April 20-22, 2018.
April 20.
I'm going to skip Madrid 2016 for the time being and go ahead and get to my London adventure from last weekend, since I'm trying to stay as on top of my trips as possible from now on.
This was a weekend trip we'd booked back in February or March or so when the flight deals were crazy cheap. We figured a weekend in London with no time off work would be fun because most people wouldn't even consider it, but we're pros at A. traveling on a budget and B. traveling while short on time. Neither of us had been there in years: 18 for me, ever since a layover from Spain back to the US when I was 14 and it was our first time going back to the US after spending 2 1/2 years in Spain. So a long time. I've always wanted to go back because it's London, and why not?
Little did we know the actual adventure we were about to have. We've now decided that anytime the two of us travel together (my friend/travel buddy will be referred to as "S" from now on to make it easier) it'll be an adventure.
We got to Newark Airport about an hour after getting off of work last Friday, taking the train to the airport for a 10:55 PM flight. Our airline was a budget airline which we didn't think too much of, but once we got on the plane, we knew it was going to be interesting. The budget airline had contracted another airline to provide the flight services to London Stansted (AKA the Budget Airport for London Area), and we ended up leaving an hour and a half delayed due to mechanical issues. The flight itself went fairly smooth, despite it being a tiny plane (I believe it was a Boeing 737 but I could be wrong; either way it was small for a transatlantic flight).
April 21.
We arrived in Stansted with no issues. S had found out that Stansted offers a FastTrack service for immigration, which involves paying about 5 GBP for expedited access through passport control. By expedited, I mean everyone else is waiting in a 45-minute + line, and we went right through to the Immigration Officers, who asked both of us (separately) the usual, where we were coming from, how long we were staying, and where we'd be heading to. Both officers were shocked and amused by the fact that we were only going to be spending about 24 hours in London, but no one said anything negative, just gave us a look like "Crazy Yanks". We ended up wearing it as a badge of honor.
We got on the train to Liverpool Station in the City of London, which is about 45 minutes, and by the time we got out of the station, it was nice and warm. Turned out most of Europe was going through a heat wave at that time, London included, and despite the overcast skies, it was probably about 20 degrees C, or 68 F.
We stopped for lunch at a little pizza place (Which apparently has been called the home of the best pizza in London, which I didn't know until I went looking for it on Google, and I will say, as someone who's been spoiled on New York pizza, the pizza here was pretty legit, so if you like good pizza, yes, this is a place for you.) not far from Saint Paul's and the Millenium Bridge. From here, we figured we'd just walk until we either reached the hotel (on the west side, actually pretty close to Heathrow, so quite a hike) or just got too tired.
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| Saint Paul's, as seen from just before the Millenium Bridge |
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| The Globe Theatre, as seen from across the Thames |
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| Tower Bridge in the background and the Shard to the right, also from the Millenium Bridge |
We were originally planning on heading out to Oxford to visit S's cousin, but she decided against it, feeling absolutely terrible, due to the time lost from the delayed flight (even with the FastTrack, it didn't stop the fact that we'd had a 45-minute train right into London plus the hour and a half delay). I felt bad as well because I'd also been kind of looking forward to the trip to Oxford, but at the end of the day, we were only there for a little over 24 hours, so it made sense.
So we walked. We started near St. Paul's, grabbed some coffee and tea near Blackfriars, and then walked all along the riverwalk towards the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey.
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| Sad day, the clock tower is undergoing a facelift so we couldn't see it. |
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| So the London Eye was still under construction when I was last in London back in 2000. That's how long it's been. |
It was crazy though, the last time I was in London, one of the highlights of our trip was getting out of the Tube at the Westminster station at around 6 in the evening, to find the sun setting at just the right angle so the clock face was illuminated in this golden light that struck me silly at the age of 14. Mostly because I knew that sunny days like that did not come around very often, and indeed, this Saturday was overcast with some very light showers, and I also just knew how to appreciate beautiful scenery around iconic monuments at a young age.
Anyway, we turned at Westminster Abbey and headed towards Buckingham Palace.
