A Royal Spring Break
While all my college buddies were Spring Break-ing in the Bahamas, I had some other plans. Some girlies from home (Kara, Molly & Steph) and our good friend AJ, hopped on a cheap flight to London. This video isn’t even a good representation of our time there but I, unfortunately, lost most of the footage when my old laptop shit the bed so I had to work with what I had. I also didn’t have a GoPro at this point. Although I don’t have the best videos to remember our trip by, we all left London with tattoos as a permanent tribute to our “royal spring break”!
With no beach in sight, we did not spend our days lounging on the sand drinking frozen drinks. The weather doesn’t call for activities like that.. Our time was filled with running around the city to catch a glimpse of all London’s highlights. We made this a moderately inexpensive vacation by choosing to stay in a very basic hostel, taking advantage of free tours and using public transportation. We ate the fish and chips at local pubs, shopped around at the vintage markets & drank a few pints before drunkenly dancing to the live street performers.
We took advantage of a couple free walking tours that pointed us in the right direction for hot spots to hit up for nightlife and great shopping. We found ourselves at a place called the Zoo one night, a club in Leicester Square with several rooms bumping different kinds of music. Things got a little wild there as you can see from the video.. We took a beautiful bike ride through Hyde Park and the Kensington Gardens to get some exercise in. To save some money, we skipped the London Eye but got a nice view of the city on top of the Shard, in the Shangri-La Hotel. To be honest, I have no regrets about doing that.
It was here in London that I checked off some boxes on the bucket list: I tried pho for the first time at this dank gourmet Asian restaurant (who knew, fast forward 3 years and I’d be eating it every day for breakfast) and, also had my first speak easy experience. After a quick Google search, we showed up in front of a door in some dark alley in SoHo that had no advertising leading us to believe this was the speak easy Milk and Honey. We walked inside to a small room where they asked us how many people were in our party and took our coats. We walked down a hallway where we were taken to be sat sat in what seemed like a dungeon. The place was giving off mysterious, sexy vibes with the lights dimmed low - pretty much lit up by only candles. We treated ourselves to a nice charcuterie board and a few quality cocktails - no vodka soda’s here. Fancy night it was.
Everyday was an adventure, especially the day we took the wrong train to get to Abbey Road. When we finally got there, we had to get that iconic picture walking across the street, obviously. Not really sure how we ended up getting tattoos but we totally sent it! Two of us girls got “Ob La Di” and the other two got “Ob La Da” in dainty cursive writing somewhere on our wrists. (Which if you’re not familiar with that phrase, you’re not a true Beatles fan). These little song lyrics are a great reminder that LIFE GOES ON and is something to always remember our trip by. AJ got something a little more detailed & definitely more ballsy: “Made in the USA” — In England.. can you imagine that? Love you AJ.
So0o we didn’t meet the queen or more importantly, Prince Harry, but we had a bloody good time! I was satisfied with my last Spring Break of my college career having nothing to do with a beach or fruity drinks. 10/10 recommend.
