Erin Go Bragh: February 2011

Last weekend, my friends and I finally took our first trip outside of Ireland! We landed in London on Friday morning, after almost missing my wake-up call! From that moment forward, London was definitley an adventure. After taking the bus to Shannon Airport and flying into London Gatwick Airport, we took another bus into the center of London. We got lost for about an hour looking for our hostel, which (luckily) was in a really nice part of the city. Our hostel was located on Queens Gate, which we soon found out is different than Queens Gate Terrace, Queens Gate Mews and about a million other streets with the name Queens Gate in it, but after walking for a little around we finally found our hostel!

The hostel was located across the street from the Natural History Museum, which is only 1 of London's many free museums. Of course, we took advantage of the free entry and enjoyed walking around the museum for a couple of hours (Mom- I know you're so proud of me right now). Besides all of the cool stuff on the inside, the building itself was gorgeous. Even just looking at the outside of the museum was awesome!

After the museum, we headed back to the hostel and got ready for our pub crawl! We headed into the city around 7:30 and paid 12 pounds for the pub, which ended up being a great decision! We got 4 drinks for free, as well as free entry into all of the bars/clubs that they took us to. Apparently the last bar itself costs 15 pounds, so it was definitely a great deal! We met some other Americans who are stationed in Germany with the Air Force and just had a great time checking out the nightlife of London. We got home relatively early (around midnight) and had our first night in a hostel!

The next morning we got up, had some much needed (and missed!) Starbucks and headed on our way to a tour of London. A company called Sandemans New Europe was the company that puts on both the pub crawl and the free tour that we went on. Many of the other tours that were advertised were around 25 pounds, but with the free tour, the only fee you pay is to tip the tour guide. We each gave him 5 pounds each, so it was definitely a money saver, and I could not say enough great things about the tour, itself! We saw all of the important stuff- like 10 Downing Street, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, etc. and our tour guide was AMAZING- he was so knowledgable about the city but also very fun. After the tour, which lasted 2.5 hours, we went to a restaurant where we were given a 25% discount as members of the tour. Overall, I would highly reccomend doing the Sandemans free tour in all of the city's that it is offered!

After the tour, we went to Oxford Street, which is supposed to have great shopping. It seemed like it would've been a lot of fun except for the crowds were way worse than Times Square or Fifth Avenue, even during Christmas season! None of us bought anything, except for postcards and other small souvineers. Next, we decided to check out Harrods, the famous department store that takes up an entire city block! Besides the usual clothes and housewares, they have several different types of food (which all looked delicious!) and even a section dedicated to pets, where you could buy a dog bed for 650 pounds. A little ridiculous to say the least. After Harrods, we went back to our hostel for a little bit and showered/got some rest. Then we met a few of my friends from highschool near Piccadilly Circus. It was great to see a few familiar faces in a huge, foreign city! After walking around for an hour or two, we found a delicious place to eat. Most of us got sandwiches, and I got to catch up with my friends from Notre Dame. After eating and taking the tube back to our hostel, we got in around 11ish and decided to call it a day so that we wouldn't be too tired for our 7:30 wake-up call the next day.

Overall, London was an amazing first trip! Its close enough to Ireland that many of the things are still the same, but it was definitely a different experience than Galway has offered. The city itself is just massive, so I definitley appreciated being back in Galway and knowing exactly where everything is. Even though I had been to London before, it was nice to have more flexibility and see the things that I hadn't been able to experience the first time around when I went with my highschool. Seeing the London nightlife and going to the Natural History Museum were a few of the new things I got to experience, and also definitely on the top of my list for the trip.

Being away and switching it up was great, but I was definitely happy to come back to my bed in Galway and feel comfortable with where I was in the world!