I am not normally this much of a worrier.
Am I going to be able to sleep on this plane?
Did I pack enough winter clothes?
Am I sure I budgeted correctly?
Whats the conversion rate again?!
What if they lose my luggage?
Will he like me still?
....Oh yeah, guess I should explain that last one.
You see this was never meant to be a trip about a boy. Really! I promise! I had this big plan of traveling the world and starting it in London. I was ready to venture out to a place nobody knew me. I wanted to be a tourist of all tourists. Museums and Landmarks and making stupid jokes about having tea with the queen!
Then came Ben. He was a friend of a friend, and after one drunken night in Downtown Orlando, him and I inevitably became Facebook friends.
So after a long few months of texting, my trip had sort of morphed into a mixture of my exploring and my hopeless romantic dreams of finding love like in a sickeningly unrealistic Nicholas Sparks novel.
So I set off to the airport for my first adventure with a brand new passport. I was already itching to get my first stamp into the pages (and then many more shortly after)
My first experience on a transcontinental flight was humorously accurate to the fears most people have every time they step onto their plane.
Queue child sitting directly in front of me running through the isle, continuously moving his seat forward and back as if it were an amusement ride, and, of course, screaming the sounds of pterodactyl calls for most of the flight.
To say I didn't get sleep that night would be a gross understatement. My head was pounding and I felt remarkably similar to those mornings after a night out filled with drinking and a crawl into bed at about 4am.
First stop. Starbucks.
After checking into my hotel I hit the ground running...
Considering I had no plan or an idea where anything was in this gorgeously enormous city, I spent my first day just wandering. Walking up and down streets, in and out of museums and trying to understand how on earth to navigate through the Tube. Every now and then I'd end up wandering into a pub for a pint of cider whenever I started to feel lagged again.
At this time I had no plan of ever starting a blog, so I am missing photos of the things that matter most to talk about the wonders of the city of London, as well as, if I'm honest it ended up being a whirlwind of finding love in a foreign land.
We spent almost every single day together while I was there, and Ben ended up being my "tour guide". Although he was quite an awful one. But I didn't care, I was having the time of my life in another country. Being immersed into a group of amazing people, spending my nights drinking pints at the pub and my days just wandering around without any sort of schedule or plan.
It all came to an ending way too fast. 3 weeks that felt more like 3 days.
I hadn't accomplished much of the touristy favorites on this trip, but I had a sneaking idea that this wouldn't be my last time I was going to be in that marvelous city they call London......
Cheers.
