I've noticed that the more you travel the more of a story teller you become. You meet all these people around the world all vying to know a small piece of your life. I love sharing my life with people. After my trip to England this weekend I have quite a few more stories to tell.
The first day we had in England I met my friend Dara's family and friends. It felt so weird for me to travel to a new place and hear people around me speaking a language I was fluent in. The accents however were quite different and always put a smile on my face. I was told I have a strong accent of my own! Dara, her brother Aiden, her lovely friend Milly and myself all made our way by bus from their quaint town of Andover to Winchester. We were lucky that day, because the sun was out and there was hardly any rain. Winchester was beautiful and I got to see the grave of Jane Austen in the Winchester Cathedral. After that we walked around and I was taken into all of the "posh" shops. It was wonderful and I actually bought a dress! Keep in mind it was hard to buy almost anything in England because of the outrageous conversion rate from USD to GDP which happened to be about 1.00 to 1.73 pounds. Ouch. Nonetheless we enjoyed ourselves and I was treated to a traditional Pastie. We ended up walking some more and finished our day trip with lunch at a restaurant called the Slug and Lettuce. After Winchester we met up with another of Dara's lovely friends and headed around town and eventually back to Dara's house to celebrate her birthday with gluten free Mac n cheese and chocolate cupcakes. That night we picked up our friend Alyssa from the airport and prepared for our trip to London the next day.
Friday morning we had a 7am wake up call to be on a train to London by 9am. The weather had reverted back to it's natural grey skies and steady rain so we all could have an authentic England experience. The three of us met Dara's friend MC at the train station and made our way to London. Once we arrived the rain was more of a mist and we walked to the Tems to see all of the iconic sights of London. All of the sights were beautiful and it was just incredible to be there in that city. Coming from California I understand the appeal of those types of cities LA, New York, London. People dream about those cities and it felt surreal to be in one of them that had always been so far away from me.
We walked around the city and thoroughly enjoyed the sights. Walking from place to place was amazing. We saw the changing of the guards and enjoyed a casual cup of Starbucks. We strolled through a beautiful park across from the palace and had lunch at a Chipotle. It was a special treat for myself and my birthday! Again we walked around London and Dara and MC took us to all of the beautiful shops and we looked at things and laughed at the prices. It was such an amazing time just walking around the city and being there. As we were walking through the city we found ourselves at Kings Cross and took a picture with the famous 9 3/4 cart. It was such a wonderful day and ended with delicious delicious Portuguese chicken from a restaurant called Nando's. To end our day we hopped on a train at 8:30 that was supposed to get us back to Andover by 9:30pm. That however didn't happen and we had to wait on a train for 5 hours!! We ended up having to take a taxi (paid for by the train company) back to Andover and finally got back home by 2am. Unfortunate ending to a wonderful day otherwise.
Our last day in Andover was amazing, we slept in and enjoyed our breakfast and morning. Finally when all of us were dressed and ready for the day we walked downtown to pick up some tea for ourselves and potatoes for dinner. After we were done enjoying downtown Andover we went back up to Dara's house and had our final dinner with Dara and her family. The night was perfect and we finished it with heading out to a bar with Dara and all of her beautiful friends. It was a great time in England with great people and I can imagine it any other way.
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