It's a Long Story: Hello from London!

The past 24 hours in London have been an absolute whirlwind. As exhausted as I am, I'm loving every second of taking in this amazing city.

Until tonight my friends and I chose to walk everywhere rather than take the Underground. Even though I had no idea where we were heading it was a great way to get oriented with the city and see all of the beautiful sites. Let me just say, everything about London is beautiful. Every building, every person, everything just seems so exquisite and perfect.

Here's a recap from the past 2 days.

I arrived in London at 6:50 am. After going through customs, I met up with my friends Luke, Julia, and Stephen and then we taxied to our flat together. Heathrow was the most insane airport I've ever been in! To have 5 separate buildings that connect with a subway is incredible to me.

After that, we unpacked our things, got settled, then began to explore. We walked down to Marble Arch and Hyde Park, which are both just about 5 or 10 minutes away.

Marble Arch

After walking Hyde Park and going to a bar on a carousel (yes, that exists) in the Winter Wonderland amusement park that they have set up for the wintertime, we hit up our first British pub! I got to try my first authentic fish and chips, which is incredible, and English cider. The pub is literally two steps from our apartment building and has trivia nights every Monday. Needless to say, the bartender Lucio is going to become a very good friend of ours.

We were so tired, we ended up going straight to bed after the pub at 7:30 p.m.

This amazing cider I tried

Today we woke up after a nice 11 hour sleep, had a meeting with our landlord, then immediately went exploring. First we saw Buckingham Palace, which was unbelievably huge. We also saw the statue for Duke of Wellington and the war memorials, which had poppies as a tribute to fallen soldiers.

The gates around the palace gardens are serious business.

Next we headed to St. James's Park. The parks around London are gorgeous, but this park had a beautiful swan lake that overlooked London.

After this, we saw Downing Street and Westminster Palace. We also saw Westminster Abbey and the church next to it, St. Margaret's. St. Margaret's was amazing! It was built in the 1000s and serves as the church to the Parliament.