Canterbury, Allison, Travis, and London

At 5:30pm on Thursday the 12th of March, Liz Pawlik and I hopped on a 44 bus down to National Express bus station to catch a 7pm bus down to London. Liz’s friend Liz was to arrive at 7:30am the next morning and my Allison were to arrive at 11am. We arrived at the bus station a good 30 minutes before departure so we just chit chatted about how excited we were till we heard the announcement to board the bus. I went to grab my ticket out of my backpack to find that it wasn’t there! I tore apart my bag and realized I left it on my desk at home. Crap. I told Liz to just get on the bus and I’ll figure it out. I went up to the information desk and informed them on my problem and they said as long as I have the reference number they’ll allow me on the bus. Well, I didn’t have that either. I called Katie who was still at the flats to go into my email box and get me the reference number. Since Allison and I would also take a bus from London to Canterbury the next day she gave me the reference number for that ticket. I was now outside waiting to get on the bus with the wrong number. After some negotiation and one more call to Katie, he finally let me on the bus. Phew.

Liz and I stayed with her friend Remi that night in London and woke up bright and early to take the hour tube ride to Heathrow. I waited in the arrival area of Heathrow for three hours before Allison finally walked through the doors! It was so crazy to have Allie there! Ahhh! We hugged forever and there may have been a few tears involved as well. We then jumped back on the tube to central London. We walked around London for a few hours before going back to the bus station to catch our 7:30 bus to Canterbury to meet up with my SIE group. We arrived around 10:30pm at the hostel, thanks to the bus driver dropping us off right outside the door. I introduced her to a few people but we immediately got ready for bed and crashed.
The next morning we woke up early for breakfast and then got on the coach with everyone else and headed to Dover. We first walked around Dover Castle. Since it was early, the castle was closed and rather boring. A group of us walked down the hill through town to the water to see the White Cliffs of Dover. We then stopped into a pub for a pint and then got back on the coach for Canterbury.

That night we went to Canterbury College’s production of “Sweeney Todd.” It was a fun time because almost 20 people from the group went to the performance, but it wasn’t a very good performance unfortunately. Then next day we all got back on the coach and went to Leeds Castle.

Leeds Castle was absolutely breathe taking and beautiful. Of all the castles I’ve seen thus far, this one is my favorite. I was so happy that Allie got to see such a beautiful place on such a beautiful, warm, and sunny day. We walked around there for a few hours till heading back to Birmingham.

Canterbury and Dover weren’t the best, but Leeds Castle was fantastic! We arrived in Birmingham around 5pm. The next morning I was to pick up Travis Peterson at 6am at Birmingham International!

I was so happy and I feel very fortunate to have two friends visit me while I’m here in England. Allison stayed from Friday to Friday, and Travis is here till the Thursday before I leave for Portugal.

It was a fun week with both Allie and Travis here! Allie and I had a shopping day in City Center and I made sure to take them to a few clubs and pubs during their visit.
Allie took a bus to Heathrow at 4am on Friday morning and I was very sad to see her go! Travis is still here and the same day I put Allie on the bus, me and Travis took a bus at 10am to spend the day in London.

We got off at Victoria Bus Station and walked to Buckingham Palace. From there we walked through St. James Park to Big Ben, Parliament, and Westminster. Then we walked along the Thames River by the London Eye. We jumped on the Tube from Embankment to Tower Hill to see the London Tower and Tower Bridge. We were pretty tired from our already busy day so we sat down for a break and to look at the map to see what to do next. As we were sitting there, a woman walked up and gave us two free tickets to the City Cruise! So we walked down to Millennium Pier, got on the Cruise and took it all the way back down to Big Ben. It was so much fun! After that we decided to take a long, scenic route through Leicester Square back to the coach station.

It was such a wonderful day in London with Travis and we were so very lucky to have such beautiful weather!

I leave for Spring Break on Friday morning where Katie and I first head to Porto Portugal. From there we will travel to Lisbon, Barcelona, Madrid, Torino, Vienna, Rome, and then Greece. This is our tentative plan and things may change but we are very excited!

I’ll let you know how Spring Break goes when I get back the 26th of April!

See you!

Kirsten