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Published: March 30th 2009
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Mom and Dad’s European vacation finally arrived last week! I met them in London last Saturday and left them in Rome yesterday. It was so great to see them! I talk to them more via Skype here than I do back at Mizzou and don’t normally see them except for a couple times a semester back in the states, but it had been two and a half months since they dropped me off at the airport to fly here and it was great for them to see Europe and for me to see them and more of Europe too.
Their international flight landed in London Saturday morning, so I met them there Saturday afternoon, after walking around in the wrong direction for about an hour of course. We started off to see the city as soon s I arrived at the hotel -- they’d been waiting a while 😊 We just wandered around that afternoon, seeing Parliament, Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, Westminister Cathedral, Buckingham Palace, and the London Eye. We stopped at a couple pubs along the way and enjoyed the London environment - minus the one British man who kept telling us how fascinating Americans are and wouldn’t go away…
Big Ben
With the London Eye in the Background After finally escaping him that night, we went to see Wicked playing in one of the theaters near Victoria Station. It was amazing! Our tickets weren’t very good because they were so far to the side, but the musical was still great. The costumes, dancing, and singing were wonderful! I could definitely see that one again. After it finished, in the true spirit of Europe and cheap, hungry college students on a budget, I introduced Mom and Dad to their first Döner Kebab. Mmmmm…
On Sunday, we started sight-seeing early. We walked to Buckingham Palace and the Wellington Arch and then started a guided walking tour from there. We revisited a lot of the places we’d seen the day before but the second time around we heard more of the history behind them. London is such an old city, I’d love to learn more about its history and revisit it some day.
After the tour, we ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant (my choice --> I’ve been craving Chinese food since January) and then took a double decker bus to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge. I was under the impression beforehand that the Tower of London was a
tower on a bridge over a river, so I was extremely surprised to find out that the Tower of London is actually an old castle/fortress and Tower Bridge is what I had had it pegged as in my mind. I would have like to have seen the castle from the inside, but it took two to three hours, and it was already late afternoon when we got there. Instead of touring that, we decided to go to Tower Bridge instead and tour that. It was beautiful from the outside and enormous and complicated on the inside. We got to go up in the towers and walk across the top as part of the tour and also learned how the drawbridge works. That part I didn’t find too interesting --> physics is by no means enjoyable to me. All I needed to know was that it goes up and down and that the view of the river from the top is very pretty.
After finishing the tour, we walked along the wharf and stopped at another pub for a drink. It was nice to be able to go to a bar with Mom and Dad, as it is also nice to
be able to go out with friends in Alicante and the rest of Europe. It will be a big change when I get back to the states and have to wait another year to be legal there 😞
After the pub, we walked back across the bridge (beautiful at night) and caught a bus back to the hotel. Our flight to Alicante left at 6:30am Monday morning, so we turned in early in order to be awake at 3:30am. I really enjoyed seeing London and spending time there with Mom and Dad. It sounds cliché, but it really is like what you see in movies. I loved the British accent, the cleanliness, the helpfulness of everyone we encountered, and the simple but elegant architecture and open spaces. I was sad to leave on Monday but was looking forward to showing Mom and Dad Alicante and a piece of my life abroad.
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