know it won’t be the last. My friends start arriving for St. Patrick’s Day Festivities as early as Wednesday, and by Saturday this country will be rocking. I’ve already bought my Bailey’s and Whiskey. All I need now is some Guinness, my friends, and a whole lot of green and I’m ready for a St. Patty’s I’ll never remember for the rest of my life!

Cheers to St. Patrick!

 Check out all the photos from this week here! (I actually took the time to add some captions on the photos this time, so keep your eyes peeled for some commentary).