If My Friends are on Spring Break, Does that Mean that I'm Still on Spring Break? (Asking for a

I arrived home from Spring Break around 10am on Sunday morning and by 1pm, Erin was there and despite my exhaustion from the traveling, I couldn’t be more excited. Once Erin arrived, we got her situated before I walked her around Shepard’s Bush and to Westfield mall to help her fight the jetlag that she would soon be facing. We grabbed a quick snack before we came home and Erin started to slump. She napped for two hours while I did some homework that I needed to finish.

On Sunday night, despite the rain, we went to Skygardens. Skygardens is located at the top of the “Walkie Talkie” building and is a free ticket that allows people to get one of the best views of the city. We had planned to go around sunset, but because of the rain and the fact that London is London, we didn’t get to see the sunset, but it was still beautiful to see the city shift into lighting up at night.

After an hour in Skygardens, we headed home and stopped by the local kebab shop that is just a block or so from my flat to grab dinner. We also stopped at Sainsbury’s where Erin made her first legal alcohol purchase of wine!

Later that night, Ryan Hannon, who had arrived earlier that day but had spent the day with his family in London, arrived. We all talked for a bit, catching up with each other and allowing Erin and Ryan to meet Billy and our other two flat mates, Emilia and Colleen. Everyone was evidently tired; Ryan and Erin from the traveling and jetlag and my flat mates and I from the non-stop traveling that we had done on Spring Break.

On Monday morning, I watched Fishtank which was probably the first movie that I genuinely didn’t like that we watched in class. The movie was directed by Andrea Arnold and was about a 15 year old girl named Mia who is on the verge of being kicked out of school and has a neglectful mother who focuses more on partying and her new boyfriend. The concept of the movie was interesting and predictable and something about the way it was filmed just didn’t grab my interest like all the other films did previously.

After class, I went back to my flat because Tim had just arrived and I needed to let him in, but had to quickly run back to CAPA because I had my internship class which is still a waste of my time. I will never stop believing that it is.

After class, everyone went to Zippy’s. Zippy’s is this cute little diner that is close to the kebab place we typically eat at. We’ve been meaning to go to Zippy’s because the food is so cheap and the restaurant is cute and family owned. The woman who served us was such a grandmother and there is no other way to describe her. She made sure we had everything that we needed to the fullest extent and had us all in smiles.

My boss kindly gave me off on Tuesday once she heard that my friends would be in the area, which meant that I was able to drag them around central London so they could see the touristy things. This was actually Erin and Tim’s first time out of America so everything they were seeing was new to them. Ryan has family in London, so he had seen everything time and time again.

To make the day even better, it wasn’t even a typical London day; the sun was actually out and the weather was beautiful.

The first stop of our tourist day was the Southbank which is where the London Eye is located. Unfortunately, we didn’t ride it because the line was long and the tickets were extremely expensive. From there, we got pictures with Big Ben before walking over the bridge and witnessing a protest-taking place outside of Parliament.

The next stop was Buckingham Palace. To get to Buckingham Palace, we walked through St. James Park just to take advantage of the nice weather. The Queen wasn’t home sadly.

From there, we walked towards the Tower Bridge. Most of this walk consisted of us walking along the Thames River. However, on our walk we passed the Globe Theater, the Millennium Bridge (which the Harry Potter fans enjoyed), the Tate Modern museum and walked under the actual London Bridge.

Finally, we took the tube home from the Tower Bridge because we were doing a pub-crawl later that night. We all ate our dinners, which consisted of kebabs and pasta before making our way to Camden for the pub-crawl.

We started at Belushi’s in Camden and then made our way to the second bar where we had a cute Australian bartender with a personality that was bouncing off the walls. Needless to say that Emilia and I fell in love with him almost immediately. At the second bar, we also met a few other people who were on our pub-crawl, including a very large and very tall man named Lachtie who had stories about his travels and was just an all around funny guy.

We left during our time at the fourth bar because it was a school night, but also because we didn’t want to miss the tube and have to deal with night bus because from what we’ve heard, night bus is the worst thing that has ever been invented.

Wednesday was not that exciting of a day. I went to work, like I usually do on Wednesdays and just spent the entire day working on the branding toolkit project that I’ve been working on for a while. I also worked on updating the website to make sure that everything was up to par.

However, Ryan’s last day was Wednesday because he was leaving early Thursday morning, so we just relaxed in the flat and drank some wine.

Thursday was my day of non-stop class, which meant that I didn’t see my friends until later that night. However, on Thursday morning, Will and Chris McCann, who are two of Rose’s very good friends from home arrived for their spring break because they would be staying with us too.

(Honestly god bless Emilia and Colleen for letting us double the amount of people staying in our flat for two weeks).

That night, we all went to Sindercombe down the street for a few drinks before we returned home for a generally early night because we needed to pack for Paris the next morning.

