Last year, I went to London, where I met up with my family and toured through the UK with a friend. London was so big, though, and the few days there just weren’t enough. In order to see some things we didn’t have time for, I went back for a long weekend earlier this year.

I first flew to London Stansted. It was a late flight, and the plane was delayed, causing me to arrive late in the night. By the time I got through security, the last train for the evening was already gone. I had to take the bus to the city center, but it was still a ways from my hostel. I didn’t feel like braving the underground, so I actually downloaded the Uber app and got a ride to the hostel. It wasn’t necessarily cheap, although not too expensive either, and it worked out pretty well.

It was well after midnight by the time I got into my room, so I just went to bed.

The next morning, I started walking around the town. The first notable place I went to was Hyde Park and just hung out for a bit and read.

I then ended up at the Science Museum, where I spent the majority of the rest of the day. They had an entire spaceship area!

This was supposed to be an “optimized human.” It had cat ears, ostrich legs, and a marsupial pouch, among other features. The future is now!

A Mockup of the 2 satellites in the BepiColombo mission. This mission is a joint venture between the ESA (European Space Agency) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), which will launch these satellites to orbit Mercury and gain some new information.
Fun fact: it takes more energy to reach the center of our solar system than to leave the solar system. That’s why we have already launched the Voyager into interstellar space, but we haven’t done too much near the sun.
This is a big undertaking.

Afterward, I went back up to Hyde Park and The Serpentine lake.

In it was this contraption of barrels. I asked one of the employees at a café what it was for, but she had no idea.

I then trekked for quite a while to Abbey Lane (which is not downtown), where The Beatles took the iconic photo. I heard it wasn’t worth checking out, but I went anyway. It really wasn’t worth it.

It’s literally just a crosswalk and completely unremarkable. I even had to double check on Google Maps when I got there to make sure that I was in the right location. I would highly not recommend wasting your time, even if you like The Beatles, which I do.

I wanted to spend some more time in Camden because it seemed like the hip place to be. I wandered into a bar that was doing some live shows, and I had a few beers and danced to some good rock bands.

The next day, I did some browsing in the Camden Market. This rocker was fun to watch.

I went to the British Museum, which was huge. I got some advice to only pick out a couple exhibits and just check those out; otherwise, you would need days to see everything. Taking that advice, I primarily focused on the Ancient Egyptian exhibits, as Ancient Egypt has always fascinated me.

Later, I was just walking around. Surprise! It was the finale of Pride Week, and the streets were packed. I just walked around for a bit and relished in the positive energy.

The next day, I went on a free tour of the city, which was pretty funny. I can’t recall all the facts, but I can guarantee that they were interesting!

They changed the lights at Trafalgar Square many years ago during one of the Pride events. The officials were going to change them back to normal lights after the event ended, but the people petitioned to keep them, and there they remain.

We did a mock play of King Henry VIII and his wives. I was Catherine Parr, so I got to live. Yay!

I didn’t have too much planned after the tour, so I ended up just wandering around with a couple other people from the tour. We ended up in a fancy (and much too expensive) shisha bar, but I had my first experience with one of those fancy toilets that spray you with water and such. It was an interesting experience to say the least.

I took this picture to remind myself of the guy I met on the Underground on my way home. I was in one car, and he and a few friends were in another one. The windows were open, so you could talk between them. In his car, he was dancing around. He saw me and encouraged me to also dance in my car. So I did. And we danced for a bit in our individual cars. He then chatted with me a bit about the city and where we came from (I can’t recall where) before he got off.

And that was my last evening. The next morning, I packed up my things and made my way to the airport and flew back to Germany.

I still didn’t get to see everything I wanted to, although almost everything. The biggest thing I wanted to experience was the Borough Market. By the time I was going to go there, it was on a day it was closed. I also didn’t get around to seeing St. Paul’s Cathedral. I don’t think I will plan another trip just to check out those places, but in case I do end up in London again, I am going to the market!