England

All aboard! Hogwarts Express

Hogwarts express

I don’t know why, but whenever the Christmas season comes along I always want to watch Harry Potter. And as you may have seen in my first European post, I’m kind of a Harry Potter geek. My 4th grade teacher read us the first chapter of the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone book and I was immediately hooked.

I’ve gone to midnight book releases, read one of those thick books in a day, re-read every book at least 3 times. I’ve gone to midnight showings of the movie and I even wrote my first ever Fan Fiction novel (the only novel I’ve ever written beginning to end) of a love story with Harry Potter characters on to a website called Quizzilla when I was in middle school (and since then I’ve loved writing fiction stories in my spare time and hope to one day publish a fiction book).

So yes, I am a big Harry Potter Geek. Capital H-P-G.

Since England is the main location of Harry Potter, I of course fell in love with London. All I ever wanted to be was a witch on my way to Hogwarts in London.

Well I got to live out my fantasy, even if it was for a brief moment.

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London, England (awkward) Video

Sometimes I like to awkwardly make intro videos of places I’ve been to (Check out my Caribbean one here).

And of course with my first time in Europe, I had to make a London intro video.

Here you go, all of awkward me in London.

Cheers!

London, England – Tubes, Phone booths, and the River of Thames

London
The best way for me to tell you about my first European experience is by starting from the beginning.

We touched ground at Gatwick Airport (LGW) around 13:00. And after the 10 hour red eye from Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on Norwegian Airlines, I was ready to get off the plane and right into the UK. I had never been more excited to get off a plane in my entire life.

After going through the long line of passport control, we had finally entered Europe! I was bouncing up and down with joy, I mean that literally too.

After a small mishap with trying to take out money from the ATM (remember your cash withdrawal allowance and the current exchange rate) we were on our way to get into town and drop our stuff off at our hotel before exploring London.

We walked to the train stations and immediately were overwhelmed. It was busy, loud and everything suddenly seemed fast paced and without any phone data or Wi-Fi, we had no idea where we were going. After gawking at timetables and truly not knowing what to do, we ended up in the line to hopefully get the right tubes and trains tickets to our hotel.

The guy that serviced us was very kind and gave us all the info we needed and set us off into our train. We had luckily screenshot our directions to our hotel while we had some Wi-Fi and we were then on our way.

Considering I’m a San Diego girl where public transportation is scarce and we drive everywhere. Taking all the trains and tubes was an experience within itself. I’ve been to New York and through the subway systems there, but for some reason having to change trains to express trains to DLRS to the underground was overwhelming.

London Bridge

But we finally made it the underground London Bridge. And I couldn’t have been happier.

After what felt like an eternity on the packed undergrounds and trains, we made it the Premier Inn Hotel in Docklands and were able to settle in to our rather cozy hotel.

It was our first night in London and we had a travel day pass, so we decided to get into town. We went back into the tubes and made our way to London Bridge and decided to wing it.

There was no real agenda for our first night in Europe, but I wanted to get Fish N’ Chips and see a little sights and then get back to our hotel and in bed to try and beat jet lag.

The London Bridge exit was perfect for our first night. I immediately went crazy with seeing the famous red telephone booths and just had to get inside.

Red Telephone BoothRed Telephone Booth

It unfortunately smelled like pee and we really didn’t want to stay in there for much longer.

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Europe Itinerary

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Passports ready to go!

With Europe being such a big dream of mine, it took a long time for Alex and I to finalize our itinerary, but everything is finally official and we have all our accommodations and transportation all set up and ready to go!

Since we’re only going to be there for a 2 weeks, we decided to hit up most of the major tourist destinations and get our whole tourist-y European let loose. That way we have more reason to get up and explore Europe in another year together.

Here are our main stops in Europe:

Stop #1: London, England – Since our plane arrives in Gatwick, it only made sense to start in London. Our first night will be spent there where we will try to adjust to time and probably get some Fish N’ Chips.

Stop #2: Paris, France – We’ll be hitting all major spots: the Eiffel Tower, Luxembourg Gardens, The Louvre,etc… We will also enjoy the city of lights and enjoy the French cuisine.

Stop #3: Amsterdam, The Netherlands – We’ll only be here for a night before our flight to Italy. But we’re going to make the day and the night count completely.

Stop #4: Milan, Italy – The bulk of our stay is in Milan for we are staying with family.

Stop #5: Nice, France – My best friend and fellow Krazy Kappa line sister is studying abroad near Nice and we will make a Nice pit stop in the south of France.

Stop #6: Pisa, Italy – A few hour day trip to the leaning tower before Tuscany.

Stop #7: Florence Italy – From Pisa we go to Tuscany and see the Piazzale Michaelangelo and enjoy the city of Florence at night.

Stop #8: Venice, Italy – Straight from Florence we jump on a train to Venice. We’re going to only go for a night during our week stay in Milan, but riding a Gondola is definitely on our radar.

Last Stop: London, England – Our first night in London is just going to be a time to adjust to Europe time and adjust to foreign land. The last weekend we are in Europe we will spend in London and that’s when we’ll be doing our sight-seeing and Halloween partying.

Do you have any advice, tips or cool places to eat or see for this girl and her boyfriend traveling to Europe for their first time? Comment below, send me an e-mail at lostwithyvonne@gmail.com, or tweet me @lostwithyvonne.

Cheers!

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