S11 London Independent Travel

London: The Nick Fimek Story

The first weekend in Harlaxton everybody goes to London but I never booked the school trip because I am a bit of a procrastinator. I have already been to London a couple times before that so I figured I would be able to save some money and just do the trip independently, which after some thought was the right choice for me. So after some last minute planning I booked a train ticket, a hostel and was all set for a good weekend. I left for the train station after classes with my roommate and was excited for the upcoming weekend.

It turned out our hostel was in a rich neighborhood right next to Kensington Palace, which was surprising to me because I just picked the cheapest available hostel. I really liked the neighborhood, I felt comfortable and when I told locals I was staying in that area I got a ton of style points. As much as I wanted to look around for hours it was already late at that point and we just wandered around the neighborhood. There weren’t many tourists and we decided to stop at a few pubs before calling it a night.

The next day we hopped on the Tube and headed towards the British National Museum. The museum was massive and I would really recommend it for anyone, and it’s free. I am not a huge museum fan but this one was great, it had the Rosetta stone, mummies and tons of other artifacts from around the world. It would be easy to spend an entire day there and we spent most of our day there. After spending so much time in the museum we decided to just wander around the neighborhood and the nearby universities. It was fun wandering around and getting lost, London is a great city to just walk around with no plan. After a full day we met up with some other Harlaxton students and wandered around the pubs in the area before retiring to our hostel.

Our second day in London was a ton of fun also. The first thing we did when we woke up was head straight to Camden, which is an awesome neighborhood. Because Camden is kind of the hip, counterculture neighborhood in London people watching is a blast. We stopped off at the famous Camden market but I think it was more enjoyable to just to wander in and out of the old record stores in the area where all the locals hung out. I had a blast just meandering around Camden, talking to the people and looking at some of the outrageous things they were selling. Because it was such a nice night we headed to Westminster to see Parliament and just look around. Both of us had already seen that whole area on our previous visits so we weren’t too inclined to go in the actual building and look around. We ended up just sitting on a ledge next to Parliament facing the River Thames and just relaxed until the area was dark. Knowing it was our last night in London we opted to head back to Camden to check out the nightlife, definitely worth it. After an eventful day we both fell asleep instantly at the hostel.

I really enjoyed my time in London and it is a great city to handle with little experience. London is so tourist friendly; pretty much anyone can have a great time without a lot of problems. The train ride back was a bit of a hassle, turns out they get really mad if you get on an earlier train than the one you bought the ticket for, but despite the best efforts of the conductor I made it back to Harlaxton. London was great; I saw some great sights and met some cool people, after that weekend I can’t wait for my next trip to London.

by Nick Fimek