Okay, this is a lonnngggg time coming, but I’m finally sharing my photos from my trip last spring! In May 2019 I travelled to Europe to visit my friend Danika (she’s a super talented potter btw), and we travelled to London, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Paris. If you follow my personal Instagram account you might have seen a small handful photos that I’ve posted, but I took A LOT of photos and there’s no way I’ll ever get around to posting all of them on Insta. So here’s the first of four blog posts dedicated to my trip!
This post is a little different for me; it isn’t all going to be “artsy travel photos” so much as a way for me to document the memories of an unforgettable trip.
Day 1
I landed in London at 9:30am after getting (maybe) 2 hours of sleep on the plane. We checked into our hostel and then immediately began sightseeing! We went to a place called Boxpark which is basically a bunch of shipping containers that have been turned into stores and restaurants (we got donuts). Then we got tons of pastries from Beigel Bake, we didn’t get bagels but that’s the only picture I got from there.
And then, the fire! It was midnight, I was fast asleep, and then the fire alarm started. We were on the fourth floor and everyone was super confused, but we quickly grabbed the bag with our passports and wallets. On the way out we heard someone say “the alarm went off last night too and it was nothing!” LOL we could smell smoke, definitely not “nothing.” By 2am we found a new hostel (one that didn’t catch fire!). We found out the next day that it was the building next door that had the fire and the smoke just traveled through.
Day 2
Day 2 started with emails and phone calls to see when we could pick up our stuff from the hostel. And since we didn’t want to waste the day waiting around, we went out for breakfast in our pjs and then walked to the closest mall we could find so that we could change. We found the cutest little chocolate shop (everything was pink!). After we picked up our garbage bags of clothes that smelled of smoke, we went to see Tower Bridge and The Tower of London.
Up next: Notting Hill! Any one else a fan of the movie?? I’ve probably seen it a hundred times, so there was no way I could go to London and not go to Notting Hill! And it was just like the movie. On our way back to the bus we too a little detour to walk through Kensington Gardens and caught a glimpse of Kensington Palace (no, William and Kate weren't home)
Danika had her heart set on seeing the domino wall in Paul Smith - the room is literally floor to ceiling dominos. We waked past a ton of designer store (Alexander McQueen, Tiffany and Co, Givenchy, Dior, the list goes on and on…). We ended the day at Sketch, an incredible restaurant that we were totally not dressed for; I can still hear Danika saying “it’s fine, just act like you’re the best dressed one in here!” I wasn’t able to take a ton of photos but do yourself a favour and Google Sketch London. We sat at the bar in “The Gallery” which is also know as the pink room. SO. NICE.
Day 3
Another jam packed day! On our way to The London Eye we stopped at a bakery called Gail’s, which we only went into because that’s my mom’s name, but it was so good! From the Eye we had an amazing view of the city. It was overcast and drizzling, the photos didn't really turn out great, but it was still so fun.
Next up: Van Gogh exhibit at Tate Britain! I saw so many paintings I hadn’t seen before and also a lot of paintings from artists who were inspired by Van Gogh. We didn’t stay to look around the whole gallery, but we stopped to see the abstract art and the JMW Turner collection. And the photos totally do not do justice!
If you’re not an art fan, you might just want to skip down to day 4 lol
This was a very art-filled day! After Tate, we stopped at Danika’s favourite juice place, did a little more wandering, and then went to The British Museum to see the Edvard Munch exhibit, Love and Angst. Any of my art school friends can tell you that I love The Scream (it inspired many of my projects at NBCCD). They didn’t have the original on display, but they did have the lithograph, as well as earlier versions of the painting and a photo of the place that inspired it. I learned a ton about Munch’s life and how greatly his work varied (paintings, lithographs, woodblocks, etchings). Here’s a few of my favs!
Day 4
Which was actually day 16 of my trip, aka the last day of my trip. After Scotland and France, we came back to London for one day before heading back home.
We stopped at Kate Spade and Ladurée in St Pancras Station, we did a ton of wandering around the city which included King’s Cross Station to see Platform 9¾, Camden Market, Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, and finally walking down streets that had shops that were covered in flowers.
And that’s all for London! I hope you enjoyed the scroll through my camera roll :)
Next week. Edinburgh!