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| Typical London narrow streets |
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| Victoria Monument |
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| Buckingham Palace |
We sat down in Hyde Park for a bit to rest, while I communicated with a friend from middle school in Spain who was living in London and wanted to meet up the next morning, whom I hadn't seen in years. We then also decided we were going to go looking for the nearest Longchamp boutique, as their Le Pliage bags are the greatest travel bags ever, and thanks to the exchange rate and lack of markup as in the US we could get them for so much cheaper in London. S found a place, and we headed off in that direction, through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens.
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| Marble Arch |
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| Swans in Hyde Park |
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| Kensington Gardens and Palace |
From Kensington Gardens, we walked all the way down Bayswater and Holland Park Ave, right through the Notting Hill district.
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| Notting Hill |
We finally got to the Westfield Mall where we were going to do our luxury shopping, and I tell you what, it's always been kind of a goal of mine to be able to walk into a luxury boutique while traveling and buy stuff, just because I could. And it really makes sense now. There's a weird markup that occurs with so many European luxury brands in the US. It's insane, really. I bought a small Longchamp bag two years ago in the US that cost me $110. In London, I bought the exact same bag for 65 GBP, the equivalent of about $80. Add onto that the fact that as we're not European residents (as the UK is still in the EU), we get to have VAT refunded upon departure. So I really get why people travel and buy luxury, because some things are just that much cheaper overseas, even luxury. And while Longchamp isn't super luxe (I have Kate Spade bags that cost me more than my Longchamp bags), at least not the Le Pliage bags, the brand itself is considered luxe and therefore, I got to feel like I was a high roller even though I work in customer service and live with my parents in New Jersey. Now that doesn't feel very luxe. But it was fun, and we got to be called the Crazy Yanks again by the salesguy, so all in all, I had a 10 out of 10 luxury experience in London.
After all that, we headed toward the hotel, through a much more residential section, and ended up being so tired and hungry we figured we'd just call an Uber for the rest of the trip to the hotel, which was all of a ten minute drive.
We booked a room in the Clayton Chiswick Hotel, at a seriously bargain price, and it did not disappoint. We felt like we'd paid upwards of $100 on the room instead of under it including tax. It was clean, nicely furnished, with a large bathroom and excellent room service, which we took advantage up because we didn't feel like going out anymore. I don't have pictures of the room or bathroom because I'm not one for taking pictures of hotel rooms, and I'm not an actual travel blogger (I just write/blog about traveling. Right now there's a difference). We finally crashed, ready to take on the next half a day, since our flight at around 6 PM out of Stansted.
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| This is how far Stansted is from London |
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| And this is how far we walked, because we are walking fiends. |
April 22.
The day dawned with an absolutely gorgeous, warm, cloudless day. It felt like summer, and basically was summer for all intents and purposes, given that it probably doesn't get much warmer in London during the summer than what it was that Sunday. Seriously, it was absolutely spectacular.
And we certainly got our money's worth at the hotel breakfast, because breakfast was legit. I'm not just talking English breakfast, I'm talking everything breakfast. Eggs, bacon, porridge, oatmeal, cereal, sausage, fruit, etc. etc. etc.
We couldn't stay too long though since I was meeting up with my friend for brunch at King's Cross, so we headed to the Tube which took us back into the City.
One of the things I'm becoming grateful for in my life is my ability to make friends that stay friends. Now, I have lost friends over the years. Probably mostly for reasons dealing with incompatibility or stupid nonsense, but the really good friends I've managed to make, I've managed to keep in some way, shape, or form. This friend in particular I've known since 6th grade and I went to the American School in Bilbao, which was mostly a school for the local bourgeoisie to send their kids to learn and use English. I went through a really rough period at that school and hated it. I was bullied, teased, harrassed, had private information blabbed all around the school. But this one girl, whose father was a teacher there, along with another girl, were my two friends. I hadn't really seen her since I left Bilbao in 2000, as we'd continued hanging out with each other especially since it turned out she and my best friend knew each other from the conservatory, and were also neighbors. I remember seeing her for a few minutes when I went back in 2010, but she couldn't remember that, so we basically focused on the fact we hadn't seen each other in eighteen years. It's one of the beautiful things about social media, really, since we've been following each other on Instagram and have been friends on Facebook for a while, and I knew she'd been living in Brooklyn for about a year or so up till a few years ago before moving to London for work. We caught up like eighteen years had never happened, and she ended up walking with us down to the Strand so I could go to the Twinings store to pick up some tea as a gift for my mom.
