London Calling

I want to start off by saying that this post is incredibly late. I went to London at the end of November so it's almost 4 months later, but I still wanted to give some insight into my trip for anyone who might be planning on going sometime soon!

My cousin was studying abroad in London for the semester so the purpose of the trip was to see her and spend time together in a place we both love (the first time we both went to London was also together when we were 16!).  I did a lot of research before the trip thanks to Pinterest (check out my London board here). I'm a big planner so I wanted to have a general idea of things I wanted to see and what parts of London I wanted to go to. We were also planning a short trip to Scotland so we had to plan for that as well. I put together a very detailed itinerary about what stuff to do together on which days according to location. My original plan was also to try to pack all my stuff in a carry on, which was actually so delusional of me. I ended up with my carry on and a checked bag that was just under the weight limit. I also did research on how to prevent jet lag since I normally can't sleep on planes and even with all that prep, I didn't sleep a wink.

The trip started off pretty well since I ended up sitting next to a cute British guy on the plane. We talked for a while, but I was so tired from being at school all day I just wanted to sleep! Because he was so cute he made me self-conscious about falling asleep, what if I had extreme double chin or what if my mouth was hanging open? It was a risk I, for some reason, was not willing to take.

When I landed it was a cold and dreary morning, obviously, since it is London, but that first day was rough.  My cousin met me at the airport and we took a taxi to her school. It was only 10 am, but I was ready to go to bed. We spent some time around Uxbridge, which was the town closest to her school to keep me awake. The next day we were leaving for Scotland so thankfully we went to bed early.

We left before sunrise so we were able to see it from the tube

Their tube system was much better than the subways in the US - much cleaner!

King's Cross Station (This is where Platform 9 3/4 is for you Harry Potter fans! I wanted to see it but forgot!)

We debated whether it was better to fly into Edinburgh or take the train. Both would end up being around the same price, but we would have to travel to Stansted Airport, which was on the complete opposite side of London, meaning we would have to transfer tube lines as well as bus lines which seemed too complicated. A flight would be about an hour whereas the train would be almost 5, but we realized the amount of time it would take us to just get to the airport would make the trip time almost equivalent. We were definitely happy we chose the train. It was really cool getting to see the English and Scottish countryside.

This was just kind an intro to the beginning part of my trip. I'll put up a few more posts to fill you in on all the other things we did! There's so much info I want to share with you guys I have to break it up into a few posts so it's not so overwhelming!

Here's a very general itinerary for our trip and the different places I'll talk about: 

SCOTLAND
Edinburgh
Heart of Scotland Loch Ness & Highlands Day Tour

LONDON
Uxbridge
Westminster
Covent Garden
Soho
Notting Hill
Kensington

xo, sarah

Next Stop: Scotland