Excuse me, where can I find Platform 9 3/4?

ATTENTION: this is just Part 1 of my London blogging. Part 2 in theaters soon. (probably later today)

We finally arrive to the place where Hogwarts exist! And it’s okay to ask where Platform 9 and ¾ is!!! Well… I think so atleast.

After landing in London Gatwick airport, we had to get on a bus ride to take us to our hostel. Of course, the first experience we have on the bus ride is not necessarily a favorite of ours… Us being Americans, and girls, we tend to be quite loud wherever we go. All. The. Time.  So being our normal-volume selves, we are chatting away! This drunken old man in the very back of the bus did not seem to like this. He stumbled his way up to my friend, Kira, and told her that we had to get off the bus because we were too loud. Kira wasn’t havin’ this – she went to the bus driver and complained -- luckily the bus driver was on our side and told the man he needed to pull it together or get off the bus. 10 points for AMERICA! After our interesting 40 minute bus ride, we finally got to our hostel around 930pm. At this point, we were all so tired and hungry and tired and cranky and HANGRY (anger caused by hunger). We walked to a nearby Japanese restaurant and nom’ed our little hearts away. Back to the hostel we went and passed out. (I promise -- the next couple days were more exciting! READ ON!!!)

The next morning we had a big day ahead of us – Changing of the guards, High Tea (tea party), and Wicked! We started off in the morning with breakfast at the hostel before we set out to Buckingham Palace to see the Changing of the Guards.

After the 30 minute walk through London, we had to make a couple stops along the way for 2 main reasons. 1. We were lost and had to ask directions from every other person we passed by. I didn’t mind asking for direction because all the British accents are so WICKED AWESOME!! 2. There are Starbucks for dayyyys in London. Literally. Just like ‘murica, there is a Starbucks on every block. Also, they refer to major intersections of roads as “Circus” So we walked through Piccadilly Circus and a lot of other Circuses.. Circus’s… Circi? along the way (I think when they refer to places as “Circus” it is like amurcans referring to places as “Circles”…. Makes sense because every single “Circus” was literally just a circling of roads in a big open area….) Finally, we made it to Buckingham PALACE!! Unfortunately, Prince Harry was out of the country so my proposal to him will be on pause until the next time I visit London.

So, the Changing of the Guards. What is this? It is literally what it says. The guards rotate in and out every other day, and apparently it is really cool. False. It was kind of boring. But in theory… I guess it was nice to see it happen. There was a huuuuge crowd outside of Buckingham Palace just to see the changing of the guards (COG). Buckingham Palace is very beautiful too btw. All big and old looking with gold-rimmed gates. Definitely not Hogwarts but more like a Gringotts (if you do not follow Harry Potter, then stop reading now because I WILL be referencing everything HP from here on out). So all of us girls and guys are standing with the crowd surrounding the gates and roads outside of B-Palace waiting for the COG (changing of the guards, keep up!). Finally we see some horses and a long row of men and women marching in these long navy blue dresses (uniforms, but they look like dresses) and they are swinging their arms all big and they have big, tall, poofy black hats on (think of Marge Simpson with black hair, that’s what the hats looked like). They all walk inside of the gates. From then on, it was kind of hard to see what was happening, but I am guessing they were “changing of the guards” hehe. So thennnn it kind of turned into a little band show (think high school band). Another set of men and women in uniforms marched up the street toward B-Palace and was basically a marching band. They all walked inside the gates and set up their stands and instruments and just started playing music (about 20 band member). The first song they played…. LET IT BE by the Beatles. HAHAH! I was cracking up. They WOULD be playing Beatles songs. But it didn’t stop with that. The next song they played… wait for it… James Bond Theme song. I am NOT making this up. Whhyyy were they playing James Bond Theme song outside of B-Palace? I have no idea, but I liked it nonetheless. So that was B-Palace and the changing of the guards and it was kind of cool but kind of boring at the same time – all in all it was nice to see my future home where I will be getting married to Prince Harry next year. Invitations will be sent out shortly!

After B-Palace we went back to our Hostel to get ready for HIGH TEA!!! High tea is basically a tea party!! And of course me and my girl frands wanted to do this because we were in LONDON! So off to High Tea at 4pm. We got to the place, and it was sooo pretty and nice inside – quiet, clean, modern, fresh and quiet.. and quiet. Remember what I said earlier about us girls being loud… mhmmm. Well it didn’t matter because we were looking really good and tryna have some tea and crumpets! They sat us at our booth and already had the table set up. We had a menu and could choose which tea we could have. I asked the waiter what the most popular tea was and it is the Rosebud tea. I got that one. It was delicious! The way the tea pots are made, they literally put rose buds and other herbs into this small cylinder within the tea pot and then pour hot water over it and it filters through all the herbs and rose petals.  And we had tea! Other girls had peppermint, jasmine, and more rosebud. Right after our tea was poured, they brought out 4 tiered-platters (there were 11 of us girls there). Each platter had 3 tiers: 1^st were tiny sandwhichs (salmon, ham, curry, another meat) 2^nd was biscuits and jam, 3^rd was desserts – macaroons, brownies, and other british treats. We finished the platter in about 5 minutes. We are hungry girls who don’t eat much and when we have the opportunity to eat… we EAT. All this experience only cost 11 pounds! It was fabulous.

So tea time was fabulous and what better way to end our day then to go see Wicked on Broadway! Excuse me.. its not actually on broadway and I made that embarrassing mistake. 10 points from Gina. Because broadway isn’t in London… It’s just called Wicked in London I guess. Specifically Wicked at the Apollo Victoria Theatre. I have been to broadway shows before, 3 to be exact, but Wicked has so far been my favorite show yet!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG! AMAZING! We got into the theater, all 20 of us (20 peopl went to London but I was mainly with 6 girls the entire time. One of the people was able to get a group discount for students. 17 pounds per ticket!). Lights went out and the show went on. If you do not know what Wicked is about, google it because it would take me days to write you out the story line.  We ended the night with wicked and made our way back to the hostel – we had a biiiiggg day tomorrow with site seeing!

So that was my first night and first full day in London. More to come soon! But I have to go to class and “learn” now… because that’s what I am supposed to be doing on a STUDY abroad program… right?

PART 2 of LONDON will be posted SHortly!!!!!!!!! 

Fun FACTS!

David Beckham posters are EVERYWHERE. I didn’t complain… he was super sized.. so everything was supersized.

People still think I am Brazilian

Starbucks everywhere