It was really just one of the moments that makes me look back and just be so appreciative of the things I have, and that while I've gone through some rough patches, and other people have too, there are certain people who will just never leave you no matter how many countries you've lived in since.
We said goodbye at the Strand, and I know that I'll be seeing her again soon, hopefully in fewer than eighteen years, and feeling confident that there really are some people in life who make life worth living.
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| St. Pancras Station |
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| Right outside the Twinings store on the Strand |
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| Fleet Street |
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| St. Paul's |
We had some time to kill before heading back up to Liverpool Street Station to head back to Stansted, so we walked around a bit, and found ourselves right next to where the London Marathon was being run at that moment. No pictures, but it was still pretty crazy to think that on just this weekend, on the nicest day of the year, we were in London. For 24 hours. Madness.
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| The famous (infamous?) Shard |
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| Tower Bridge, from London Bridge |
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| Monument to the Great Fire of London |
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| Leadenhall Market |
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| The Gherkin |
By the time we got to Liverpool Street Station we were wiped out and exhausted, and barely had energy to get to the airport, but it needed to be done. We sped through security with the outbound FastTrack (It's a beautiful thing; I have Mobile Pass for the US to cut through immigration, but I still can't justify TSA pre-check and Global Entry), got our VAT refunds for our handbags, and sat and waited for the plane to board, and then take off.
And then the trouble happened.
It was the same chartered plane that we'd taken out of Newark with the delayed flight, and sure enough, the same issue appeared with this flight as well. Only this time, they couldn't fix it, had us all get off the plane while they checked the engine, and forty-five minutes later we were informed of the flight delay until at the earliest the next morning. Missing parts that needed to come from other airports, compensation from the EU Commission, all kinds of stuff that they tell you when your plane isn't going to be taking off as planned were tossed out at us. There went my goal of spending a weekend in Europe without taking a day off of work, considering it would be impossible at this point to get us on a plane and have us arrive in time to start the workday.
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| Our Sunday |
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| London to Stansted |
Long story (very) short, we ended up with three flights booked, one finally confirmed, as we were on our way to Gatwick airport with four other people on our flight who'd rebooked out of Gatwick as well. All this after midnight.
April 23.
We found out that our flight was basically the fourth flight for this carrier overseas. It's a primarily domestic budget airline in Europe that wanted to break into the American market similar to what Norwegian does. Norwegian also charters planes, but we ended up flying Norwegian back to New York on a chartered plane, but it was a larger plane, typical for transatlantic flights (Boeing 777 style, with 3-4-3 seating in coach).
There was a lot of negativity towards the airline in this regard, which I do totally understand, however, and maybe I'm just being optimistic and naïve and put too much trust in airlines and whatnot, but I can't say I fault the airline. I mean, airlines don't want to cancel, and this one went completely out of their way to not cancel, very much to the point of severe inconvenience, however I would imagine that just about every airline would do this. Cancelled flights for mechanical reasons mean refunds, and compensation, and a whole slew of things airlines don't want to deal with at all.
I will say that I do hope they learned to be careful with chartering planes not meant for transatlantic flights, since the plane we were on I can swear had been old even ten years ago and was certainly way too small for what can be used comfortably for this kind of trip, though it did get us to London in one piece.
I would certainly not travel this airline in particular for a transatlantic flight, though I could probably do it for a domestic European flight as should be done.
Norwegian has it figured out, though. I'll definitely fly them internationally.
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| For reference, here's what it looks like to drive from Stansted to Gatwick. |
By the time we got to Gatwick we were exhausted, but were able to check in for our Norwegian flight, and camped out there until our flight left at 7:45 AM. Our boss in New York knew we weren't going to be making it in due to the flight cancellation, so no worries there.
Overall, even with the adventure with the cancelled flight, I had a great time. Visiting Europe always reminds me of just how lucky, or blessed, I've been to be able to have lived in Europe for a significant chunk of my life. I still dream of going back, and I wouldn't mind going to any major city in Europe, I just keep wanting to go back. I miss it so much. Spending 24 hours in London reminded me of that.
Now my next trip is in two weeks to visit my brother and sister-in-law who live in Toronto. Shorter flight, longer stay, more memories to revisit and new experiences to have. Yay!
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