Adventures in London with a crazy ending - London, United Kingdom
London, United Kingdom
I left the airport in Zaragoza around 9pm on Wednesday night and arrived in Stansted Airport in England around 12pm. I met random people on the plane and became friends with them, so that always makes time go by faster. I was so anxious to get off the plane and to London, however I heard that border checks were a bit strict here. I got off the plane, had to fill out a paper on where I was going, where I came from, how long I will be here, contact numbers of people and a bunch more things. I walked up there bubbly as ever and luckily I had a nice woman talk to me. She asked me all kinds of detailed questions, but without any problems I got in. I was greeted at the gate with a bouquet of flowers from David and a huge hug! We loaded up the black corvette and we took a late night drive into London. From the airport it took about an hour to get to downtown London where we were staying, but I didn't care because I was so excited I was in England! He parked the car, we got out and at about 1:30 in the morning he gave me a tour of London in the dark. We got to see the London eye at night, Big Ben, and all the other amazing buildings. We had absolutely perfect weather that night on our long walk. He got a room close to everything so the next morning we could get up and go on our tour and thats just what we did!
We woke up early Thursday, went to a cafe and got some food and went to the hospital to have lunch with his friend Beck. After, we found our way to the center of everything and crossed something off my bucket list because we did the Big Red Bus Tour through the city. We had ABSOLUTELY perfect weather, which is not very common in London, but we rode through the city, listening to all the history by our guide, taking lots of pictures and of course enjoying the perfect weather. It was a hop on hop off bus, so any of the attractions we wanted to get off and see we could and then just get on another tour bus. We got off at Buckingham Palace, took lots of pictures and stayed there for a bit. We rode all through the city, went across the London Bridge and basically saw all the touristy stuff. We left that day to go back to Cambridge, however the traffic in London is horrific. We still had a great time and planned to go back for 2 more days to see more!
We took a train from Cambridge to London Sunday night to try to make it on time to go to the Hillsong London Church. That day I was dressed like a "Cambridge girl" David says because I was wearing red pants, black shirt with glasses. Anyways, we got on the oyster, transferred many locations at finally arrived at the church. We had a great hour of church, PACKED full of people. Very moving and a great message also.
After that we explored the city more in the night, went and got food, went to a pub and had a drink and talked. As we were talking I overheard the people behind us talking about "Arkansas" and that is VERY unusual in this part of the world. Usually when I tell people where I am from they have no idea. Being the crazy person that I am, I turned around and said "What about Arkansas" and the guy said he was from Fayetteville, Arkansas. I talked to him for awhile, of course took a picture and exchanged information. Small, small world! That night we stayed at a nice hotel located near everything. The funny thing about this hotel was the bathrooms were all shared, however they were super clean and fancy.
The next day we woke up and went to the British Museum. We brought some food with us and ate out front and then toured after. We stayed there for a few hours, went to eat at Nando's (David's favorite chicken place) and then went back to the oyster. I was depending on David for the directions the whole time, so this time David said "ok sarah you get us to Harrods. I read the map, and luckily got us to Harrods. Harrods was INSANE! This store is a massive store full of everything. There were things in this store more than a house. If one were rich, it would be easy for him/her to walk out easily spending 1 million euros. We spent a long time in here and I never wanted to leave. Time was getting cut short, cause I had to fly out that evening. We picked up our bags from our hotel, ran and got my converter I left in the hotel room and went to the oyster to get us on the right train to our location.
First mistake, we went the wrong way, so we had to turn around and get on another train, no big deal. We finally got up to the train and got on like the man said to do. We finally found a seat and we were sitting there for 30 minutes talking, just relaxing after the long day that we had. David said it should take about 45 minutes no big deal. We planned it out so I arrived at 5:50 at the airport and my plane left at 6:50, which is plenty of time. After about 40 minutes sitting on the train we did not see our stop coming up. David looked at his phone and had the look of horror on his face as he said OMG WE ARE GOING AWAY FROM THE DOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We asked the woman next to us and she said "you are going on the opposite direction from the airport." We both about lost it because my flight was leaving in 45 minutes. We got off on the next stop, ran as fast as we could, and called an "emergency taxi" to come get us. Most places I have been have taxis all over at the train stops, but with our luck we got off at this stop and it was deserted, no people, no cars, nothing. They had a small coffee shop and they called the taxi for us. The airport was 30 minutes away and the taxi took about 20 minutes to come. It was about 6:20 when he came and we just started throwing money at him to GOOOOO. His name was Dave and he was very nice, however he doubted we would make it, but we had to try. We zoomed in and out of traffic and finally made it to the airport. We gave him euros, pounds, you name it! David grabbed my bag, ran full speed through the airport, paid security to let me go through and we did not even say good bye to each other. I ran my little heart out to my gate and right when I got there CLOSED. I missed it by like 5 minutes. I walked back to the front with my head down and saw David sitting there and we both just looked at each other thinking ****, because the next flight out was in 2 days to my town and I could wait that long. Ryan air is not as generous as other airlines, so of course when you miss a flight you pay for it. I had to reschedule my flight the next morning at 8 am and arriving to Madrid and then 4 hours from Madrid to Zaragoza. We were both exhausted, but in the midst of all this he put on a funny you tube video and we died laughing, so that lightened the mood. Needless to say, I went back to Cambridge that night, woke up at 5 am the next morning, took ANOTHER train to the airport (the right way) and arrived safely back!
What an experience!!!