Cheerio from London

We got into London late on May 16th. Will and I had our first hostel experience in a room with 6 bunk beds (12 beds, 12 people). The first night was a bit rough since we had been traveling for almost 48 hours with very little sleep, and with general hostel noise, it was a bit difficult to get to sleep, so we slept in a bit our first morning. It was more or less what I expected, and luckily, we didn't have any major issues apart from the usual suspects (snoring, hall noise, stolen cheese in the community fridge, etc). Apart from sleeping, showering, and a couple meals, we didn't spend much time at the hostel since we had a lot to accomplish.

The Sites - Day 1

We started our first day grabbing some breakfast at a nearby coffee shop and purchasing our Oyster cards. Once we figured out the best way to fund our city train travel as well as our desired routes, we were off to Westminster station. It was a great place to start since as soon as you walk out of the station, you're at the base of Big Ben. It can't get more iconic than that. Of course it was drizzling, so we grabbed our jackets and umbrella and were off. We wandered around Parliament and stopped by Westminster Abbey. We did a ton of walking the first day and also saw: the London Eye (got some sushi to share at the base), Queen's Walk along the river, Borough's Market (bought some orange-mango juice), London bridge (there's a creepy tourist trap underneath with the song on loop), Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, and Buckingham Palace. We were pretty tired by the end of the day, so we grabbed some pasta at Waitrose (grocery), cooked in at the hostel, and finished off our night with some Master of None on Netflix.

View as you exit Westminster station

Tower of London - Day 2

On our second day, we spent a good portion doing the tour at the Tower of London. It is essentially an old fort that was built in different segments spanning between 1000-1400 AD and was once surrounded by a moat on the river. It was really interesting learning about the history of the area/country, but it made me realize how much I don't know about any history other than the US (even that's shaky; time to get studying). Will liked to joke the tour was "Beheadings: A History" since the Yeomen Warders stories constantly discussed beheadings and executions which occurred within the walls or just up the hill nearby. We had a beautiful morning to explore outside, but found ourselves stuck in the rain later after trusting the weather forecast too much when we saw that there was 0% chance of rain most of the day (always bring a jacket and/or umbrella in London; lesson learned).

Tower Bridge from inside the Tower of London

We also had a chance to visit a couple other areas of interest on Day 2. We headed over to Abbey Road first thing in the morning since our hostel was pretty close. Obviously we had to take a picture, but Will was hesitant to be "those people", so we did it as sneakily as possible. With a quick stop off at King's Cross station (I hope you know where this is headed), we grabbed a picture at Platform 9 3/4. We sadly didn't plan far enough in advance to go to the Harry Potter studio tour, so this would have to suffice for our Harry Potter fix while visiting (we'll just have to head down to Universal Studios when we get back to the States :) ).

Abbey Road (that's me!)

The National Gallery - Day 3

On day 3, we headed over to Trafalgar Square and the National Gallery. The gallery is free to visit, so we couldn't pass it up. There were tons of paintings ranging from the 14th through the 19th century. We tried working our way through time and really noticed how the techniques and styles changed over the years. It was significant how much more realistic the paintings were in the later years, though we managed to find some Van Gogh, which threw off the trend.

Lion from Trafalgar Square

After gazing at some art, we found a restaurant for some lunch and a beer. We walked over to Picadilly Circus to check out one last new area before we needed to head back to pick up our bags from the hostel and catch our train north toward the airport. We booked an airbnb near the Stansted airport so we could catch our early flight to Madrid the next day. We stayed in a cute town called Bishop's Stortford and had a great night at John and Kim's home.

Lunch beers!

Spain

This morning (5/20), we flew to Madrid and took a train down to Córdoba, Spain. We already had a chance to have some delicious paella, salmorejo cordobes (a local dish, similar to gazpacho), ice cream, and check out a fair that's going on in town this weekend with many women and girls dressed in flamenco dresses. We will be staying here for 2 nights before heading to Barcelona. Tomorrow we will visit the Mosque-Cathedral in town and tell you all about it!

~Maureen