Today I got up at 3:30 in the morning (an ungodly hour, I know). I had to wake Caitlin up at 3:45 and Kelly at 4:00. When we were all ready to go, Caitlin, Kelly, Kirstin, Emily, Heidi, and I hurried—in the dark of the early morning—to catch the Aircoach outside the DART station. The bus was supposed to come at 4:30, but it was 10 minutes, so we shouldn’t have bothered rushing. We arrived at the airport about an hour and a half later. Matt, Ben, Caitlin, and I found our counter to check-in with RyanAir, while the other four girls headed to their counter for their flight to Scotland.

We left Dublin at 8 o’clock and landed in Gatwick Airport around 9. (The flight was so short that it seemed like half the flight was reaching altitude and making our decent.) The four of us took the Gatwick Express to Victoria station. From there, Caitlin and I bought our day passes for the Tube and made our way on the Tube to Caitlin’s friend from Messiah College Jess’s place between the Angel and Old Street stations on the Northern line. Jess, Amy (another girl from Messiah studying in Strasbourg), and Rachel (Amy’s friend also studying in Strasbourg) were just heading out, so Caitlin and I dropped off our stuff and joined them. The five of us stopped at the ATM then took the Tube to Notting Hill. We walked along the streets of Portobello Market, but we didn’t buy anything.

The next stop was Kensington Gardens and the Peter Pan statue. The weather could not have been more perfect; it was sunny with a few clouds in the sky, but it wasn’t hot. Perfect for pictures and trekking around the city. We enjoyed walking around the park, and if we had had more than two days to see the city, we could have spent the entire day just enjoying Kensington Gardens and the weather. However, we were crunched for time, so we kept moving.

We ate lunch at an Italian restaurant on James Street off of Oxford Street. I remembered it from when I travelled to London with my parents a few years ago. It was already three by the time we got to the restaurant, so we made it our main meal of the day. The pasta was amazing, so it was well worth the £8 for each of us.

We did a brief shopping spree of Oxford Street. It quickly ended after experiencing Primark, which, in my opinion, is very close to hell on Earth. It embodies the Western mindset. It was huge, messy, cheap, crowded, and overall horrible. The stress of going there made us all ready to give up on shopping.

We made dinner back at Jess’s place. She lived in a dorm, and each floor had a kitchen. We made spaghetti. None of us were all that hungry, so we saved the leftovers for dinner tomorrow.

At night, we took the Tube to the Thames and saw London at night. It was beautiful seeing Big Ben, the London Eye, the Tower, London Bridge, and Tower Bridge all lit up. I think it was my favorite thing of the day.