London, Turning 20, and Other British Things

HELLO EVERYONE. Sorry this has taken me a while.. after receiving many angry messages about not immediately posting about my trip to London, I have finally found time to write about it!! Yay!!

me in front of my future home :)

Well. As some of you may know, my mom and aunt flew out from Chicago to come visit me this past week! They left Chicago Wednesday night and landed in London early Thursday. I flew to London on Thursday afternoon and after spending roughly 100 pounds on cabs, I made it to their hotel. After a lovely steak dinner (and helping them order, they weren't used to all of the British accents), I settled down and watched some great British television which included The World According to Paris and some show about airport security. And that completed Thursday. How exciting!

Friday was way more entertaining. We had decided to take a hop on/hop off bus tour, and we also met up with one of my friends from Chapman, Izzie, who is currently studying abroad in London! After waiting for half an hour for a bus that was supposed to come at least every seven minutes, we finally got on the right bus and started our tour of London! The thing about being on a tour bus is that everyone else with you is just as much of a tourist, so the tour guide will warn you when a good Kodak moment is coming along, like when Big Ben is perfectly framed by the London Eye.

Since it was a hop on/hop off tour, we took full advantage of the hopping off. We stopped at the Tower of London and took pictures of the Tower Bridge (like the excellent tourists we were) and then went and explored the tower. It was also freezing outside, so we took every advantage we could to go inside a building. This included seeing the Crown Jewels (aka the only reason I desperately wanted to go to the Tower of London), although we weren't allowed to take pictures of them. :( But it just made me want to be a royal that much more!!

Proof that the three of us were actually all in London together

Dragon!

We also explored the main building in the tower, which, I can't remember what it was called, but it was full of war history and armory and things like that. There was this crazy dragon right when you walked in that would randomly roar at you and the first time it made a noise it scared me half to death. There were also games that you could play to see how good of a warrior you were. I took full advantage of the bow & arrow one and pretended to be Katniss! (PS - 36 days left!!) I also learned that I would be a terrible warrior, seeing as I missed every time. Meanwhile, the four year old on the child-size bow and arrow next to me hit the target "DEAD ON!!" every time. I don't know where he was from, but that child will be the greatest warrior ever one day.

Look at what a good Katniss I am!

Isabelle and I in front of the gates of Buckingham Palace!

After the Tower of London, we went to Buckingham Palace, which was AWESOME. It was so gorgeous. And really sunny out, so unfortunately most of my pictures did not turn out. But that's alright, because I was still there, and there is proof, even if half of the picture is white from the sun. We didn't get to watch the changing of the guards because it happens every other day from January - June (or something like that) and we were there on the day when it was not being changed. 

Anyway, we spent Saturday shopping, mostly. We went to Harrod's first, and ended up buying things for my brother (who is apparently 6 feet tall - I won't believe it til I see it). After Harrod's, we walked around some of the more expensive shopping streets and I got my first birthday gift - a charm from Tiffany's!! It's the "Return to Tiffany's" heart, and it looks amazing with my Tiffany key I got last year for my birthday. I also got some new eyeliner that was rather expensive, and after putting it on for the first time I have come to the conclusion that I should invest in expensive makeup more often. This eyeliner is amazing!!

Soooo back to my adventures! Part of the reason my mom and aunt came out to London was for my birthday, and I told my mom that really all I wanted to do was see The Lion King in the West End. We saw Lion King on Friday night and it was AMAZING. I had seen it before, but that was roughly a decade ago, and I don't think I fully appreciated the extent of it's epicness back then. I also sat on the aisle for this show, and it happened to be the same aisle that the massive elephant comes down, and even though I knew it was coming I still had a heart attack and leaned in closer to my mom because I was terrified. This also happened when the birds and the hyenas came down too. Good to know that I'm still deathly afraid of puppets. Legally Blonde was great too!! I had only seen it in Chicago, and the touring cast's sets were NOTHING compared to what was here (and also on Broadway). Most importantly, they had a door during Legally Blonde, and I won't bore you with the specifics because I think Michaela is the only person that actively cares about this. 

If you've been keeping track of the days, you should be aware that it is now Sunday morning (in blog-time). Sunday morning also happened to be my 20th birthday!! Sunday also turned out to be far less exciting than most birthdays, but that's alright because I basically am counting the entire week as my birthday. We flew back to Glasgow on Sunday, had a nice steak dinner, and then headed back to my flat for some birthday cake!! I invited over a couple of my friends and it was really a nice, relaxing birthday. One of my flatmates even made me a card which included plenty of pictures of Shemar Moore taking his shirt off. It's positively wonderful to look at, and it is now being displayed proudly on my cabinet-thing. Thanks Hannah!! 

Srishti, Melissa, Emilie, me, Caitlin, Hannah, and Liz!

Since I had class and such, we couldn't really adventure much during the week. On Monday, we walked around City Centre and did a bit of shopping. We trekked down to Americandy only to find that they had no Reese's Peanut Butter Cups... since my mom had left the bag she bought for me in the freezer (IN CHICAGO), I am now Reese's-less. How depressing. :( Anyway, the weather in Glasgow has been really beautiful lately and it was almost to the point where we didn't need a coat. Especially after the freezing temperatures in London, Glasgow felt like a heat wave! 

Tuesday we went to Edinburgh, and much to my own surprise I still knew my way around pretty well. I had only been once before during orientation, so I was impressed with myself. We took another bus tour and spent most of our time walking the Royal Mile. While there, I got some more birthday gifts, which included A Scottish flag and sweatshirt! We also passed Edinburgh city hall, which my mom took loads of pictures of to bring back to Village Hall and complain about the building. Of course, we couldn't leave without stopping at the Disney store. What I hadn't anticipated was the amount of items we purchased from the Disney store. My mom got a Mickey that has "Edinburgh" embroidered on his chest, and a keychain that is the Scottish flag in a heart with Mickey's face in the middle. I got a mug and a t-shirt, and my aunt bought a magnet. What can I say, we're a Disney family.

This has been a ridiculously long update, and I applaud anyone who actually read the entire thing. Overall, it was a great week, and now I am 20. Which is really strange. Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes on facebook and twitter and my email, etc!! I think it's time to go make myself some dinner... and finish off the rest of my birthday cake! 

Love you!

Mel (who is now 2 decades old. TWO DECADES.)

View from the train to Edinburgh. How Scottish.