Cheers to England

(Westminister Abbey)

After leaving Paris I made my way to England on a Thursday evening . Nikki and her family were kind enough to pick me up from London-Heathrow Airport and transport me back to their home in Reading, about 45 minutes south of London. They live in a nice community similar to those you would see in the suburbs of the U.S. I had a chance to unwind and speak with her parents. Let me tell you, it was really nice communicating in English to everyone again! Nikki’s parents are both Scottish so at times I still felt like I was listening to a foreign language and of course there are all those fantastic British expressions that you sort of know what they mean but you never hear nor say them so you are caught off guard. But her family was lovely and I was so appreciative to have a place to stay and to feel at home.

After getting a good night’s sleep, Nikki and I woke up and made our way to London on a train. We had pretty bad luck (actually, we had quite a bit of bad luck the whole trip) by getting on the train that stopped a million times so it took that much longer to reach our destination. Once we got to the London Paddington station at about noon, we went into the Underground, also called the “Tube,” which is supposedly a vital London experience. We went all the way to Westminister and as we walked up to ground level, we saw the glorious Westminister Abbey, Houses of Parliament and Big Ben right in front of us. Also in front of us and everywhere around us was a hoard of tourists just like us moving every which way and making it very difficult to walk on Westiminister Bridge. After taking tons of pictures in not the best light (it was threatening to rain), we walked across the bridge at a snail’s pace, checked on our tickets for later to take the London Eye tour and then walked along Whitehall Street. We found a great little British pub to eat lunch where I ate the obligatory fish and chips. For those of you who don’t know, chips are French fries and actual chips are “crisps.” I think I finally got that down! I had the strange option of choosing garden peas or “mushy” peas with my meal and had no clue what to say to that so I went with the garden variety to be safe. Later I saw on another’s plate that the “mushy” peas looked like a blob of boogers so I was reassured by my initial choice. After lunch, we continued down Whitehall Street where we saw endless beautiful buildings (mainly ministries and central offices). We took a short venture into St. James’ Park-one of the many royal parks in London. Even on a dreary day, the park was beautiful and I had to take at least 5 photos of these amazing white pelicans on the water. Then, we continued and found Downing Street, where the British Prime Minister lives. Of course the street is blocked off by iron gates and closely patrolled by lots of security guards. Nikki and I were trying to peer down and see the actual building he lives in because it supposedly has a number “10” on the door. We think we found it but our eyes weren’t completely accurate from the distance where we were standing. We continued on and saw the famous soldiers on their horses in front of the military museum. Lots of tourists were taking pictures next to them, and of course the soldiers aren’t allowed to pay attention or even change their facial expressions. I decided to be one less torturous tourist and pass on being in the picture with one. By this point it was time to go do our London Eye package deal tour.

The first part of the tour was on a boat that took us along the Thames River and explained all the famous buildings, architecture, and the beautiful and very unique bridges. We also were served a free glass of mulled wine, which was nice to have the warmth since we decided to go to the top of the boat in the open air on a cold day. We saw all the necessary things such as Shakespeare’s Globe, London Bridge, Tower Bridge and the funny-shaped city hall. We really enjoyed hearing the stories and background to all these famous sites. Then we took the actual London Eye, which is basically a gigantic ferris wheel except you walk into enclosed little pods rather than an open-air seat. The “flight” lasted about 30 minutes and it got dark immediately after stepping into our pod. This meant pictures were impossible as the flash reflected against the glass of the pod and if you didn’t have a tripod (because who brings those on a flight?) it was pretty much too dark to capture the magnificent sight of the city of London lit up at night. I tried putting my camera down on a surface and taking long exposures and some came out OK but I was still glad we saw it in the dark because it was gorgeous. As soon as we walked off, it began to rain. And rain. And rain. We had to buy some umbrellas because we were getting drenched and we tried to move on with our sight-seeing. We walked to Trafalgar Square, where a beautiful Christmas tree was lit up. We didn’t stay long because the rain made it impossible to take pictures. Then we kept trekking because we wanted to at least see Buckingham Palace before giving up. We finally got there after I received a nice huge splash of rainwater from a car all over my body. The place was bigger than I had imagined and it looked so royal. I tried once again to take some photos with raindrops on the lens. Oh well, at least I saw it in person. Finally, we ventured back to Reading where we passed out not too long after. As they would say in England, we were “shattered.”

