My sisters and I have always wanted to visit Europe together, and last year, we decided 2018 would be the year. My stepmom had never been, so we decided it was time for her to see more of the world with us. After a lot of back and forth, we decided on London and Dublin. Thursday, May 24th, we took off on our 7-hour, red-eye flight across the Atlantic. Note: I highly recommend doing a red-eye, because you’re able to sleep on the plane and acclimate to the new time zone much easier than you would with a daytime flight. We arrived around 11 am, which gave us the whole day to explore!
London
Day 1
Our Airbnb was located in Marylebone, a “posh” area of England. We were right next to Mayfair, which gave us easy access to Oxford Street (gorgeous shops) and transportation. The first day, we set about exploring the town and did a ton of walking. The homes we saw were absolutely gorgeous. One of my favorite things about these neighborhoods were the abundance of flowers on windowsills of homes and the window displays in the shops. The architecture was beautiful, as well. So many buildings were such unique colors, and it gave the streets such character!
Sam (my older sister) did so much research for this trip, and I can’t thank her enough. She knew all the trendy spots for food as well as where to go to find attractions. For lunch, we went to a restaurant called Farm Girl Cafe, where I got the loveliest “Butterfly Matcha”, which was somehow blue and also the best matcha I’ve ever tasted. For dinner, we went to Pharmacy, which was one of the prettiest restaurants I’ve ever seen. It was full of plants, and it had such an open, refreshing vibe to it. For dessert, we stopped at Doughnut Time, an infamous donut shop in London. We got a coffee donut and one called “Bellatwix Lestrange”, which was the best donut of my entire life. These were not gluten-free (RIP), but one does not just pass up a donut that involves Twix and involves a Harry Potter pun!
Here are some pictures of my family, for reference. Barbara is the one in the green shirt, Nicole is the one in the gingham pants, and Sam is wearing the pink shirt.
Day 2
We started off the morning checking out an infamous vegan coffee shop called Deliciously Ella, where the aesthetic was to die for. Let me just say… Europe knows how to do their coffee, 100%.
Today was our “tourist” day, where we went deeper into Westminster to see the attractions London has to offer. We also revisited Oxford Street to do some more shopping (we are all shopaholics, if you couldn’t tell…) Can we just take a second to appreciate how cool these window displays are?!
Our first tourist stop was Buckingham Palace, where we just so happened to stumble upon a birthday party rehearsal for The Queen – which was amazing and totally unexpected. From there, we explored the rest of the area, and I could feel my Parent Trap childhood dreams coming to life in that very moment – until we realized Big Ben was under construction. Ugh. The rest of the sights were well worth it, though. And I stumbled upon a Monmouth Road! *Heart eyes Emoji*
We got lunch at a place called Timmy Green, which I’m just finding out now is an Australian restaurant. My sisters and I are brunch die-hards, so this was everything we wanted and more. My only critique was that the gluten-free bread was incredibly bland (which hasn’t been the case so far), but otherwise the meal was great. I got eggs royale with bacon and a BEAUTIFUL green juice on the side. Note: I became a green juice FIEND in Europe…
For lunch, we got fish and chips, because you can’t just go to England and not get fish and chips! I ordered fish cakes, and the rest of my family got fish and chips… pretty sure all of these were gluten-filled, but so worth it. For dinner, we went to Wagamama, a notorious Asian-inspired chain. I ordered duck ramen, and – yup, you guessed it, another green juice. :’) This one had apple and pear, which is my new favorite combo. Remind me to get a juicer in the very near future…
Day 3
Day 3, we grabbed breakfast and did some more venturing in the shops and this cute outdoor market called Old Spitafields Market. I was blown away by how fashionable every single person was – it was like New York, but 10x better. Also, one of my favorite things about Europe is how beautiful the flowers are. They are legitimately everywhere (aka my dream), and they always look so fresh and colorful. And they’re cheap, too! For lunch, we went to one of the restaurants within the market. I ordered a quinoa salad with broccoli and turnips, and I gotta say, it was nice to get some vegetables in me.
For dinner, we went to Sketch, a really fancy French restaurant for Sam’s birthday. It had a super unique vibe to it, and when we first walked in, it reminded me so much of Alice in Wonderland. The interior is 90% pink, with additional colors coming from the “sketches” on the wall. The bathrooms are what Sketch is known for, apparently. The toilets are in egg-shaped units, and rainforest sounds play while dim, colored lights shift around. It feels like you’re in another dimension! The food was incredibly different, but very tasty. We got to dress up and have a night on the town!
