A trip to remember!

Unfortunately we didn't have internet at our hotel in London so this blog post will be three days in one.

It was a sad time saying goodbye to Kate on Saturday morning. We had a great week of camp and we worked together wonderfully! Hopefully I have another opportunity to run a camp with her in the future!

I somehow managed to figure out the public bus system by myself and made it to the hotel by the airport where I met up with Ryan. I literally walked in and put my stuff down and we were out the door 5 minutes later excited to explore London.

Our first stop was Buckingham Palace.

I can't explain this face... I really was excited to be there!

As we walked around I took pleasure in posing like statues. You of course can't see the statue I'm impersonating in this picture because Ryan's new favorite game is to zoom WAY in on my face.

We walked through an adorable park on our way to Trafalgar Square. It was our first day back together after our week of camps and we were already making faces at each other.

Those adorable red phone booths were EVERYWHERE in London!!

Rachael- "Ryan look! A pay phone!!"

"OH MY GOSH IT STINKS SO BAD!!"

"Hold on, I'll hold my breath so you can take a picture."

"Hurry and take the picture!!!"

Ryan didn't want his picture taken in a phone booth for some reason...

We noticed as we walked along that there are guards on horses everywhere. These guards in particular just stand here all day long. I felt really bad for both the horses and the guards but Ryan pointed out they get to hold really big and cool swords so that makes it all better. And I'd like to point out those hats... can you say awesome?

On Sunday morning we headed out extra early so that we could see the changing of the guards at Buckingham palace. Naturally we would be there on the one day that there was a bicycle race going on so the changing of the guards was canceled. We had big sad faces about that.

It was shortly after leaving Buckingham Palace that we were almost squashed by a double decker bus because we looked the wrong way before crossing the street. Luckily when we looked down we discovered that the city of London helps their tourists out a bit by writing right their on the street which way to look before crossing.

You may not know this about me but I am basically OBSESSED with Harry Potter. Ryan has never read the books or seen the movies but I’m pretty sure he's going to be falling in love soon too (with the books and movies that is) after all our Harry Potter adventures in London.

We went on a Harry Potter walk on Sunday where our fabulous tour guide Richard took us around to the places in London where the Harry Potter movies were filmed.

This is Richard. He’s awesome. We got to know each other right off the bat because I lost my sticker indicating that I paid before the tour even started (naturally) so I had to convince him that I was the girl who he gave the student discount to even though I didn’t have my student ID card. He called me naughty and gave me a new sticker. Then of course we discovered that my original sticker was never lost but simply tangled in my hair. We bonded and were BFFs for the rest of the tour.

Got my sticker and I’m ready for the tour!!

Ladies and gentleman, this is the door to the Leaky Cauldron seen in movies one and three. It of course was black in the movies.

Recognize this bridge? Harry Potter 6 anyone?

The tour took over two hours but we saw so many neat things and learned tons about London! Our tour didn’t include Kings Cross Station in it but Richard gave us directions on how to get there. On Saturday Ryan and I attempted to check out platform 9 and ¾ but we got lost on the way there and ended up in a scary gangster neighborhood. We were nearly attacked by crazy local gangsters but luckily Ryan grabbed my hand and we booked it out of there… FAST!!! It was the first time I’ve ever seen Ryan legitimately scared. I of course was terrified especially with all the riots that have been going on in that area!!! By the time we got to Kings Cross we were so traumatized that we just hopped right on a train and got the heck out of there. Inspired by our Harry Potter tour though we decided to put on our brave pants and attempt Kings Cross station one more time.

WE MADE IT THIS TIME!!! (I'm not gonna lie, I pictured it WAY different in my head)

And we found platform nine and three quarters.

Here I am pushing my cart through the wall.

London was an amazing way to end our trip! We definitely crammed a weeks worth of stuff into a day in a half but I loved it!! I love British people and I especially love listening to them speak!

Ryan and I were sad to head to the airport this morning but happy to be heading home.

I can't wait until the next adventure!