My final destination for my Europe adventure was London. I stayed there for five days. Unfortunately, I got a terrible cold towards the end of it, so there will only be one post on London. During my time there, I stayed at St. George's Hotel near the Wembley Stadium. It's a bit out of the way from London, but it only took about 30 mins each way on the tube? I honestly didn't mind, since me and my friend weren't ones for crowds. There's also the London Design Outlet right next to our hotel, which we made many trips to for food and convenience. Cafe Nero was a daily stop for me =) Their brownies are delicious!

Wembley Stadium from the station

I had flown into Heathrow from Paris. Since I didn't rent any pocket wifi this time, I opted for a taxi service from one of the airport vendors. It was pretty pricy and wouldn't recommend even buying the round trip deal, as you can find something cheaper anyways.

On my first day there, we immediately set forth and went to the main tourist attractions in London. We started off at Piccadilly Circus, and then headed straight to have an English Breakfast for the first time.

Iconic - but literally just a bunch of billboard signs lol
Cute Honey Jar at the breakfast place

We then headed to Westminster Abbey. Afterwards, we walked along the road to see the Big Ben. I was surprised to see how close together things where. Things I thought would take more time, took us less than a day to finish!

Westminster Abbey

St. Margaret's church next to the Abbey

Big Ben

London Eye

After the Big Ben, we headed over to see Buckingham Palace.

In front of the Palace

 The Guards

Queen Victoria's Memorial

Throughout Westminster you also see these lamppost with the Chanel logo on it. My friend said that back in the day the Duke of Westminster was in love with Coco Chanel, and put her logo on the lampposts to impress her. I don't think it worked out for him lol but atleast it left a lasting impression?  
Chanel Logo on lampposts

 After this we went to Chinatown to have some lunch. Chinatown in London is pretty small compared to the ones in the states. It's only a couple small streets big. We had lunch bite at my friend's favorite Jianbing place. I forgot the name, but if you see the sign below, you'll know where when you walk by the shop. The lady that works there is very nice, and since I had it more than 3 times when I was there, she recognized me at the end haha!

Meat bun sign because I forgot to take a pic of the Jian Bing Sign

We then headed to check out the National Gallery. I was surprised to find out it was free! Which is amazing and not something a lot of places do. There was some great art in the gallery, but my favorite takes the cake below!

Inside the gallery

My favorite piece lolol!

Outside the Gallery

Our last stop for the first day was the Moomin Shop! We stopped by the location in Covent Garden. I'm a huge fan of the cartoon since I was a little girl, and ended up buying some themed mugs theres. As a Moomin fan, I was satisfied.

Art at the Moomin Shop

On our second day, we started off late with lunch at Jaime's Italian in Covent Garden. The pasta was a bit undercooked in my opinion.

Pasta Dish at Jamie's

We then went and checked out my friend's former campus at LSE nearby. That's when things turned a note during the trip. I, for one, had caught a nasty cold from not wearing enough layers in Iceland. It finally caught up to me on the second day to London. My friend also ended not feeling well, so during mid-trip to Oxford Street, we basically had to call a cab and head back home. We stayed in for the rest of the day and ordered room service from our hotel. St. George's actually has great food and wasn't badly priced. Plus, we didn't have to tip on our orders either, and the staff their is so friendly. Their risotto was bomb!

Risotto from the Hotel

Sadly, my friend actually had to leave the next day, so I was alone for the remainder of my trip. Determined not to waste any of my time there, I took short day trips for the rest of the three days in order not to miss out. I didn't take much pictures on the remaining days :(

On one of the days, I checked out the Natural History Museum. It was full of kids, but still worth it. The exterior of the museum was beautiful.




The fourth day I checked out Camden Market. I didn't really know how to navigate the market, so the only picture I have from this outing is this tea place I went for lunch. Overall, they have lots of cute stands. I saw one guy had his own hand-crafted Cambridge styled satchels for about 90 pounds. Now that was one item I regretted not buying!


Always with my matcha latte and a smoked salmon sandwich!

The last day I went for a stroll through St. James Park. I was really impressed - it is a very well maintained beautiful public park. Whoever gets to run there every morning is super lucky.



My favorite view of the park

I ended my trip with one final outing to the Jian bing place in Chinatown, along with some Roasted Milk Tea at Chatime (which by the way? Chatime London? A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Chatime USA? Not so much lol). Also, I have to do one more plug for how amazing St. George's hotel is, their cab service to Gatwick was around $60~? The staff was A+ for preparing the ride too. Would definitely stay there again.

Although I didn't quite have the London experience I was looking for, I really enjoyed London during my time there. I felt very comfortable there and it was extremely easy to navigate. I'll be back next time to check out a lot more places like Brighton, Cardiff, and Bath in the future. Thanks for making a lasting impression on me London. :)

Tip: Since this was my first Europe trip, I learnt if you travel within Europe, you can only apply for your VAT refund at your final destination. Most items you can get an instant refund, but some items require mail-in. My LV purchase in Paris didn't process for a couple weeks, but it worked out alright.