Best friends purchase last minute flights to visit you
After an unfortunate visa mishap while I was attempting to travel to India, I found myself stranded in London for the entire time that I was supposed to be in Bangalore to visit a friend. I did in fact stress out for a whole day, trying to adjust the remainder of my plans to travel to the Philippines after being in India. A few hours in an airport and a reassuring call to my parents later, I was in an Uber on my way to a hostel in London. I had gone through so many countries and through so many experiences that I was actually surprised that a big incident like this did not come on sooner. The fact that I had been to 7 different countries before running into a major travel problem was impressive, but as all good things do come to an end, I found myself in London of all places ready to start an unplanned adventure. While at the airport, I contemplated flying back to Paris where I had become comfortable and where my friends and family were, but I decided against it. I made this decision in part because I felt that I had gotten out of Paris all that I had needed and that I wanted to explore another place, but also because I thought it would be easier on myself to remain in a country where everyone spoke English. After my very sudden itinerary changes, what better way to reward myself than to make communication easier?
After just one day of walking around London, I began to see the light in this trip. I happened to pick a hostel located just a short walk away from the Kensington Gardens which became the home of my morning walks and afternoon strolls. The Gardens spanned hundreds of acres and was littered with runners and swans every morning, elementary school children being led on a lunchtime walk, and tourists going to see the waterfall dedicated to Princess Diana. Each day, I wandered toward a different direction throughout the city, discovering where my journey would transport me.
I walked my way to Hyde Park Corner, the infamous home of the arch connecting Kensington Gardens to the walkway toward Buckingham Palace. I walked down Oxford Street which is home to hundreds of storefronts of different designer brands. After a few days, I decided to wander further out of central London and made my way to Camden Market. This little waterfront pier houses many stalls where people sell homemade jewelry and trinkets. An entire section of the pier is filled with tens of local food trucks that fill your nostrils with different flavors of curry, freshly made pizza, exotic French fries, and much more. You could spend hours just walking around looking at each stall and playing with all of the little trinkets and knickknacks. Another awesome place to shop in London is Carnaby Street. This area is filled with high end shops and makeup brands, as well as small novelty and European stores that don’t exist in the US. My favorite detail about Carnaby street is not the stores or the cobblestone street, but the decorations strewn down each street. Down one street hung neon blue/purple lights that somehow illuminated the bright blue sky and with the turn of the corner sat a large, three-dimensional sparkling “CARNABY” sign that shattered its composure as you walked closer to and under it. After walking over 50 miles throughout the week, I had covered most of central London’s geography on my own two feet but not without the help of the classic cherry-red, double-decker buses known commonly in London. Riding on one of those thirty-foot high buses is something I definitely never planned on doing during my time abroad yet it was one of the most fun rides of my entire trip, my favorite part being sitting in the very front window of the top floor.
By Thursday, I was getting a bit tired of walking so I decided to have a movie day to myself. I walked to an ODEON movie theater, the Regal Theaters of the UK and watched Mary, Queen of Scots. Later in the day I ventured south of Kensington Gardens to the Imperial Cinema, a professional, student run theater located in the Imperial Arts College of London. Their $4 movie tickets and $1 snacks were definitely a selling point of the event. The Imperial Film School students host a variety of movies every term that are shown to students and public alike. There was not one empty seat in the house and I believe a few extra rows of seating needed to be added to accommodate all of the crowd. I quite enjoyed the viewing of Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse as well as my $1 Snickers snack, but the highlight of my night turned out to come after the movie. As I walked out of the school, a group of students going in to see the next movie handed me a ticket to the Royal Albert Performance Hall and asked me if I wanted the ticket. When I looked down, I realized that they were offering me a free Cirque du Soleil ticket. Just a few minutes earlier, a woman attending the Cirque performance gave the students her ticket because she needed to leave at the intermission and I turned out to be the end recipient of that ticket. I found my way to my seat before the end of the intermission and enjoyed the second half of the Cirque du Soleil’s Totem. I hadn’t been to a performance like this in years and I was so glad to have wound up in the right place at the right time. I forgot how beautifully creative the performances were and I was so glad at that moment to have ended up in London on a whim, or else I would have never been able to see the enticing acrobatics and crazy characters that Totem had to offer.
During my week in London, my friend Jamie told me about a pop-up store in London that was hosted by one of my favorite makeup brands, Milk Makeup. They are an American brand, but because of their popularity overseas, they would be opening a 3-day shop in London to the public in order to release their products in the UK. I figured that this was a sign that I should go, since I had nothing else to do on a Saturday morning and I just happened to be in London. It was also a bonus that the first hundred people in line would get a goodie bag full of free stuff. As I waited in line, I texted Jamie to let her know that her information had paid off – I was one of the first 30 people in line because I had gotten up early that day. Surrounded by tons of teenagers, I let Jamie know that I felt a little odd being one of the oldest people in line in the middle of London on a Saturday morning to get makeup and she reassured me that I would not regret my decision to wait in line all morning. Finally, a couple hours after I arrived in line, I turned around toward the tap on my shoulder and there was Jamie with her bright sea-colored hair and backpack full of essentials for the day. She had bought a roundtrip ticket from Paris to London to surprise me. Even though I was hoping that she could find some time to come visit me while I was trapped so close to her in Europe, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. But alas, Jamie came to my rescue to brighten up my very unexpected week trip. I was so overjoyed that she came to see me that I didn’t even know what to do except hug her 10 times. I dragged Jamie all over London and we had the greatest time visiting water pumps and eating ice cream.
Below, Hyde Park Corner Arch
Buckingham Palace
Cholera Water Pump
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