Day 4
Stopped for breakfast at Aubaine in Selfridges – pretty sure I was going to turn into a salmon at this point after the amount of smoked salmon I had consumed up to this point. After, we did some shopping (shocker!) and I discovered my love for Topshop and Primark. (My bank account is still hurting from that one…)
Later that day was the part of the trip I was looking forward to most: the Warner Bros. Harry Potter studio tour. Now, I get Harry Potter isn’t for everyone. But, this was absolutely INCREDIBLE. The amount of time and talent that went into these movies entirely took my breath away. From the props to the lighting to the artwork to the costumes to the makeup to the architecture – so many brilliant brains were a part of these films – and it made me appreciate them that much more. I also couldn’t get over the fact that I WAS STANDING IN THE SAME ROOM THE CAST HAD FILMED IN!!!!!!
I have been a Harry Potter fan for as long as I could remember. My mom bought the first book for me from the Scholastic Fair in 1st grade, and I was hooked on the books from then on. I read the series at least 4 times, and I was at midnight releases for almost all of the books. I have a very special place in my heart for Harry Potter, not only for the childhood nostalgia, but because my mom was the one who introduced the series into my life. She had given me the 5th book for my birthday, and exactly a month after, she passed away. Picking up that book and continuing the series was the hardest thing to do, and it took me a few years to do it. It’s quite curious (Harry Potter fans, please tell me you read it in his voice) to me that the series became darker from that point on – which feels like more than a coincidence to me. Needless to say, this was one of the best days of my life. I don’t think I stopped smiling for a single moment on this tour.
We spent our last day at a cute restaurant called Coco Momo and then hopped in a cab over to the airport. We were so impressed with the weather we had. Multiple days, it had called for rain, but the only real day of rain we saw was our last day, both in England and in Ireland.
Dublin
Day 5
Our Airbnb was so much nicer than the one in London, which we were very grateful for at this point of the trip. One thing we couldn’t wrap our heads around was how long it took the sun to set. At 10:30 PM, the sunset was beginning – so disorienting!! We were pretty hungry at this point, so we just headed over to the nearest place serving dinner, which ended up being a total win. The menu had so many gluten-free options, which I was truly shocked at, given that it was a pub – and pubs are my worst nightmare with that type of thing. (I later found out that night via an Instagram message from a high school friend that 1/100 of the Irish population has Celiac’s!) We had a traditional Irish meal, complete with Irish step dancing on stage, and I tried the best hard cider I have ever had – hoping it’s sold in the U.S.!
Day 6
On Day 6, we explored the city a bit more and, yes, I did more shopping. Irish people are definitely the friendliest people in the world.
From there, we went to Trinity College, where the most beautiful library exists. We also visited the Guinness brewery. I’m not a Guinness fan, by any means, (way too hoppy for me) but it was really cool to see the process, along with the marketing tactics they used. There was also a gravity bar, where you are able to see the city from the very top floor. From there, we got a taxi to Nando’s, which apparently is all the rage in Europe.
Day 7
Day 7, we went on a bus tour to see the Cliffs of Moher. It was an 11-hour excursion and an experience I would definitely recommend. Our tour guide was hilarious and taught us a lot about Ireland’s history. The countryside of Ireland is absolutely breathtaking. The grass is so green and lush, and we saw the most cows I’ve ever seen in my life. Fun fact: cows are one of my favorite animals in the entire world – they’re giant grass puppies and so precious!!! The cliffs were astonishing, and the day was very well spent. We stopped for lunch in a small village-like area, and we got corned beef, sauerkraut and mayo/mustard sandwiches – great combo. They also had watermelon with feta cheese, which you need to try if you haven’t already – your life will be changed. I also got potato chips at one point of the trip, and instead of sour cream and onion, they have sour cream and shamrock. I thought it was a joke at first, but they’re serious! How Irish can you get?
Day 8
Our last day, we visited the National Botanic Gardens. I have been so into greenery lately (all my plants are still living!), and there is just something about foliage surrounding you that just makes you feel so… alive. After a long, active week, it was nice to casually stroll around and look at the beautiful wildlife Ireland has to offer. One thing I found funny was that almost every main road in both Dublin and London (at least in the areas we were in) tell you which direction to look – which truthfully was really helpful, because with the opposite road sides, you can sometimes forget/get confused and almost get hit by a car.
One of my favorite things about this trip was that we used every moment we had to see everything we could. I’ve had trips where I wished I had seen or done more, and this was certainly not one of them. We made sure to wake up early every day, and this definitely helped out with the jet lag, too. In a small amount of time, we managed to see so much, and I hope to do all my trips going forward with this mindset.
If you’ve made it this far, I hope you enjoyed. Thanks for tuning in!