Just because we love early mornings, we booked a 5:40am train from London to Paris! We all woke up at 4:00, dragging ourselves out of bed and getting in the ubers to King’s Cross. We went through security and waited to get onto the train where we all slept for most of the three-hour trip, which was good because we definitely needed sleep after waking up extremely early.

When we arrived in Paris, we went directly to see some of Chris McCann's French family members who were gracious enough to feed us a breakfast of croissants, baguettes and homemade jam, just to name a few. They recommended a few places that we visit and a few areas to eat food before we made our way to our AirBnB so that we could drop off our bags.

Our AirBnB was located a little outside of the city center, but was perfect. It was in a little gated off part just a 20 minute walk from the Louvre. The little closed off alley that it was located in was quiet, colorful and decorated by a plethora of plants.

After checking into our AirBnB, we walked around and stopped at a little bakery to grab some fresh baked bread and croissants for lunch that we could easily eat on the go.

We got onto the tube and made our way to the Arc De Triomphe. Some of us walked towards the little strip in the center of the street to grab a few pictures before making our way to the sidewalk to take pictures in a safer environment.

From there, we took a walk to the Eiffel Tower and we were lucky that it was such a beautiful day. Here, in front of the Eiffel tower, Rose and I ate the best croissants ever. They changed our lives and I'm still not sure if it was for the best or the worst.

Afterwards, we grabbed a quick bite to eat before making our way to the Louvre. We waited until after 6pm because on Fridays, people under the age of 26 get into the Louvre for free as long as they have a valid I.D.

However, only having a few hours in the Louvre limits a lot of what you can see. We made sure to see the Mona Lisa and a few other major pieces in the museum including the Venus de Milo and Winged Victory of Samothrace, just to name a few.

Afterwards, we decided to go back to the Eiffel Tower to get in line so that we could go to the top. However, after waiting an hour in line and making it to the front, tickets to the top sold out. We were disappointed, but talked to the people in the ticket booth who recommended that we get in line by 8pm the next night to ensure that we made it to the top.

We slept in the next morning before starting our day with a short walk to Sainte-Chapelle which has one of the most extensive 13th-century stained glass collections anywhere in the world and it was quite evident from the moment we entered the second floor. It was a beautiful, sunny day outside which ensured that we were really able to see all the stained glass in its true glory. The colors were vibrant and the church still had old paintings along the walls.

From there, we walked to Notre Dame which was just around the corner from Sainte-Chapelle. We waited in a short line before we were able to get inside the church and get a good look of its contents. It was beautiful inside, but once again couldn't compare to some of the beautiful churches that we had seen recently.

After about 15 minutes inside, we walked back outside and stood in line for about an hour because wanted to walk to the top. While in line, we took turns grabbing crepes from street vendors, making sure that we were fueled up for the 400 steps that we were about to walk.

Let me tell you, although we all hated walking up those steps in the moment, the view was definitely worth it and it was probably the favorite part of the day for a lot of us.

However, after the walk up the stairs we were tired and hungry. Luckily, we happened to be by the ice cream place that my dad claims "has the best ice cream that he's ever had in his entire life" and told Erin that she had to go to while she was in Paris.

We walked across the bridge and there was Berthillon. Since it was located directly next to the bridge, we decided to sit down and eat our ice cream next to the canal area before we started our walk home.

On our way home, we stopped at a convience store because, to be up front about it, we were in France and we wanted cheese and wine. We purchased five different cheeses, two different wines and a few baguettes and feasted on what France had to offer for a late lunch/early dinner.

Shortly after, we made our way back to the Eiffel Tower because this was the last chance we would have to go up to the top at night and we weren't going to have a repeat of the previous night.

We were there by 8pm and waited in line for a hour, a little anxious that we wouldn't make it to the top regardless because the line was longer than it the previous night's.

Luckily, we were all able to get tickets to the summit and enjoyed yet another beautiful view in Paris.

Afterwards, we headed back home to enjoy some wine before taking a late night walk around our cute area and getting Erin's last meal of spring break because she was leaving early the next morning to go back to Pittsburgh. Obviously since we were in France, her last meal HAD to be a crepe.

Our check out time from the AirBnB was 11am the next day so we work up the next morning, packed our bags and went to eat a real meal where we actually sit dow. We ate at a cute little cafe that was close to Notre Dame before we hopped on the tube to get to Pere Lachaise Cemetery which is where Oscar Wilde and Jim Morrison are buried (just to name a few).

From there, we hopped on yet another tube and made our way to the base of Sacre - Coeur. We walked up to the church and to the little area behind where we ate some amazing ice cream, did some souvenir shopping, viewed some beautiful artwork and listened to some street performers.

We didn't have much time to do anything else because we had a train to catch back to London that night. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful so we just spent the rest of our time in Paris watching the sunset.

The Monday after getting back from Paris was just depressing. All my friends had left and plus, I am getting extremely tired of the normal cycle of school and work. I just want to go out and explore London but having classes and work every day can really limit the time you have to explore.

