​Kelsey's Travel Blog!​
I travel not to escape life, but to be sure that life will not escape me! Come join me!
London, England January 15-20
London England: a deceptively New York-ish style city where cultures from all corners of the world converge, everyone speaks sarcasm as a second language, and where I truly discover what people mean when they say the England and the US are two nations separated by a common language. Although I was rather reluctant to continue forward after being in Ireland the past week, I knew the show must go on and I hopped onto a short hour-long flight from Dublin to London Heathrow and arrived in the early evening. Now, there are many people I know who have never stayed in hostels. My first word of advice is: don’t have any expectations. I do pride myself on being relatively flexible and adaptable, and yet, there are times even my adaptability is tested.
For the last five days, I have been a resident of the Smart Hyde Park Inn, a hostel located on the northern side of Hyde Park in the heart of London. Granted, the location was quite good—within about 100 feet of a tube stop, in close proximity to both a grocery and a liquor store, and I could easily find my way through the beautiful Hyde Park, and even meet a few canine friends along the way. When I arrived at my hostel, I arrived to bedroom containing twenty beds; some build as triple bunk beds (more like a cubby), with little to no space for any suitcases or walking room. My roommates consisted of a few people like me who were just passing through, a few who had been here for a while in London working but hadn’t found apartments yet, and those few select people that I am pretty sure lived there full time. Yes, it was not as glamorous as my previous three hostels in Ireland, yet as a young 21 year old, I knew I could survive a little discomfort, because isn't that what being a traveller, not a tourist, is all about?
Regardless of my accommodations, I was sure to take advantage of my time in London by wondering the streets of London City, visiting old friends and enjoying a few pints at the pub around the corner, and taking in as much of the city as possible in the short amount of time I was here. I had the lovely pleasure of meeting up with one of my close friends from Temple, Laura, who happened to be doing a semester study abroad and internship at London College. It really was great seeing such a familiar face in a foreign city; although I was incredible jealous that she was just starting her study abroad and I had already completed mine. Even for a second, I considered dropping out of Temple and enrolling at London College for no other reason than the fact that I didn’t want to leave and we were having such a great time, but don’t worry, Mom and Dad, it wont happen. We ventured to the King's Corner Pub located right around the corner from her apartment in the Kensington District. Did I mention she lived right next to the Dutch Embassy? Kensington is an incredibly nice, incredibly posh part of town filled with beautiful, white row homes with large windows so that I, a poor university student, could gaze into the massive living room at the enormous Swarovski-crystel chandelier hanging from the hand-painted ceiling. It was as though I had walked straight into the Upper Eastside District of New York, yet with a bit of traditional, aristocratic British sophistication.
Wednesday morning, I decided to do something that really has become my favorite thing while traveling: a free walking tour! (I think a trend is arising) Sandeman’s Tours, located in 12 different cities and just opened its New York tour, provides the best tours I have ever been on in any city I go to, and they are always within my backpackers budget since they are always tip-based tours. My guide, Sonja, was an American woman from Florida, who had lived in Germany for around 8 years doing her masters, and was now in London completing her PhD, was one of the best guides I have had to date (after Rob in Dublin). She was incredibly charismatic, was able to tell really engaging stories of King Henry VIII and the British Empire, and she even touched on comical stories like the time Queen Elizabeth woke up with a drunken Irishman in her bed chambers who was just trying to escape the cold and, in his drunken state of mind decided Buckingham Palace must have loads of beds and was a prime overnight accommodation. I’m not sure his logic was sound, but then again, it made a GREAT story.
London is truly where cultures from each corner of the world can converge to create an incredibly unique and vibrant atmosphere no matter where your wanders through the city takes you. It is easy to find all sorts of ethnic restaurants and grocery stores, and experience a large number of cultures and peoples in one place. It’s not the best place for a young backpacker on a budget, given the unfavorable exchange rate, high cost of drinks and club entry fees, and high cost of transportation (anything else but the Tube). But it is not entirely impossible to live on a shoestring. Fortunate enough for a starving student such as myself, many of the museums in London are free. I do not consider myself much of a museum go-er, but I did take a leap of faith and headed to the British Museum for a day of wandering ancient artifacts and incredible exhibits. I came across things that I was not even aware were in Britain. I was able to see the Rosetta Stone, the mummy of Cleopatra, paintings from Michelangelo, Leonardo di Vinci, and Raphael, just to name a few! I was truly incredible, and I was only able to scrape the surface of the approximate 8 million objects on display. It is the 3rd most popular museum in the world in terms of the number of visitors, and is lucky enough to have actually made me enjoy museums. Who knows, maybe ill be inspired to actually go to the Philadelphia art museum this semester.
Just as pieces of history from all over the globe are brought together in this beautiful city, people from all over the world flock to London with the hopes of it becoming home. I met people from as far away as New Zealand and India, to as close as Scotland and Sweden, who had all made the leap of faith to move to the big city. I even got to meet up with two friends who I had met the last time while on the road! When my younger sister, Katelyn, and I had the opportunity to travel to Amsterdam for a week while I was studying in Germany. We were fortunate enough to meet Aidan and Jeremy, two incredible gentlemen from Perth, Australia who had already, at the time, been on the road for 7 months through Asia and parts of Europe before we met them. We had a wonderful time with them in Amsterdam and were fortunate enough to get their contact information with mutual longstanding invitation to meet up if we ever found ourselves in the same part of the world again. Turns out, that day came five months later while I was in London! We met up for some dinner and a few pints to reminisce about Amsterdam, catch each other up on life’s happenings, and talk about our favorite topic of conversation: travel. The great thing about the people you meet abroad is that it never matters how much time goes by between meetings; you can always pick up right where you left off. It really was amazing seeing those guys again, and I am excited to cross paths with them again soon!
I wrapped up my trip in London with my friend Laura, and the rest of the 30 Temple students who were studying abroad there. Luckily, after a bit of convincing, Laura was able to talk the professor in charge of her study abroad in to allowing me to come to Bath and Stonehenge with the other Temple students. Due to weather, though, we were unable to go to Stonehenge, but we spent the day in Bath, England seeing the ancient Roman baths and exploring the town. It did remind me how jealous I was that they were just starting their study abroad program and I was about to leave the next day, back to reality. If it were possible, I would have enrolled in London College with them for the semester and would have stayed in England. Yet life never does go like that, does it?
I nearly got my wish, though. My flight back to Dublin was canceled due to a snow storm, and I nearly took it as a sign to stay, but I knew Philadelphia was calling my name again, so I jumped on an earlier flight and returned to Dublin for one last night, one last pint of Guinness and one last enjoyable night of friendly banter with the bar tender.
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Getting onto my flight back to JFK was a very difficult thing to do, yet I knew it was time to get back to Philly, begin my spring semester (also hopefully second to last semester of Uni), and get back to the people and friends at Temple. I was so lucky to have such an incredible experience in Ireland and England, and I can only hope that I will be returning as soon as possible. The more I travel, the more I can see that my calling is somewhere other than Philadelphia, and now it is just a matter of exploring my options. As the realities of the real world becoming more and more immediate, figuring out what I want to do in my post-grad life is becoming more and more pressing. The positive side is that I have an incredible number of options and possibilities, and I am excited to explore them all! For now, I must finished what I started in Philly, but soon, I will be off gallivanting around the globe, trying to find my place in everything, and I couldn’t be more excited for that adventure.
