I can’t believe that I never actually finished this, honestly seems on par though. I decided to revive this page for my next big adventure, Alaska, and fill in my Costa Rica trip and found this draft in my google docs nearly finished. I added on some finishing touches, although stunted and we’ll get ‘er uploaded and do some editing on the previous posts. To all of my nonexistent readers, thanks for bearing with me. Really this is for myself to help me soak it all in. Without further ado, the final installation of Pack up and Travel.
This final post is long overdue, but I wasn’t ready to let this trip go quite yet. I spent time catching up with my friends and family, and reliving everything through stories. I made a physical photo album along with my virtual one for my more technology challenged friends, I’m looking at you mom. I finally returned to work, ugh. And it almost feels like I never went on this crazy adventure. So I’m finally ready to write this chapter closed, and try virtually take myself back, so here’s the last clause of this crazy stupid ride.
My first stop in England was York. I thought about trucking straight through from Edinburgh to London, but when I read about the idyllic town of York I knew I had to stop, even just for a night. And right from the get go I realized I wasn’t the only one. York is by far the smallest city I was going to, but it was just as busy as the others. Apparently the shopping district draws in quite the crowd on a Saturday. I knew that because of the size I didn’t need long to explore, so I just booked one night. I had read that a street is York had been voted the most charming street in England, so I set out to get my Insta worthy photo. What I got instead was a disappointingly blurry and crowded picture. The amount of people was overwhelming, more than once I had to step onto a side street to take a breather and calm down. Despite the disappointment with the Shambles I set out for the Cathedral, and was surprised to find my favorite Cathedral yet. The gothic structure and height was unlike any other building and York and I was in awe.
The rest of my stay in York was not quite as enjoyable. I started feeling symptoms of a cold coming on and was not a happy camper. Plus my night in the hostel resulted with me on the top bunk directly underneath the overhead light that someone felt the need to turn on at 1am.
However, I was able to get up nice and early to head for the train station, large caramel latte in hand, to make my way to London.
The train ride was BRUTAL. I of course was stuck next to a modern day giant, I get that you’re huge and you don’t really fit in train seats but that doesn’t mean you can just encroach on my space. Plus people always talk about how awful plane bathrooms are, let me tell you they have absolutely nothing on train bathrooms. So much swaying at such high speeds is brutal. But alas I arrived in London, at Kings Cross Station no less, and this is the point I must digress that this trip was in fact entirely so I could geek out about Harry Potter.
Of course I had to swing by platform 9 ¾ on my way out of the station, I’m only human and can’t resist all temptations, but it was so crazy busy I wasn’t waiting in line for a picture. So I hit the streets to find my next hostel and ran smack into a Five Guys Burger place. After 2 weeks I was really craving some cheap nasty ass American food, so you know I had to stop. After one delicious strawberry milkshake, and a less than satisfactory soggy burger and fries I marched my way to the hostel humming Taylor Swift’s London Boy.
The next morning I decided I was going to be a tacky tourist and bought a ticket for a double decker red bus tour. However on my way to the bus stop I started feeling a little woozy like my cold was finally catching up to me. So I stopped into a cafe to of course get my latte and got to the front of the line and completely blanked just standing there like a dumbass with no thought in my brain. I finally was able to pull myself together and panic ordered a nasty ass coffee that I had to choke down. But I put my head down and told myself “you are an American, you eat so much nasty processed food you can handle one gross ass hazelnut latte for the good of our brain cells”. And proceeded on my day.
I tried to sit on top of the double decker bus, because why else would you ride a double decker bus. But it had an open top and it was very cold outside. The bus system allows you to hop on and off at any of their stops and change lines to shimmy your way across the city sightseeing. I mostly stuck to the one route, because I don’t trust myself not to get very very lost. However, I was able to see some pretty amazing things from the bus window. A theater with a production of Harry Potter, the London Eye, Tower Bridge which did have me looking for Spider-Man ala Far from Home, Tower of London, and the Shard. I finally did grow a pair and got off the bus to go see Buckingham Palace, which was so pretty.
I finally got off the bus at Trafalgar Square, which is where the Harry Potter premieres were, although I admit that was an unintentional coincidence. After wandering around for a little bit I had to make my way down the street to catch another bus that would take me back to walking distance to my hostel. After a long day of sightseeing I feel right asleep with BIG plans in store for the next day.
