Harrod's, Hamley's, Windsor, & Oxford

July 17
Went shopping in Kensington neighborhood at Harvey Nichols and Harrod’s. Half of us ate lunch at Pret a Manger’s again, I had a brie, basil, and tomato sandwich. We then went to Oxford/Regent’s street and walked through Hamley’s, a huge toy store. They place give FAO Swartz a run for it's money! We came back to the apartment, got some dinner (I ate a curry pasta and rice salad from Waitrose) and we then got ready to head out to the Zoo Bar and the Absolut Ice Bar. Went to the Zoo Bar, a local bar/club and hung out there for about three hours until we had to leave to go find the ice bar. They played a lot of techno music and we met some funny people. We left the Zoo Bar a little late and were afraid that we wouldn’t be able to make it to the ice bar on time, but we finally found someone who knew where to direct us and we made it there right on time. The ice bar was really cool and super cold but there was not much to do there besides be fascinated that everything was ice. It was only a 45-minute reservation but that was plenty of time since it was only 5 degrees in there. We then found a double-decker bus to take back to our flats since the tube was closed after our 11:45 ice bar reservation was done. Got back to the flats and called it a night.


July 18
After getting ready in the morning we took the train from Paddington to Windsor where we waiting in line for a half hour to get our tickets to tour Windsor Castle. We went on the tour and saw the beautiful, huge castle. We were able to walk around the outside of part of the castle and through some of the courtyards and pathways. Everything was absolutely gorgeous! We were even able to go inside the State Apartments of the castle and see tons of the gigantic, ornate rooms of the residence of Prince Harry and Prince William. They said that the castle was also a sort of “vacation spot” for the Queen and the Duke of Wales. So cool! After our tour of Windsor Castle, we went to the town and got lunch at a local restaurant. Then, since we had seen tons of people with ice cream throughout the town, we found a local ice cream shop and had some very delicious Nutella Bear ice cream…very English and very yummy! From Windsor we took the train to Oxford on a whim where we got off and to our surprise found out that Oxford University is actually made up of 32 colleges that are sprawled throughout the town. Instead of finding a green, secluded university, we wandered through some of the town for about an hour and saw some beautiful, old university buildings that were mixed in along with the rest of the shops and stores in the town. Oxford was not what we expected but, like everything else in England, it was incredibly pretty and worthwhile to visit (even for such a short amount of time). After our quick stop at Oxford we took an over-packed train back to Paddington and came home to relax and recuperate for the rest of the evening. It was a long and fairly expensive day, but fun and memorable! Tomorrow is a visit to Stonehenge…not sure what to expect from a bunch of rocks but I’ll report back with some thoughts tomorrow!