United Kingdom – Page 2 – ThePassportPrincess

Day 58 – London

October 15, 2015November 29, 2015Sarah7 Comments

8th October 2015

This was my second to last day in London so I spent it doing something actually touristy.
I met up with Kara (from my top deck tour) and her sister Larni at the Tower of London.

We bought our tickets to get in and decided to wait around for a tour that was about to start. It ended up being really fun because our tour guide was funny and knew so much about the Tower of London.

Before visiting, I didn’t really know much about the Tower of London. Just that it was a castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London.

Basically the castle was used as a prison from 1100 until 1952 although that wasn’t it’s main purpose. It also served as a royal residence and is now the place that holds the crown jewels!

In the 16th and 17th centuries when the castle was mainly used as a prison, it held many figures within its walls who had fallen into disgrace, such as Elizabeth I before she became queen.
That’s where the saying “sent to the Tower” comes from. Even though there was lots of torture and death that happened at the castle, only seven people were executed within the Tower.
Executions were more commonly held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, with 112 occurring there over a 400-year period.

Once we’d explored nearly every inch of the castle, we headed off to get some lunch at the Borough Markets.

I wasn’t really expecting much from the markets, but if you’re ever in London and you love to eat like me. Go!!!
It was probably one of my highlights of London haha.
It’s a huge food market underneath railway lines in Southwark, Central London.

When we got there, we said “oh my god!!” And “ahh look at this!” About 100 times when we discovered something delicious to eat.

There was everything from hot made sandwiches filled with either chicken, bacon, pork or haloumi.

There was cheesecakes to buy by the slice, brownies, pastries, cupcakes, chocolates and fudge, donuts and other hot meals. Ahh I was in heaven! We didn’t know what to buy but ended up settling on one of the sandwiches. I got a haloumi filled one which was so good! And a cup of cider to go with it 🙂

Now that I’m recapping this blog, I really want to go back and have another sandwich haha
Eventually we decided to go home and meet up again later on. One of the girls from our Top Deck tour who lives in London was having her birthday dinner that night so we had to head home to get dressed and re-do our faces haha.

Once I had gone back to my hostel and gotten ready, I headed to the tube to catch the train out to Soho.
I met the girls at this restaurant/club (which I now can’t remember the name of) and we had drinks and dinner before heading downstairs for some dancing.
We may have gotten a bit drunk as wine was £12 a bottle woohoo!

A few of the girls left after that so it was just me and the sisters left.

Eventually after not being able to get into another club, we headed home for the night.
As Kara was going to the airport the next day and so was I, we agreed to meet at the Gatwick airport train station and catch the train together for our departure from London .

Day 57 – London

October 15, 2015November 29, 2015SarahLeave a comment

7th October 2015

Today I was up in time to have breakfast downstairs at the hostel. There was a selection of spreads with toast, cereals, fruit and yoghurt and also you could make your own toasted sandwiches which was a bit different.
Though I’m still missing my American bagels and cream cheese to be honest haha. 😋

Once breakfast was finished, I put a little status on facebook to see if anyone in London was free to do anything. My friend from NZ who now lives in London replied and said I should come and have lunch with her. I used to work with Emily at an Ice cream store while I was in High School haha. I miss having all that free ice cream now! 🍦🍧

I figured out how to get to her work and took the tube there. When I arrived at my stop, I had some time to spare before our lunch date so just went for a walk at the park next to the tube station. I’m trying to remember what the park was called but I can’t for the life of me remember. I even tried to Google map it but none of the pictures look similar to the park I walked through haha.

I then made my way to the Covent Gardens as I heard there was a magnum store there where you basically get to design your own magnum ice creams.
Unfortunately for me it was only a Summer thing I think and they’d closed it down for the year. It was more of a pop-up store so it wasn’t around forever. 😧

The Covent Gardens aren’t actually a bunch of gardens.
It’s a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End and it’s associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square which is now a popular shopping and tourist site.
I had a look around the shops and even found a shake shack! The famous American burger/shake food place I never went to when I was in the USA. The lines are always just way too long that is can never be bothered lining up.