I’m sure it comes to absolutely no surprise to anyone at this point, I scheduled a Harry Potter Studio tour, when in London? amirite. I scheduled myself an Uber to our meet up place, because frankly I am terrified of trying to navigate the tube. And we loaded the bus. The studio is about an hour outside of London and I was bouncing in my seat the whole way.
As soon as we walked in the door there was a giant, dare I say life sized, dragon hanging from the ceiling. We each got a set of headphones and a little power pack to tell us about what we were seeing and dove into the world of Harry Potter. They have different sets inside and out, the forbidden forest with Buckbeak and Aragog, the Durselys house on Privet Drive, cupboard under the stairs included, Diagon Alley, the Great Hall, and so so much more. Each area had a corresponding code on our power packs to tell us about it. In addition to the sets we got to see clothing items from the movies, models of Hogwarts, and some of the special effects used. I could go on and on for hours geeking about how amazing it was. They even had a restaurant serving Butterbeer, as well as a full stocked gift shop! I even got my platform 9 ¾ picture and was able to board the Hogwarts Express. All in all it was an amazing experience I would suggest for Harry Potter enthusiasts and even just casual viewers.
After we arrived back in London, my pockets full of Honkeydukes goods, I decided that I wasn’t quite ready to turn in for the night. I realized that this entire time I hadn’t really gotten myself anything. So I did a quick little google search and headed out to Sacred Gold tattoo parlor, as much as I would’ve loved to get a tattoo I got a nose ring instead which I’ve been dying to do, sorry mom! On the way back to the hostel I popped into the grocery store next door and loaded up on snacks and crawled into bed with Netflix. Which let me tell you UK Netflix is so much better.
I woke up on my final full day of the trip feeling some kinda way 🙁 big sad. I had my final excursion booked for the day, a trip to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge and Bath. I’ve been super stoked about this particular trip ever since I read about the city of Bath. Our first stop was Windsor Castle, which was amazing! We were able to do a full castle and grounds tour but were not allowed to take any pictures inside.
After several hours at the castle and in the city of Windsor we loaded back up on the bus to head to Stonehenge. I was surprised to find out that to reach Stonehenge you park at the museum and they have shuttles that take you about .5 miles away and then you have to walk the last bit. Unfortunately they do have barricages now so we weren’t able to get very close but it was still very neat. In addition to the structure you were able to see a weird path leading up to it that they also don’t know what is from.
Finally we headed off for Bath, which is such a beautiful quaint town I wish I would’ve had more time. We got to do a tour of the Roman baths the town is named for, which are disgustingly beautiful and then we loaded the bus a final time and headed back to London. Where I was finally brave enough to take the tube!
And I guess this is the point where I tell you I had a perfect trip back home and wrap this party up. But of course I am me and nothing ever goes to plan. I had these all scheduled out, I had a 12:00 flight, an hour ten tube ride to the airport and we’d be smooth sailing. I walked my little tushy to Kings Cross and got on the underground. Since we were … underground I didn’t have any service until we came to the stop before Heathrow, where I got a notification telling me my flight was delayed 2 hours. At that point it was fruitless to go back to London so I proceeded on to Heathrow and settled in with a latte to watch 21 Jump Street to pass the time. Finally we boarded the plane for an 8 hour flight and when the flight attendant asked if I wanted wine, who was I to say no. So there I am flying trans-Atlantic, drinking, and I decide why don’t I watch A Star is Born for the first time ever. Which then led to me flying trans-Atlantic, drinking and sobbing. When we finally touched down in Chicago after an emotional and extremely long day I was excited to board my final connection and get home to surprise my family. However some twat at O’Hare changed my flight because they didn’t think I would make it, even though I definitely would’ve. So I had to wait another 4 hours for my connection, and 2 hours into that wait they delayed the flight another 2 hours. I went to customer service to ask if they had any flights I could change to and instead ended up bawling as soon as I opened my mouth. The sweet angel customer service agent compt me a hotel room for the night and breakfast the next morning and booked me an 8am flight out of hell.
I was up bright and early to head to the airport, swearing to myself I would never step foot into O’Hare again. After a brief hold up at security I was on my way and finally going home. My boyfriend met me at the airport and drove home to surprise my family. All and all it was such an amazing trip and I couldn’t ask for anything more. I am more than ready to start making plans for my next trip, and hopefully do Paris and Amsterdam which didn’t make the cut this time.