We watched the movie This is England in class on Monday morning. I found this movie quite enjoyable. I thought I wasn’t going to like it because I didn’t really like the first few scenes, but by the end I had managed to understand almost every character. The movie also had a few twists and turns and left a lot for interpretation which made the after movie discussion quite interesting.

Tuesday I worked in the office all day on a research report on perpetrator programs around the world and how effective they are and what makes them that effective. Nothing too exciting otherwise.

Tuesday night we had dinner at Ice Wharf in Camden with McCann and Will. Ice Wharf has these amazing cocktail pitchers and the food wasn’t half bad either.

Wednesday was just another day of working on research for work and putting some final touches on a group project that I had to present the next day.

Thursday morning I had a field trip in my advertising class to the Museum of Brands and Advertising. I actually found it quite interesting following British pop culture and advertising through the years. They had everything from the early 1900s to more recent times (including a One Direction section). We could see the evolution of bottle shapes and sizes for some of our favorite products. There were also collectables of other British pop culture icons such as the Spice Girls.

The class was shorter though, so I ran home and hung out with Will and McCann before I returned to CAPA for my international marketing class where we had a presentation.

Emily and Rose met me at CAPA where we left for the airport because we were going to Ireland for Saint Patrick’s Day weekend. We flew out of Heathrow around 8:45pm and arrived in Ireland around 10pm. The airport was already decked out in balloons and green for St. Patrick’s Day.

After we checked into our hostel, we walked around Dublin where it seemed that people had already started to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. As we walked around, we scoped out places where we could buy some green gear for the parade the next morning and grabbed a quick bite to eat before calling it a night because we knew that it was going to be a long weekend.

Friday morning, we woke up early and ate the free hostel breaksfast before going to Carroll’s on Grafton Street (this street is mentioned in Ed Sheeran’s song Galway Girl so that’s exciting!!!). Carroll’s is the ultimate Irish gift shop and there was one on almost every street so it was simple for us to find all of our St. Patrick’s Day needs.

We arrived on Dame Street around 10:45 to get our front row spot for the parade. The parade was a lot different than I thought that it would be, but featured extravagant costumes, floats and a good portion celebrating 200 years of bikes. I’m glad I did the parade portion once, but I don’t think I’d ever to the parade again.

After the parade, we grabbed a quick bite to eat before running back to the hostel to get another layer because it had rained during the parade and we were all wet.

Then, we decided to celebrate St. Patrick's Day the way that the Irish do; with a drink! We went to a few different pubs, even stopping outside Temple Bar for some pictures and staying in the area for the rest of the day/night.

All the pubs had live music (most of them had cover bands playing popular hits) and were packed due to the large volume of people who were out for the day.

The most surprising thing about St. Patrick's Day in Ireland was although people are legal to drink at 18, there were some bars who were still 20+ or even 21+. Temple Bar happened to be one of them.

Because we booked our trip to Ireland through a student travel program (strictly because of the fact that St. Patrick’s Day weekend is insane and already too expensive), we had our Saturday planned for us. The day consisted of a bus from Dublin to Howth, which was a cute little fishing town about a 45 minute ride out side of Dublin. There we had a snack at a market (Rose had the best clam chowder she’s ever eaten in her entire life). We were all supposed to go on a hike, but the non-stop rain wasn’t helpful for the conditions of the trail so it was cancelled. Instead, we drove through a park in Dublin and saw a few sites before we got to the Guinness Factory.

The Guinness Factory was packed because, well it's the Guinness factory and we were in Ireland, but also because they have a giant St. Patrick's Day celebration because if there's one thing Ireland does right, it's St. Patrick's day. They had a full band playing music in the lobby, drum lines throughout the factory and just an overall good vibe for the trip.

And don't you worry, we made sure that we poured our perfect pints. I'm not going to lie, for someone who doesn't drink much beer (if any), Guinness wasn't bad. Plus, pouring the beer, although stressful, was definitely fun and my favorite part of the factory visit.

We went to Sweeney's Pub for dinner before dropping our stuff off at the hostel and walking around Dublin one last time. The streets were still lively with full bands playing music and drunks dancing everywhere we turned. This high energy throughout the entire weekend definitely managed to put Dublin towards the top of my favorite places that I have visited thus far.

We walked down O'Connell street just because, it's O'Connell street! There was the last game of six nation's rugby which featured England vs. Ireland. Ireland won the game, but England won the tournament overall. However, many of the Irish people that we saw were just happy with the victory (especially because England knew coming into this final game that they had won the tournament, regardless of the outcome of this game).

Due to the fact that it was St. Patrick’s Day weekend, getting a direct flight from Ireland to London was a little difficult which meant that we had an early morning flight from Ireland to a layover in Stockholm, Sweden. A weird place for a layover, but it had an extremely nice airport and we were able to charge our phones so it wasn’t bad.

Arriving home to London after a long few, non-stop weeks and just being able to eat everything in the house was a relief. As much as we loved having visitors and traveling, it really gets exhausting, especially when we have so many late night and even more early mornings.