Our second day in London was fantastic! After breakfast and orientation with everyone, we decided to try out the tube and bus system here. The first stop was Piccadilly Circus, the "Times Square of London." Walking out from the underground the view was breathtaking. I think with focusing on the tube many of us had put any expectations in the back of our minds. Flags lined the street, a beautiful fountain was center, and there were billboard sized screens.
We ventured down just to see what we could find, even exploring China Town and finding a fun little arcade.
Once we left Piccadilly we ventured up to Kings Cross Station, of course to visit Platform 9 3/4 . Although the queue was really long for the platform, we still got our shopping done and bought our tickets for the Hogwarts Express before heading back to the flats via double decker bus for dinner. We tried Nandos, definitely a unique restaurant with good chicken, so I recommend it!
Monday was our first afternoon class. It was a great time seeing how one series can bring so many people together and how everyone brings their own perspective. Getting to the deeper themes of any text is always interesting to me, especially with as story as elaborate as Harry Potter. After class, we took the tube again to go find a sim card for my phone, which was an adventure in itself as we may have gotten a bit lost. Once we found the phone store, the specific train we had taken goes to Kings Cross so we decided to go ahead and ride back to finally get photos and head to Hogwarts while enjoying representing our houses. Back at the flats we ordered pizza and watched Youtube to end a fun day.
Tuesday was our first completely free day so we figured why not go to the Star Trek UK Premiere?! I'm so glad we found out about this since we saw that several members of the cast had been at the Cursed Child play (which I'm still incredibly excited for) on Sunday! Of course, this happened to be the first day since we have been in London that it rained more than 5 minutes, so it rained from 10-5. Luckily the sun came back right as the cast got to the theatre! We got photos with nearly all of the cast members who were there, including Chris Pine! Everyone we met was super nice and enthusiastic. We also got interviewed by some awesome Youtubers, Sammy and Niki, and it was really neat to see all the livestream going on. The people around us were very cool too. We met others from all over the world who were very nice to talk to and just as excited about the premiere as us!
London has been treating us wonderfully for the most part! I absolutely love riding on the buses and seeing the lively parts of town.
Still working on figuring out the best ways around and little things at different restaurants but can't wait to learn more!
P.S. Breakfast is one of my favorite things here :)
