My Brother's Trip to London | February 13th - 22nd

One of the many perks of studying abroad is that it gives your family an excuse to travel to visit you.  Which is exactly what my brother did.  He was here with me for a little longer than a week, and we did a lot of fun stuff.

Tuesday, February 13th:
I was in class when my brother arrived so I met up with him when I could.  He was staying in Camden, so we walked around that area.  We walked through the Camden Market, and then we ate lunch in a pub and then went to another pub...There isn't a whole lot else to do in Camden.  We came back towards my housing and got dinner at Pizza Express.

Wednesday, February 14th:
My Wednesday schedule is a little weird because I have two classes in the morning and then a night class.  So between those, we went to the British History Museum.  This museum is free and ginormous, so we spent a couple hours and still only saw a fraction of the building.  We got lunch at Pret (my favorite) and then went to my school so I could study for my test and my brother could do some work on his laptop.  For dinner, we went to an American diner and then sat at a pub near my housing for a while.

Thursday, February 15th:
I was supposed to have my internship today, but I moved my schedule around so that I would be able to hang out with my brother and we could travel more.  So today we went to The Tower of London for a couple hours.  It was my second time going, but it was fun to see the Crowned Jewels and the museums again.  I also saw some stuff I didn't see the first time.  My favorite thing about The Tower is the Beefeater tours.  Unfortunately, when we got there it was raining so the tour was shorter and inside the chapel, but by the time it was over the sun had come back out.  Once we were finished at The Tower we walked by the water down to Millennium Bridge, which I didn't know but is also across from St. Paul's Cathedral, so we got to see that too.

Friday, February 16th:
Friday started early, but it wasn't a real busy day.  We left for Brussels via the Eurostar in the morning, but once we got there, we hung out in our Airbnb so that my brother could work.  So I got to get some reading in which was really nice.  For dinner, we found a pizza place nearby and then we watched Finding Dory and a few episodes of How I Met Your Mother.

Saturday, February 17th:
We spent all of Saturday on a day trip to Ghent and Bruges, which we bought online.  These types of tours can be a little expensive, but I love them because you get to see a part of a country you may not have gotten to see otherwise and there's a tour guide to give you some history.  In these two places, there were mostly churches to see, but it was a fun day.

Sunday, February 18th:
We took our time getting up and out of our Airbnb Sunday morning.  But when we did leave we went and got Belgian Waffles (Because how could we not?) and some homemade Belgian Chocolate (Again, how could we not?).  Then we went to the Atomium which is a massive structure.  We thought about going inside it, but we weren't sure if our backpacks would fit in the lockers and we only had a limited time before having to go to the train station.  So we got to the station early, ate some cake and then made our way back to London.  We were both tired from traveling, so it was an early night.

Monday, February 19th:
Our morning consisted of screen time where I worked on my Blog, and my brother worked on a work project.  However, we did go to Sky Garden and hung out there for a while.  This was my second time at Sky Garden, and I think it's a great place to go with people because on a nice day you can see so much and it's free!  Who doesn't love that?  From there we went to Emirates Stadium to get a scarf for a friend back home.  It was a more chilled out day than the other's, but still fun.

 

Tuesday, February 20th:
From a low key day to a jam-packed one!  Today we went to Warner Brothers Studios and saw all things, Harry Potter.  It is such a cool place!  I know I talked about it in my 1 Month Update post, but I just can't get over how amazing it is!  When we got back, we walked around to see Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Big Ben (Kinda, it's currently covered in scaffolding), and Westminster Abbey.  We didn't really do anything at these sights, just looked and then kept walking, but I felt my brother couldn't come all the way to London and not see these things.

 

Wednesday, February 21st:
Back home I babysit for a family that lived in Scotland for eight years, and one of their friends lives outside of London, so he offered to show us around Beaconsfield and Oxford.  Along with the colleges in Oxford, we got to see Blenheim Palace and Cliveden House.  It was really nice to have someone to show us around an area we never would have gone to otherwise.  Kind of like the tour of Ghent and Bruges, but more personal since it was just us and someone who we could also talk about home with.  It was a long, fun day.

Thursday, February 22nd:
I actually had to go to my internship at 9:45am and my brother had to make his way to the airport so we only had time to get a quick breakfast at Costa before splitting up.  It was really nice to get to spend time with him and show him around where I've been for two months.