When it was nearly lunch time I walked to meet Emily at her work so we could go for lunch.

We decided On getting burrito wrap type things at this store called Wrap It Up. So yum! I got a chicken mexican bean thing which was exactly what I felt like.
Pretty soon, an hour had been and gone and Emily had to head back to work. She suggested I go to the store Primark (which is like a Kmart and they just sell heaps of clothes and shoes)

I went there hoping to find the summer clothes I’ve been wanting and was met with rows of sweatshirts and Christmas wollen jumpers. 😣
I walked out of there with a winters hat and baby clothes for my best-friend little baby boy for next year! Haha. At least I tried.

I was all shopped out again so headed back to the hostel as I was meeting a friend later on for dinner.
Dave and I met on Contiki and he’s now living in London so it was good to see a familiar face again!
I insisted we had to go to a classic London pub for a beer (well a cider for me) so we found one and ordered some food. Out of all the foods on the menu, this pub had like 3 pages of Thai food to choose from and a couple of choices of London food.
It was good I love thai food, so I ordered a yummy thai curry and we sat there to drink our drinks for a few hours.

It was getting late so with my tummy all full, we said our goodbyes and I headed back to my hostel for a good night’s sleep.
I ended up actually going downstairs when I got there and attempted to write up a blog but people kept sitting down and talking to me haha. I must have looked lonely or something so I ended up leaving and probably didn’t even finish my blog post.

Day 56 – London

October 14, 2015November 29, 2015SarahLeave a comment

6th October 2015

I went to the doctors today!
I wasn’t getting any better from my chest infection and I got another cold on top of what I already had when I was coming back from Amsterdam. I felt it was time to go and get some anti biotics so I wasn’t sick for my sail Croatia trip.
I called up a walk – in clinic in London and booked an appointment for 12.30pm.

To pass the time, I did another little look around the shops and tried to find some Summer – type clothes for Croatia.
I had no luck on the streets so ended up going to my appointment a little earlier.

£80 later/$182 NZD, I had a script for some anti biotics from the doctor. She had a listen to my chest etc… and said since I’ve been sick for so long she was putting me on 2 weeks of anti biotics 3x a day.

I decided to head off to the Westfield shopping centre in Shepards bush after the doctors as I was getting desperate for sandals or some new shoes!
My nikes just wernt doing it for me anymore.

The Westfield mall I went to was pretty big. There were like 10 different shoe stores and absolutely none of them sold sandals. I couldn’t believe it!!
The store assistants said it was coming into winter so they only had Winter stock at the time. Do they not realise that people go on holiday!

I grabbed some a falafel wrap while I was there though. I had been craving falafel for so long!

I then went and got a cheeky Ben and Jerry’s ice cream 🙂
Triple Caramel chunk is my absolute favouriteeee.
Why do they not have this amazingness in New Zealand!!

I may have spent a little bit too much at the mall, but it was actually stuff that I needed! I got a duffle bag from Victoria Secrets and bought some new white converse shoes. (Which now I think may be half a size too small 😣)

I also got some black jeans from River Road and some make up from Kiko Milan (as they don’t have that in NZ either)

Kelly and Kara were going out for dinner and invited me to join them but I was still out shopping until like 7pm so I missed it.
I went to the supermarket instead and tried to find something to make for dinner at the hostel.
As I was only there for a few more days it didn’t seem worth it to get lots of ingredients so just settled on some cadbury caramel chocolate mousse puddings for dessert and some rice bubble crackers and peanut butter for dinner. #travellife haha

By the time I got back to the hostel I was knackered. I have a degenerative disc in my neck so my neck was in so much pain from walking around all day and my leg kept getting these sharp spasm pains up it. (Most likely from my flat Nike shoes I was wearing all day)
I had my dinner and drunk a cider in the bar to end my night but didn’t have a big one. 😴
Very exciting day I know! 😅