LONDON PART I

LONDON, PART I:

Day One:After 7 months of waiting and 31 odd hours of travelling we finally made it to our first stop, London!The generous amount of daylight hours meant we were up at 4.30am but Trent had, had a handful of valium for the flights, and I can sleep anywhere, so we were well rested and ready to go! We spent the morning picking up Trent's visa, setting him up a bank account and meeting with an agent who will place him in a school in London in September. In the afternoon, we just wandered through the city, visiting Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, St James’s Park, Green Park and Trafalgar Square.

Day Two:Trent had an interview with a school today so we travelled to Oxford Street to find him something appropriate to wear then travelled to the school in West Acton. The school was a no go. We travelled back into the City and visited Saint Paul’s Cathedral, the Museum of London and half of the British Museum (Trent was well museumed out within the first 20minutes of our first museum so when we’re back in September I’ll do them again alone). My favourite quote from him today was 'Once you've seen one plate through glass, you've seen them all.'. We had dinner at a restaurant called Leon’s on Oxford Street, grilled halloumi wraps and baked fries- definitely recommend both! On our way home our train stopped right in-front of some friends from Coffs Trent was going to be meeting in Pamplona! So we got off to have a drink and celebrate the chance encounter!

Day Three:This morning we spent the morning arguing over how to get to Spain last minute for San Fermin. Eventually we both gave up on even going to Spain and headed out. We visited the Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.  We had lunch at ‘EAT’, a chain store you can find all over London- definitely recommend. Following lunch we went the the Museum of Natural History. AMAZING. So much to see and do! This was the first museum Trent enjoyed on account of all the interactive exhibits (he went on the earthquake simulator twice). We couldn't get through it all due to time constraints but I'm definitely keen to come back in September! For dinner we went to ‘abokado’, near the Tower of London after 5pm its 1/3 off- so perfect for us! We also got free frozen yoghurt! Definitely returning here! After dinner we went on a Jack the Ripper tour through East London. You pay how much you think the tour is worth, and we would've given more if we had it to spare, super interesting.

Day Four:We pre-booked a car through Europcar for our Bath and Stonehenge road trip in hope of being able to hit the road early and beat the crowds to Stonehenge. Didn't work out so easily, but we eventually set off. Because we don’t have access to the web on our phones I had googled step-by-step directions from each stop to the next. This worked out for our Stonehenge to Bath trip and with our Bath back to Europcar, however getting to Stonehenge wasn’t as simple as reading the directions. We got super lost and ended up following a long line of cars we for some reason assumed were all going to Stonehenge. They weren't. Eventually we found signs and made it to Stonehenge. I loved it, but Trent's perspective was more 'There's only so long you can look at rocks that don't move'. It is expensive(17pounds each!) and we noticed people parking their cars outside the official site and walking through a paddock to view from a distance which is sort of a good idea, although I’m happy we paid to enter the official site. You’re still a long distance from the actual thing but it is still so impressive. From Stonehenge we drove to Bath. On the side of the road there's people selling strawberries and cherries so we stopped for snacks. Bath is AMAZING. However, parking was crazy expensive and we only had enough coins on for one hour of parking so we more or less ran through the town seeing as much as we can. We decided to skip the actual Roman bath house this time as the entry fee was pricey and we didn’t feel like we could justify it for only 40-50minutes. We're thinking we will come for a weekend when Trent's teaching.

Day Five:We left our hostel at 5am to catch our over-priced, last-minute, bigger than Ben Hur, flight to Spain.  We met some really nice Australian boys from Newcastle on their way to Pamplona for San Fermin. After arriving at Barajas airport, we went to board the next train to San Sebastian. Full. So we got stuck on a bus for 5.5hours which got us to our accommodation at around 11.30pm that night. But we made it! 

TIPS:
GET AN OYSTER CARD! We both purchased Oyster cards after our first tube trip. The tube is crazy convenient and easy to understand (if you can read maps, which I can’t, so it was lucky for Trent), and you’re capped at a daily amount of hardly anything so you can ride that rail as much as you like! 
THERE'S ONLY SO MUCH 'WINGING' IT YOU CAN DO! Everyone says it and I can’t stress this one enough. Trent was adamant about 'winging' the entire trip which is a nice idea but highly impractical during the European summer. We spent way more time and money than we should have on transport. We're now spending time early on booking in transport and accommodation to ensure we don't end of spending days stressing over it. 
COUPLES DON’T BELONG IN 8-BED DORMS! Or at least they don’t for 5 days. We shared our room with 5 guys and one less than hygienic female. If you can avoid it, don’t do it. We've not opted for Air BnB.