The worst part about studying abroad is having to leave. When you’ve moved to a different country for a certain amount of time, you become settled there. New friends, new *favourite* coffee shops, new routines, and then you have to leave it. I got so incredibly lucky during my time in England to make new lifelong friends that let me come and visit/ stay with them. One of these friends lives… well let’s just say he lives in London because I’m not about to try and describe where he lives technically, and he let my friend Carla and I stay at his place on one of our last nights in England so we could explore London one last time.
We took this opportunity, when we weren’t watching trashy t.v. with Ben (Love Island is like a better, British version of The Bachelor), to see some of the touristy sights around the city. We’d already seen all of these sights already, but it was a good feeling to see them one last time before we hopped on flights back to America.
Our first stop was Trafalgar Square, the famous square right next to the Thames river that’s home to the lions and a statue of Horatio Nelson. We stayed here for a bit, just people watching and letting the city do its thing around us before Carla spotted a telephone booth and said, “Oh my god, Ellen we have to take a picture in those. So a picture we took.
From Trafalgar Square we decided to walk to St. James’s Park, which is directly across the street from Hyde Park, both of which line the way to Buckingham palace. It was here that we had a little picnic with some sandwiches we made before we left Reading, and we took a few photos of the little pond within the park.
We stayed here for a while before heading to Ben’s house, excited for what the next day would bring.
The next afternoon, after saying goodby to our friend, we headed back into London to meet another one of my friends, and fellow Rebel Abroad, Meredith, to walk around the city a bit more. We made a quick stop to the Victoria and Albert Museum because I wanted to show Meredith how incredible it was so she could explore it a bit more on her own later that week before we grabbed some cheap sandwiches from Tesco and had another picnic in a park, this one being within walking distance to Tower Bridge, the famous bridge next to the tower of London. We walked to the bridge after lunch, really letting ourselves admire the city on our way over as it was such a beautiful day, making sure to take plenty of pictures once we got on the bridge.
After this we decided to head back to Saint James’s Park to relax a bit more, not forcing ourselves to be anywhere at a certain time before we had to say goodbye.
London has become my absolute hands down favorite city on earth, and though that was my last time to see it while studying abroad, I won’t be able to stay away for long, so I simply said see you later as we hopped on the tube one last time and made our way back to Reading for the night. Until next time, London.
Xx Bee