London Calling: Travel Break 1

As I write this post from Copenhagen, it is hard to believe many things: that today was my first day in class since the end of October, that I spent the past two weeks traveling around Europe, and that my semester is over in a little over a month. I visited London, Rome, Vatican, St. Petersburg, Novgorod, and Moscow. Today at DIS everybody was so excited to see each other, to catch up, and to trade tales of our time out of the country. There is so much to share about my two week eurotrip adventure, the best way to do so is probably just to share stories in installments.

The Millenium Bridge, as seen from the Tate Modern side

I spent my first few days in London with my childhood friends Dani and Jen. We were the best of friends when we were 10 and still going to Usdan, and were loosely in touch over the course of high school. But when we reunited in London, it was like no time had passed at all. We spent our time walking around, seeing touristy things, and reminiscing about the good old days. It seems like we hit every touristy spot in the city: Shakespeare's Globe, the Millenium Bridge (which gets destroyed in one of the Harry Potter movies), Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Whitehall, Downing Street, Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery, Portobello Road, and Oxford Street.

We saw the show "We Will Rock You," which is a musical with a questionable plot, illuminated by music from Queen. Though some of the characters were annoying, the songs were amazing and the entire show was a lot of fun. We spent the evenings hanging out with Dani's flatmates and friends from her study abroad program. We even ventured out to a Halloween party at a random club in London.

Trafalgar Square: It took such a long time to get up on this statue. We only made it because a random Italian girl literally grabbed me by the butt and pushed me up. Strangers took photos of our inability to climb, and somewhere on the internet there is probably a video.

After parting with Dani and Jen, I headed toward King's Cross (made famous by Harry Potter) to meet up with my friend Josh from NYU. I almost cried of joy, because seeing him reminded me about how much I missed school in New York. But we went for a long walk around the city, caught up on each other's news, and just enjoyed having a familiar face nearby. We cooked a luxurious hot dog dinner in his room. Not the classiest cuisine, but it was really exciting to have kosher meat since I'm a vegetarian in Denmark.

Josh was leaving for a week's break in Scotland and Ireland early in the morning, so I woke up, got out, and did some walking. I went to Temple and Fleet Street, and took a stroll around the London School of Economics. I met up with my friend Ben, and so began the craziest part of my stay. Ben invited two guys (Rich and Cody) who go to DIS but I did not know at the time, and they joined us at a random pub near Victoria Station. Then my friend Lana and her roommate came to meet us. After having a grand time, Rich, Cody, and I decided that we would stick together for awhile. We visited the Tate Modern, had dinner, and saw "Sister Act" in live musical form, and eventually headed back to Lana's flat for the evening.

Fleet Street, with St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance

Tuesday was a fairly quiet day. Ben, Rich, Cody, and I met up with another guy from DIS and went to the Cabinet War Room/Churchill Museum. We tried to get tickets to see "Inherit the Wind" with Kevin Spacey, but the show is sold out for months. We went to Leicester Square to see the Christmas tree lighting, to break the world record of most people singing Christmas carols, and for the premiere of the new movie "A Christmas Carol."

Ben and Rich being goofy

Since "Inherit the Wind" was out of the picture, we instead opted to see a play called "The Woman in Black," which I highly recommend. It was a gothic style horror play with just two actors. Unfortunately a school group was there, which made the audience a bit raucous. But I still really enjoyed the evening.

In a series of remarkable coincidences, Rich and Cody were also flying to Rome from London on Wednesday morning. We met up with Lana and her roommates at a sports cafe, then returned to pick up our bags, and headed off to Stansted airport for the next leg of our adventure. We took a bus to the airport so we could take naps, but I had no hope at a decent night's sleep since my flight was at 6:10 a.m. I flew on Ryanair, which was a little bit sketchy. But it was very early in the morning and I just wanted to get some sleep, especially since my trip had thus far been a series of late nights and early mornings.

Overall, being in London was very exciting - English was music to my ears, though it took awhile for me to understand that I was listening to a language that I actually understand, and not just Danish. It was nice to be in a big city again, though navigating public transportation was a bit daunting at first. I loved being a tourist for a short while, and seeing all of the sites that we hear about or see on postcards. But most importantly, it was lovely to see familiar faces and to spend time with my friends from home.