Before I begin recalling my vacation in London, I feel I should explain the large amount of travel planning issues I came across. Three of my friends and I booked flights from Dublin to London to Athens to Rhodes. The plan was to stay in Rhodes for the first seven days, then stay in London for two days on the way back to Dublin. Everything seems fine until the day before we leave for Greece.
I get to class at 9:30am and find out that the Athens’ Airport is having a strike the next day and all flights have been cancelled. This meant that I would either have to cancel my flight to London or stay in London for ten days, which I had no desire to do. We didn’t even know if we were going to get our money back for the flights to and from Greece. Everyone was very stressed and pretty much threw away the entire idea that we would be going to Greece during break.
One of my friends going with me, Tom, had family in Greece that he was going to visit and he was determined to get us to Greece. Tom called three airlines and the hostel we booked in London; five hours of waiting and arguing with people on the phone trying to change plane tickets and booking dates. By 3:00pm our flights were successfully changed so that we would be now staying in London for the first two days and Rhodes for the last seven, which was basically our original plan but flipped around. This meant that we needed to book another hostel for the new days we would be in London. I’m not sure if you’ve ever tried, but trying to find availability in a Hotel or Hostel in London a day before you arrive is not the easiest thing. I searched for hours trying to find a decent place that had room for us. Finally, after trying to figure out our spring break for ten hours, it was done. Everything was planned and we could finally calm down and just hope that anything else wouldn’t go wrong.
The next day we left for the airport for our afternoon flight to London. The flight from Dublin to London is very short, only about an hour, almost too short in my opinion. We found our Hostel fairly easily and checked in to our room. The hostel looked… sketchy and dirty, but we had our own bedroom and were not worried about anyone breaking in. They gave us clean sheets and that was enough to keep us happy.
The next morning we buy tickets for the Big Bus Tour that brings you all around London to all the major tourist attractions like the London Bridge, the London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, etc. We sat on the top of the double decker bus so that we got the best views. We ended up missing the bus that brought us back to our Hostel and had to take the tube, which is their version of the Subway. Although London is such a huge city, it seemed very easy to get anywhere you wanted fairly quickly and easily using the tube.
That night we met up with two fellow classmates who arrived in London that day and went to check out the bar scene. We went into the center of the city and asked someone where a good bar was and they gave us directions to one. Once we walk up to the door we immediately recognize that it is an Irish Pub… in London. It’s funny that we can’t get away from them. We felt right at home and went inside for a few drinks.
The next day we take a walk through Hyde Park, which was right across from our Hostel. It is a huge green park with restaurants and playgrounds and lakes and DOGS. There were so many dogs running around and playing; I could walk around in there all day and never get bored. One particular dog followed us for a short while, with its owners about 20 feet behind us. It was adorable and very well behaved. When it came time that the owners wanted the dog turn off to another path all the did from way behind him was say “turn here” and the dog just knew and went off onto the other path.
Once we reached the end of Hyde Park we went to the Science Museum. We went on a simulation ride where you feel like you are flying to the moon on a spaceship, which was pretty cool. Other than that it does not compare to the Museum of Science in Boston. We spent most of our time in the souvenir shop, which was full of all those really awesome toys we used to play with when we were younger. Our flight to Rhodes left that afternoon and arrived in Rhodes at 7:00am. Basically, it was a long night, but definitely worth it.
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