Our whirwind of a spring break...only a month late

There is so much to say about our spring break trip that I don't even know where to begin! It doesn't help either that we waited a month to post about it, so sorry if some details are spared or forgotten. Hopefully the pictures will do justice! So we visited 3 countries and 5 cities in 10 days!! It was a whirlwind but a very fun one! Surprisingly, there were only a couple mishaps and a few moments of frustration and we all survived each other..even Cole who was with 4 girls!!

Stress #1 (before the trip even began)- waiting in the check-in line at the airport not knowing if our bags were going to make it on board because they were almost definitely oversize and overweight. Apparently these discount airlines are very strict with carry-on luggage, but we chose to do it anyway. So while no one was looking we walked over to the little metal box you have to be able to fit you bag into to carry it on and of course none of ours came even close to fitting, even with shoving. After frantically worrying for an hour, the lady didn't even look at our bags because apparently we had already checked-in online. It was a close one...

First stop...LONDON
We arrived Friday evening and headed for the hostel. It might have taken an hour to get there, but I'll have to say we have become very skilled at grasping each city's transportation system (or maybe that is just Cole and I and everyone else just follows). For our first hostel experience, it was not a bad one. Quite the opposite of what I was expecting, we came in around 11pm to get ready for bed and found everyone in the room sound asleep with lights off. So we scrambled around in the dark and in our shared floor bathroom to get ready for bed. Oh and found someone sleeping in the bed Cole was planning on sleeping in, so we all re-arranged in the dark. Quite an experience! Hostel experience #2 eating our cereal with spoons that had just been used by someone else. Our first day we took a free tour of London that we had found an ad for in the hostel. Starting with the changing of the guard, we got to see Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Parliament...all the things you need to see while in London..and all for free! We then grabbed some lunch and had a picnic in Hyde Park, one of the most beautiful parks I have seen. We were lucky to have great weather, so we relaxed in the park along with everyone else! We wondered around some more, across London Bridge and by the Globe Theater and then called it a day. Sadly one of the highlights of London was eating that night at Texas Embassy... some good old Mexican food. After another night of getting ready in the dark and a morning of eating cereal out of bowls and spoons other people had just finished eating out of, we headed to the Tate Modern. (I'm not complaining, I loved the hostel!) The Tate Modern was great! MB will elaborate more because she absolutely loved it! We also found that if you don't plan, you get a really late start to your day. Cole and I found a really fun market that had tons of food and home-made goods, lots of hand-made bags and clothes..it was a lot of fun and we ate way too much food. We also went to Kensington Palace and got to see all of the Queen's dresses and Princess Diana's gowns. Kensington gardens were beautiful..there were people practicing archery in their back yards!! It was just like a movie, very peaceful and picturesque. While we were at Kensington, MB, Tiff, Lizard, and Colleen went to Hillsong which I know was quite an experience!

Stress #2- figuring out how to get to Liverpool the next day because of course we waited until the night before and all the ticket prices had gone up..so after going to 3 train stations, we finally got tickets and ended it with dinner at McDonalds (a frequent stop for us).

Next stop...Liverpool