The next day, Nikki and I got on a train once again and went to Bath, England- a World Heritage Site City, Nikki’s college town and home of the famous Roman Baths. While Nikki went to the eye doctor I strolled along the charming town and found this beautiful store selling the famous Bath glass. Just as Venice is known for its glass in Italy, Bath is the equivalent for England. The range of free-blown glassware and jewelry reflects the color and elements of the historic spa waters of the Roman Baths. Let’s not talk about how much money I spent there. After meeting back up with Nikki, we decided to take a bus tour of the town. It took as all around, explaining the ancient Georgian heritage and some famous people who lived there including Jane Austen. It was a great tour. After having a nice lunch next to a fire, we set off for the Bath Market where you could find just about anything and everything. They say you can’t leave the market without buying at least one thing. Of course I ended up buying a used book for one pound. Can’t pass up a deal like that! Later I gave into my American indulgence and made a quick stop at Starbuck’s (the first time in four months people!) and it was delicious. Then we got on a second tour bus that was supposed to take us up into the hills of the town to see the skyline and other important places, including the campus of Bath University. Of course it hit 4pm and quickly got dark and it was raining so we didn’t get to really see that much. When we got off we finally made our way to the Roman Baths but to our disappointment, the last entrance had closed about 15 minutes earlier. Well, I was super upset because I really wanted to see it. I mean, who goes to visit Bath and doesn’t see the baths? So Nikki and I walked around the building and walked into the gift shop, which was still open and I began flipping through books hoping to get some idea of how it looks inside. Then Nikki saw an entrance to the museum portion of the building and a woman at the information desk. We walked over to see if there was any way we could get in. The woman apologetically nodded her head and said, “Not today.” We saw two other girls just as disappointed and Nikki saw them walk down some stairs so she followed them and then yelled my name. Well…there were some bathrooms down the stairs but if you keep going there is an entrance into the baths and no one was guarding the entry area! After the girls disappeared in the crowd Nikki told me to go with her down the stairs. Now, if you know Nikki she is a very proper girl who abides by all rules and would never think to do anything dishonest so this caught me by surprise because although it is something I might have done I didn’t even think about it until she told me to go in with her! So yes, we were those two criminal girls who snuck into the Roman Baths! It was actually pretty exhilarating and there were still tons of people around so we totally blended in. We were still a little wary we might get caught so we tried to play the dumb foreigner card and began speaking in Spanish. The funny thing about that though is that we heard lots of real Spaniards around us speaking much better than we were and we sounded like phonies. Isn’t this a great story? Well, we wandered around for about 20 minutes and we saw the majority of the baths. It was really neat to see and tempting to get into some of them because the steam coming off the water made you want to get in. We took some photos and finally escaped right back out. I even bought some official bath water from the gift shop to remember this very funny occasion of seeing the Roman Baths. Later we went into some shops Nikki wanted to see and then she took me to a place that is known for their amazing fudge. She thought it might be closed but we would try. We got there and the door was locked but the owner was sweeping the floor and saw our looks of disappointment and opened the doors just for us. Nikki said at this point, “Emily, I think our luck is changing!” So we bought some delicious fudge and then headed back to Reading. That night we decided to go to a movie (it was lovely seeing a movie in English) called St. Trinians-a British comedy. We really enjoyed the film.


(those sneaky girls in the Roman Baths)

The next day was a bit more relaxed. We were pretty pooped from taking trains into far-away cities and traveling all day long so we decided to take it easy, sleep in a little and then take a little drive to Windsor (which was less than 30 minutes away) and see the famous Windsor Castle. This is where the queen usually spends most of her weekends and other important occasions. The majority of the castle is open to the public (with a hefty fee of course) so we decided to take a tour of the place. It was everything you would expect a castle to be like, huge with all its fortresses and separate buildings and cathedral. We walked around the outside and inside the walls and finally went in to see the residence rooms. We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the inside so I will just have to keep it in my memory but it was absolutely beautiful, full of ornate and royal décor and some of the most amazing art pieces hung on the walls. It was neat to get a feel for how today’s royalty lives and see a place that is still a real, working castle. On our way back, we stopped for a Cornish pasti, which is this awesome pastry thing with meat and potatoes and other yummy things inside. Supposedly they are really popular in England so of course I had to try it. That evening back in Reading, we decided to go see some of Nikki’s friends at a local pub but right before we left Nikki got sick. She still insisted on going for some reason and was sick about two more times at the pub so I made her call her dad to come pick us up…poor girl.

I’m pretty sure it was a 12-hour bug because the next day she basically felt normal again. We continued on with our plans to take a train to Portsmouth, where Nikki’s friend Caroline lives and where we were going to spend New Year’s Eve. I got the chance to meet all of her closest friends, play some drinking games, eat some pizza and then get ready for the theme party of James Bond “007 into 008” at a club in the center of town. We got all dressed up and the boys were all wearing tuxes or suits. We found a great little spot inside the club where we could sit and talk. Some of us danced while others stayed in our little area and all of us had lots to drink! We had a great time and it was nice to get to know all of Nikki’s friends. We stayed the night at Caroline’s and actually went to bed at the decent hour of 3am.

On New Year’s Day we headed back on the train to Reading. After some much-needed relaxation we ate a lovely dinner at Nikki’s house with her family. The table was beautifully decorated and I got to experience a family tradition of pulling a string out of a basket in the middle of the table, which at the end of the string was a gift. Supposedly the tradition started in Nikki’s dad’s side of the family in Scotland a long time ago. I got a beautiful necklace. I thought that was a really neat thing to do on New Year’s. After eating a lovely meal, we tried to play with these whistles that came in those New Year’s crackers that you pull and something pops out. Supposedly if everyone had a whistle, you could actually make music by following directions to particular songs. We weren’t very successful. Rather, Nikki’s brother made fun of me and then her dad decided to put the whistles in his eyes…well I had to take a picture so here it is!



We followed with more family games until we were all “shattered.” It really was a great day to bring in the New Year.

The next day we slept in a little and then went into the town of Reading. It’s funny how I had stayed there the past 5 days but hadn’t actually seen the town until my final day there. I guess we went backwards in a sense. We took a bus into town and went to the main shopping center. It was really nice and big and we spent some time wandering around some stores. Then I saw a Chili’s and got really excited! I haven’t eaten in an actual American restaurant for a long time, unless you count Burger King which I’ve only had once. The meal cost twice as much as in America, but that’s England for you. It was all worth it. I took my flight back to Bilbao with a full tummy and a sense of accomplishment after a very busy two weeks of traveling around two separate countries.

I will never forget my experiences during this trip and I have lots of photos to go with it! Next on the travel itinerary is Barcelona. Our flight is already booked for January 25. Happy New Year!