Break Day 4: London part 2

The next day Nathalie and I explored the city together.

We had planned to start the day by seeing Kensington Park and the palace. Problem: the night before there had been a huge wind storm in London. Some trees had crushed cars, it had even killed a few people, sadly. Because of this, the park was closed. Boo. But we were determined. We walked around to the other side of and ... kind of snuck in. We played with the gates a little and found a way to open them so that we just barely fit. It was a nice park, we didn't see the palace though, and eventually a guy in a golf cart drove by and kicked us out (very politely though, we were in England weren't we?). So that was a half-success.

"So remember that time we got kicked out of a park in London?"

One of the branches that fell because of the wind storm

I had to, Goats everywhere!

Inside the park, half the tree had collapsed 

In the park

Oli! It's mine! (Polish: Oli = Ola's)

Westminster Abbey

Parliament 

We walked around London again, took some photos, then we split up (with a better plan to meet up this time). Nathalie went to the Tower of London and I wandered around. Admission was pretty expensive and the joy of finding my passport was slowly starting to be replaced by the anger of losing so much money... so I figured I could just google the inside and call it good.

Later we met up at St. Paul's Cathedral and headed over to, you ready for it? ....ABBEY ROAD! I was singing Beatles in my head the whole time. Honestly? Not too impressive. But the Beatles feet touched it so... I was happy.

Why hello there tourist

This was on the news that night: the wind had broken the crane

Trafalgar square

And...Chinatown, because I had no idea what I was doing

Ripley's Believe it or not, this "band" was playing Lady Gaga and it was the most terrifying thing I have ever seen

Stopped at Starbucks, got a coffee, and sat for a second. 

A big pointy thing

St. Paul's again. Sadly we weren't able to see the inside again, I had lucked out the day before

Tee hee, more goats

Abbey Road

Then we went to King's Cross. Harry Potter fans can freak out, Ewelina, you're welcome. I have not read the books or seen the movies (please don't start throwing eggs at me, I've gotten enough weird stares from the others in my program), so I had no idea what it was. I kept trying to leave the tube station and Nathalie didn't want to and I didn't understand what was going on. Then I realized King's Cross was the tube stop.

The Harry Potter thingy. I promise I'll go home and watch the movies, don't try to kill me in my sleep

Maybe one day I'll figure out what this means

And then we went back for our last night there. More cake, more conversation. London was great, but I'm going to be honest I think the city itself was only like...50% of the reason I liked it. At least half of it was being able to stay with family. Like I mentioned before, I had totally forgotten how nice it  feels to be with family, to feel at home. I like France, but I can never quite get comfortable in my Triolet dorm, and all the people are great, but... family is family. It was fabulous.

It helped that I heard Polish literally everywhere. A day has not gone by, both in England and Ireland, where I have not heard it at least once.