Wednesday 9th September
After visiting Battle Abbey we headed to Eastbourne were we could spend the whole day and do whatever we wanted to do. When we arrived with the bus we had to cross through a mall and then we could go to the food market they had there this day. Unfortunately the market was not very big so it did not take a lot of time for us to see everything. The only interesting thing there was a lady which had an owl sitting on her arm and you could pet the owl, it was crazy to see how much owls can turn their head and when do you actually see an owl from point-blank.
Furthermore we headed to a restaurant to go and get some dinner. Sadly we did not choose the right restaurant because the food there was not very delicious, it was okay, but the portions were very small. Also the baguette we ordered was tiny, not toasted and there was only one slice of cheese on it. I ordered spaghetti Bolognese and there was more Bolognese than spaghetti on the plate which was kind of weird.
After this disappointment we decided to go to the Pier and take a stroll through Eastbourne. Actually there is not that much to see in Eastbourne it is just a typical town at the beach where you can relax at the beach and enjoy the seaside. When we walked along the beach we met a large group of people from the excursion who just like us did not know what to do with their time so we just sat together and enjoyed the time at the beach. It was nearly like a scene from a film because we sat there, chatted, played games and listened to music. Later on a few of us wanted to go to a pub to kill some time and found a really nice traditional pub. They also had a pub quiz this night and some of us joined the quiz although we were actually really bad because the questions where for people not quit our age. We had to identify actors from a time where we were not even born and the other questions were also not made for us. In the end we were not too bad but we had no chance against the regular guests of the pub.
When the quiz ended we already had to leave because we all wanted to go and see the firework they had in Eastbourne this night. It was a little bit short but really beautiful and when it was over we had to go to the bus because we had to leave in time so we could head to London the next day.
Thursday 10th September
Since I have already been to London for a whole week during a vacation with my family and have seen most of the sights like Tower of London, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and Madame Tussauds I did not really know what to do in London for a whole day because I thought I had already seen everything of the city. During the day I was proved wrong because I had not seen everything and I also could have spent even more hours in London.
But let’s start at the beginning of the day, first we had to get from Canterbury to London which was about a two hour drive from the place where we stayed. Actually the drive did not take long but when the bus driver had to get through the traffic in London we thought maybe we would never arrive because we were making our way through the traffic with the speed of a slug. But towards our expectation at some point we did arrive at the bus stop where we got off the bus.
Now everyone was heading to their first adventure in London, you could feel the pure excitement as everyone was entering the underground to purchase a day travel card for the underground. We then made our way through London first passing the M&M store where you could of course buy M&M’s and all kinds of merchandise. Although half of us turned on their heel because the smell in there was really strong, you have to imagine someone decided to make a perfume out of M&M’s and spilled it everywhere and that was how it smelled in there.
Before we could paint the town red we had to fortify ourselves with some good food around the corner at a Pizza Hut where we had a buffet of pizza and pasta. I mean what could you wish for more? We even had some live music accompanying us since a street musician was playing some Ed Sheeran and Passenger. He even sounded a little bit like Ed Sheeran and was actually really good but during the day we recognized that he wasn’t very unique with his choice of songs because every second street musician seemed to be playing Ed Sheeran. You can hardly blame them for this though because Ed Sheeran is pretty awesome to be honest.
Finally we decided to do some sightseeing after all and took the underground to Tower Hill station to visit Tower Bridge. Because the weather was amazing, we had sunshine all day, we took some pictures of the bridge and ourselves. Furthermore we decided to do the Thames Tour across the Thames in London which was one of our best decisions to make due to the beautiful weather in London. We came across Big Ben, London Eye, Tower Bridge and a lot more sights.
Next we wanted to go to a craft market near Covent Garden but we did not know where it exactly was but the passers-by we asked could not help us or told us it might be closed by now. So we decided to visit Camden Market instead and again took the underground to get there. Sadly the Camden Market had closed after a few minutes but some of us had explored another market near Camden Market called Camden Lock which was even better than Camden Market and most of the shops where still opened. You could find a lot of different things there like crafts, paintings, clothing and bizarre things. Our group spent the rest of the day there because there was so much to see and the food there was also really good.
Then we made our way back to the spot where our bus was waiting we all made sure to be there in time because we did not do so the other day and everyone was really mad at us so we thought it would be better to be there in time this day.