Excuse me miss, are you in queue?

I am terribly sorry for not updating in a month! I really will try to be more persistent with it.

Last month Maddie found out that her favorite band ever, 'Band of Horses,' were going to be performing in London England. When she asked me if I would like to fly to London for the weekend to see them I thought "well I don't really NEED an excuse to go to London, so i'd have to say yes!" And off we were for a weekend in -what became- my new favorite city.
Early Thursday morning we had to call a taxi to take us to the airport, since the buses don't run at 3am, and we haggled with the taxi driver to take us there for 30euro (he probably would have charged us 50euro otherwise). The driver was crazy! We literally ran three red lights! He was going 90km/hr and never hit the brake once between my apartment and the airport. His idea of 'slowing down' was letting off the gas. I felt like I was apart of Grand Theft Auto. Thankfully we made it to the airport with no crashes and no speeding tickets (which I don't even think they have those here).
After experiencing my first RyanAir flight (very cheap flights that go all throughout Europe, just a little unreliable)  we finally landed in Heathrow Airport. We then took a bus to the train station where we met up with Maddies friend Celine. Celine lives in Norway but went to school with Maddie during their senior year of high school, she had never been to London either so agreed to meet up with us for the weekend. We all then made our way to the hostel...now if you've ever stayed in a hostel you know they are a hit or miss. This one was a miss. But to save Dad and Uncle Don any unnecessary worrying i'm just going to say that it was a very safe place run by nuns :)

After getting a couple maps and figuring out the transportation system we tackled the big sites of London, we saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abby, the London Eye, and of course took cliche tourist pictures with the red phone booths and double-decker buses.
I thought London was a perfect city, everyone was so nice and figuring out the underground transit was not hard at all. Maybe I just loved London so much because it was a nice break having everyone speak english and London actually has signs to tell you where to go (Rome has ZERO road signs) but I think the real reason was because London has Starbucks!

Not tourists at all...

WestMinster Abby

These doors are the main entrance to WestMinster, all bronze and gold (I think)

Parliament 

Double-decker bus

Friday night we headed out to the concert where Band of Horses, CeeLo Green, and Foo Fighters were all performing. It wasn't my usual country music but the Foo Fighters were really good.

Celine, Me and Maddie at the Concert

On Saturday we had lots of things on our to-do list left so we woke up early (yes Dad, BEFORE noon) and were ready to tackle the day. I heard a rumor that there was a mock Platform 9 3/4 made up somewhere in London and really wanted to find it. (For the four people in this world that haven't read Harry Potter, Platform 9 3/4 is the place where Harry has to find his train to get to his school in the first book, it technically doesn't exist to people who aren't wizards so he has a hard time finding it.) Well like the book we also had a hard time finding it. I had to ask a construction guy in the train station where platform nine and three-quarters was and he looked at me like I was an idiot and said "you mean platform 9?" Not wanting to seem anymore touristy than I already did I just said "yeah, 9" and he pointed me in the right direction. We then found platform 9 and platform 10 but still couldn't find platform 9 3/4. Now feeling even more like Harry himself I had to ask another guy if he knew where it was, this time I got somewhere because before I could even ask he just rolled his eyes and pointed saying "it's over there!"

If you're a Harry Potter lover like me you will know the significance of this photo. So excited to find Platform 9 3/4 

After which, we made our way to the Tower of London. The Tower is a historic castle that was founded in 1066 as part of the Norman Conquest of England. The castle was used as a prison as well as a royal residence until the Tudor period. The peak period of the castle's use as a prison was the 16th and 17th centuries, when Elizabeth I before she became queen, was held there. This use has led to the phrase "sent to the tower." Today the Tower holds the crown jewels, armory, and important documents. 

Unfortunately you can't take pictures of the crown jewels but needless to say they were amazing. The most impressive one there was the Royal Scepter which contains the Great Star of Africa, the largest cut diamond in the world, it's 530 carats. The Great Star of Africa was one of the nine diamonds cut from the Cullinan diamond which is the largest raw diamond ever found (3,106 carats). It definitely does not disappoint. 

you're not allowed to take pictures in the safe but I found this one on google, to see it in person was amazing

 Other than the crown jewels the Tower also holds armor and swords of past kings, replicas of their horses, and rooms and rooms of other historical objects, it was definitely worth the 18pounds to get in. 

King Henry VIII's armor and horse's armor 

Swords of England's Kings

Celine and I in front of The Tower of London

My favorite moment in London was when I was waiting in line to get a salad for lunch (I don't like the salads in Italy so I was very excited for this) and this lady tapped me on the shoulder and goes "excuse me miss, are you in queue?" I thought 'queue' was only something on Netflix so I thought it was so funny that Brits actually use it, i'm gonna start saying it now.



And no trip to London is complete without some gaudy souvenirs:

All of England is SO excited for this wedding, there's postcards, mugs, and banners you can buy with their faces on it