Summer is the time of year for vacation, enjoying time without any homework, and getting to sleep a majority of the day away. But most of all, making memories with family and friends. After a hard and very stressful junior year, I was looking forward to a much-needed vacation. Most families will take a trip to the beach or an amusement park, but this year my family decided to take a trip to England, London specifically. London is not only the home of Big Ben, the London Eye, and the Buckingham Palace but also landmarks such as St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Tower of London.

Traveling to a new place is always exciting and breathtaking. Everything in London looks so different from bright red phone booths to double-decker buses. The spectacular sights of London transformed me into a crazy tourist taking pictures of almost everything. Everywhere you look is a new and exciting sight to see.  

London is one of the most amazing and interesting cities to explore. The skyline of downtown London embraces modern buildings, like the newly built Shard, with centuries-old landmarks like the Tower of London and Westminster Hall. My family and I walked around almost every part of the city seeing all the cool sights that we possibly could. By the end of each day, our feet were sore from walking and our phones were almost dead from taking pictures to capture our memories.

Being a tourist in one of the largest cities in the world isn’t easy to accomplish. In London, everything they do is different and opposite from us Americans. They drive on the opposite side of the road, which is weird and scary, especially the first few times you cross the street or drive a car. Their vocabulary is different (chips are fries and crisps are chips), the food is different (they eat fried fish as often as we would have hamburgers or hotdogs), and they also have accents and different ways of saying some of their words which to us might sound funny. They have different slang terms, which my family brought back to America with us, such as “Mind the Gap” which translates to “Watch your Step”. 

The most memorable day of our time in London started by taking a picture outside our hotel in front of the last remaining section of the Roman Wall. Then we rode the Underground (subway system) to Trafalgar Square to watch the changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Later, we climbed all 528 steps in Saint Paul’s Cathedral before ending the day on a nighttime tour of London on a double-decker bus.

These are just some of the unforgettable moments and lasting memories I will have from the summer of 2019.