A Wale of a Tale: Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope you all got to celebrate by eating lots of chocolate, listening to your favorite love songs (Michael Buble, anyone?), and more importantly, spending time with the people you love! Even though I'm on a different continent, I had a great Valentine's Day due to the Dove chocolates, candy hearts, and card from Stephen, the package and card I received from my family, and texts/Facebook messages from my friends and family. I also very much enjoyed my Skype-date with Stephen! I hope all of you are enjoying the day as much as I did!

As promised, here is more about London. I met up with my girlfriends at the Swansea bus station a little before 4 to catch a bus to Cardiff. From Cardiff we took a bus to London, which was a long drive but provided a nice nap (which was definitely needed). We got to Victoria Coach Station late at night (around 10-ish), and since we were all hungry, we quickly hit up McDonald's (how American of us) before getting on the Underground. I loved how fast it was, though we had a brief stop at Queen's Park where we had to wait for another train. Once we got to Stonebridge Park we took a bus to the hostel. We witnessed a fight on the bus, which was a bit scary. We had to wait at a stop (on the top level of the double-decker bus) while the police came. It was an exciting way to start our London experience! We got to our hostel very early Saturday morning. It was very clean, so I was happy about that!

We grabbed rolls at a Tesco Express before buying an all-day pass for the Underground. Our first stop was the London Eye. I think it finally hit me that we were in London when we turned a corner and saw the Eye! We decided to ride the London Eye, and I enjoyed getting to see the amazing view of London. Once we were done with the ride (it takes about a half-hour), we decided to walk towards the Big Ben/Houses of Parliament.

It was a nice day (no rain, thankfully!), but it was a little chilly. After taking lots of photos with Big Ben, we started walking in the general direction of Buckingham Palace. We discovered a lot of red telephone booths, so we couldn't resist the photo op! A little sandwich shop called Pickles Sandwich Bar provided a great place to sit down, and the sandwiches were amazing! We then walked through a gorgeous park to find the Palace. The sun started to peek out, which was cause for much excitement in our group. We scoped out the Palace (and joked about asking the Queen to let us use the toilet) before heading through Green Park to get on the Underground. We rode to Covent Garden and checked out the shops and marketplaces there. I bought an adorable pink, white, and red scarf that is so soft! I love the colors in it. I also may had found small gifts for Krista and Laura there (wink, wink!). We continued our trek across London by hitting up King's Cross Station (my friends are huge Harry Potter fans, too) and finding Platform 9 3/4. No luck seeing the Hogwarts Express, though! We continued to Piccadilly Circus and decided to get dinner before heading back to see the London Eye and Big Ben at night. As we walked back towards the Thames, we stumbled upon Trafalgar Square. The huge lion statues tipped me off! Naturally, we had to get pictures with the lions. It was rather hard to climb up to the lions; my ascent was quite ungraceful! I loved seeing Big Ben and the Eye at night; everything was lit up, so it looked gorgeous. We walked across the bridge to get a good view of both of the sights before heading on the Underground back to the hostel. After a super busy, super exciting day, I was glad call it a night relatively early.

Me with Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament

I liked this shot of Big Ben

Red telephone booth

Pickles Sandwich Bar- great sandwiches!

View of London Eye from park

Gardens at Buckingham Palace- I was just so excited that the sun was shining!

Outside of Buckingham Palace

Gates at the Palace

Me in Green Parck

Market at Covent Gardens

King's Cross Station

Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station- I'm going to Hogwarts!

Piccadilly Circus statue

Fountain in Trafalgar Square

I like how this shot turned out

On Sunday, we decided to find Abbey Road and take the ever-popular walking-across-the-street photo (like the Beatles, in case anyone doesn't know). This was quite the experience! We took a few group photos (with four of us attempting to cross the street and one person taking the photo) before getting individual shots. I was waiting for a double-decker bus to pass, but the bus driver waved me on. So my friends took photos of me crossing the street (Beatles-style) with a double-decker bus in the background. I hurried across the street, and the realization of how awesome the picture would be didn't hit me until I was safely across. My friends say that the bus driver thoroughly enjoyed it! Our next visit was to the London Bridge, and from there we walked to Shakespeare's Globe Theater. We decided not to do the tour (another London trip, anyone?) and instead walked across Millennium Bridge. We ate a quick lunch at a cafe called Apostrophe, and the fruit tart that Stephanie and I shared was delicious! We checked out St. Paul's Cathedral; we heard the choir singing and the organ playing, since we were there on a Sunday. It was gorgeous inside, and the music added so much to the experience! Our bus left Victoria Coach Station at 2, so we made it back to Swansea early in the evening. I enjoyed sleeping on the ride from London to Cardiff and chatting with my friends on the way from Cardiff to Swansea. I loved London (it's so beautiful) and had a great weekend! Below are some more pictures from the trip.