Here in Maynooth they give you two weeks of spring break vacation (technically a study week and then eater break). So of course my roommate and I planned to visit London. It has been my dream to visit London since I was a little girl. We left Dublin on a Friday afternoon and got to the Gatwick Airport at sunset. The hostel we had booked was called Willesden No. 8 and it was quite a ways away from where we wanted to be. We decided we would stay there for a night since it was already late and we booked a different hostel that seemed to be closer to all the places we wanted to go. Thankfully the staff there were mega friendly and let us change our booking with a full refund even giving us back the money for the night we stayed there. The next morning we woke up early to check out and head over to the new hostel, Clink 78. We got there at around 10am so it wasn’t time for check-in yet. We left our bags in the lockers and decided to walk around and see what was near us.
We literally just walked straight down from the street we were on for about 10 minutes and we were right next to St. Paul’s Cathedral. As we’re taking pictures of the beautiful building we notice that there were a bunch of professional cameras and it turns out they were filming scenes for the show Top Gear and who else but Matt LeBlanc was driving in the car that was doing tricks right in front of the cathedral. After a while of watching them film we decided to continue venturing the city. We reached the River Thames and saw so many incredible things like Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, the HMS Belfast, London Bridge, Tower Bridge, and the Tower of London. We were dying to see Big Ben and the London Eye but it was in the other direction so after we saw everything there was to see we headed that way. Then we finally saw it, the magnificent and beautiful clock-tower that is Big Ben. We spent a good amount of time taking pictures from every angle and then we went inside the Houses of Parliament. After that we walked to Buckingham Palace, which is basically right next door. We didn’t see the changing of the guards that day but came back a different day and saw it with a front row view. We then continued towards Piccadilly Circus where we walked around some more and went into a couple of shops. By this time it was around 5:30 so we got some dinner at a pub where there happened to be a important rugby game playing on all the screens. It was really fun to be there with all the locals as they cheered on for the English national team. As the sun set we decided to go to the London Eye and see the beautiful city in the nighttime. It wasn’t as enjoyable as I thought it would’ve been because it moves so slow and its basically the same sight from different heights, it was nice to do but definitely not worth the price. Then we finally headed back to the hostel where we hung out at the pub in the downstairs area and talked to a bunch of the people staying there. It’s interesting that a lot of Europeans (and Australian’s for some reason) go to London to work and they stay at hostels instead of renting an apartment, which makes sense seeing as its way cheaper and you get utilities like water and electricity included in the price.
The next couple of days we ventured around the city some more and did some tours like seeing the Crowned Jewels at the Tower of London and we did a Jack the Ripper tour that was very interesting (and free!). We stumbled upon a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Leicester Square so we went in and got a couple of beers and listened to the musicians play traditional Irish songs and some popular songs with a folk twist to them. On our last day we went to Kings Cross, which is a 5 minute walk from our hostel, and saw the oh so popular Platform 9 3/4 as made famous by the Harry Potter series, then we had to say goodbye to the amazing city and come back to Ireland. I had such a wonderful time in London and I already want to go back because of how fun it was. I also thought it was great that we had sunny, warm weather (if 55 degrees counts as warm) the entire time we were there, which is not very common for London so we chose the best days to go there.
We came back to Ireland a day before the biggest and most popular holiday the country hosts – the famous St. Patrick’s Day. We woke up early to catch the 9:30 bus to Dublin. We had all our Irish regalia on such as green shirts, flags, hats with the flag colors, feather boa’s, the whole shebang. We get to Dublin and walk around for a bit trying to find the best spot to watch the parade. We waited around for the parade to start (it was set for 12) but then we decided to just go to a pub instead. We went it and got a couple beers and talked people, including someone dressed as Luigi from MarioKart. Then we did went from pub to pub just hanging out and making the most out of the day. We came back to Maynooth around 8pm and got pizza and then went to Brady’s, one of the clubs by school, and danced for a bit and then headed back to our cozy beds. It was such a fun experience being in Dublin for St. Paddy’s and I had an incredibly fun time. Now for the rest of our break my roommates and I are going to travel around the Emerald Isle and see all the cool places Ireland has to offer.