On Saturday night, a group of us did the Camden Pub Crawl. The crawl consisted of 4 pubs and bars and one club, called Proud, to end the evening. Each pub had a completely different vibe; one played exclusively music from movie soundtracks, another was a more traditional English pub, another very heavy on electronic music and strobe lights. The club, called Proud, is located in a former horse stable and barn. It was a pretty interesting experience, as was our trek home from Camden. Margaret and I decided we should leave the club fairly early since we knew we’d be up early Sunday morning, so we headed out in search of the correct bus stop. Neither of us had ever been to Camden before and it has a completely different vibe from the rest of London that we had seen. As we walked along freezing and looking for bus stop KW we realized should’ve known Camden was a different place when we boarded the bus to the pub crawl – it was the first non-double decker we had been on. With frozen limbs, we made it on the last bus of the night back home.
Sunday morning Margaret and I rose early and took the tube to Paddington station. It was cold. Very cold, and very windy. We arrived in Windsor by 10:15 in the morning. After a brief look around the town we headed right to castle, in part just so that we could escape the wind. We took a tour through the state apartments, grand halls, and the grounds of the giant, almost 1000-year old structure. The castle is home to so much history, and is also a frequent weekend escape for the Queen of England.
We learned a lot about the history of the castle itself, as well as the stories of the royals who resided there over the years. We saw portraits, dish ware, furniture, and weaponry dating from the castles early years all the way up to the present.
While we didn’t bump into the Queen herself, we enjoyed imagining what she does while she spends her time in Windsor. We also wondered if little Prince George realizes that all of this is his. What a life, huh?
After our tour of the castle, the wind blew us right back down into Windsor and we found a place to sit and eat our homemade lunch (trying to save money in any way possible). We devoured our sandwiches and sipped on coffees from McDonalds (another cost-efficient choice), then braved the cold to check out the rest of the town. It is a really nice town with lots of souvenir shops and restaurants lining the streets. Situated right on the Thames, the town also has many river tour boats that are kept busy during the warmer months.
Margaret and I made our way deeper into the town and stopped into a little stationary shop and bought some postcards and cute little cards for family and friends. We window shopped for a while and admired lovely, intricate cakes and pastries in charming bakery windows. Suddenly we found ourselves at the door of a beautiful church, and we realized that we had walked onto Eton College’s campus. The buildings were all very old and very grand, especially the church and the school’s library.
We decided that although we had been enjoying our day outside of London, it was time to get out of the cold and head back home. A short train ride later we were back at Paddington station by late afternoon and hopped right on the tube to Islington. Exhausted and sick of being exposed to the wind, we practically ran to our flat. You could say we were pretty winded. Pretty soon we were bundled up and waiting for Kaitlin to return from Amsterdam.
Next on the agenda – week two of classes and more adventures around London!
What A Girl Wants 