A Weekend in London

A few months back, me and my fiancé spent a weekend in London, May 26th to the 28th to be exact. It has always been one of my biggest dreams to go see London, it's been my favourite city for years and years. I don't know what it is, but the United Kingdom totally has my heart and probably always will, even though I had never been to the UK before this trip. 

I realized I never wrote about that weekend and decided to finally collect my thoughts and impressions of the city.

Since we barely had time in London, I really just wanted to see the main tourist attractions and get an overview of the city. The first thing we did was go down to the Thames because our hotel was very close, it was just a few minutes of walking. From there you could already see the London Eye on the other side of the Thames so we made our way over there.

Most of the time that day we spent standing in line to get tickets for the Eye as well as a bus tour through London and Madam Tussauds which we decided to do it all the next day. Afterwards we walked over to see the Big Ben and then decided to go on the bus tour for a while (you can hop on and off at any station you want). 

We got off to the see the Buckingham Palace and went to a little cafe some streets away. It's been such an exhausting day, my fiancé finally wanted to grab some food so we got onto the bus again and got off near Trafalgar Square where we also pretty much broke down and got dinner. I remember the walk home to our hotel felt like ages, it's been boiling hot the entire day and my feet hurt.

The next day we took the tube to Madam Tussauds which I personally really enjoyed. Even though it's such a crowded city, especially at the tourist places I loved seeing Madam Tussauds and all the wax figures.

We took the tube back to the London Eye which I always pictured to be so much different than it actually is. The ride took so long, it felt like forever. Again, it's been boiling hot the entire trip and just being stuck in all these crowds made me feel quite anxious.

What I enjoyed the most was probably the bus tour itself because you could just sit on the roof of the bus, put in some earphones to listen to the lady tell you all the information on the spots they are showing you, the wind is blowing in your hair and you can just enjoy the view, getting to see everything while not having hundreds of people pushing you.

Our hotel was very close to the St. Paul's Cathedral, it might have been like 5-10 minutes of a walk until you got to the Cathedral. So after we finished our bus tour where we got to see the Tower Bridge, finally, we got off the bus and walked to St. Paul's Cathedral.

Close by was a little shopping centre that had all these amazing restaurants on the top floor, after wandering through, we decided to go with this cute Italian restaurant. I wish I knew the name because on the inside it was truly adorable.

We finished our food and walked back to our hotel, where on the way home we stopped by a few supermarkets to get some sweets and salty stuff for the match Chelsea : Arsenal that we watched back in our hotel suite.

The very next day we had to get up early to catch our train to Stansted Airport to say bye-bye.

I remember when we first arrived at Stansted Airport and took the Express to Liverpool Street Station, we drove past this amazing countryside and houses I associate with the UK and it got me so excited for the weekend.

When we arrived at the train station, my excitement was gone. It was crowds everywhere, and if there is one thing I cannot cope with, it's crowds. I suffer from anxiety and even though I had been to several big cities, it was nothing like London. It's unbelievable how many people can fit in one place.

My anxiety had been so real that weekend from the extremely hot weather, these unreal crowds of people and just having a bit of a time pressure wanting to see as much as possible, but also being way too exhausted to actually do so. It had been such a shock to me, the entire trip had been nothing like I expected. London, in fact, was nothing like I expected it to be. Right when we got home and saw my family, I was like "I'm not going there ever again!", I was way too overwhelmed with the city.

Now that a few months have passed, I'm positive that I do want to go there again. But I want it to be just for the city. I want to take lots of walks and find cute hidden places that not all the tourist go to, I want to take in the beauty of the city, and not the (mostly) dirty and crowded tourist spots. I want to get an actual insight, an insight of London like the people living there have.