Last weekend me and a few friends took a trip to London for a couple days and quite an experience. We left right after work on Friday and got to our hostel in London right after midnight. The hostel was a very interesting experience considering there were only 5 of us in what could only be described as a summer camp room. There were 5 bunk beds, so we were sharing the room with 5 strangers. I have never stayed in a place like that before but everyone was very nice and it ended up working out very well! The first day we hit all the biggest tourist spots in London, and when we arrived at Buckingham palace there were tons of people everywhere and it turned out that there was a parade for the queen that day which was a very fun coincidence for us! After we walked all around and rode the London Eye (my very first ferris wheel), we ended up going to see Kinky Boots on what is essentially London’s Broadway and it was one of the best musicals I have ever been too (and the discounted tickets were pretty great too). Overall it was a great weekend but by the time we all got back to Dublin it was past 1 o’clock in the morning and I was (as the British would say) absolutely knackered.

As much as I liked London, it made me like Dublin even more. It was so hot the weekend we were there, and as much as I liked wearing shorts, I prefer the cooler weather in Ireland much more. Also, things in London were much more fast paced and stressful. It’s such a big city, I don’t think I would be able to ever really feel settled in a place of that size. One of my favorite parts of Dublin, and a big reason that I choose it was because of how welcoming everyone is, and also that it is a smaller, much more manageable city. I get stopped all the time by people asking for directions, and recently I’ve actually been able to answer peoples question and point them in the right direction. I have plans to travel to a few other places before I head home in August and I hope those trips go as well as London did!