After quitting my last job and before starting at my new job, I went to London for a week. This was the first time I stepped foot into Europe. I’ve been to Canada, Mexico, and all around China, but never Europe. Wish I had the time and money to go to more European destinations, like Paris and Italy, but at least I got to go to London. It was a long overdue trip. I have a friend there and he’s been bugging me to visit him for two years. And finally I did.

Overall the trip was good. It wasn’t the best trip I’ve ever taken, but it was definitely worth my while. The history, the architecture, the culture were all new and/or different to me somehow. London is one of the oldest modern cities I’ve been to. At the same time that it is a modern metropolis with a bustling economy, it is also a city full of history. Everywhere you go you see old buildings still standing from eons ago. For me this was good because I enjoy looking at old architecture. London definitely has lots of that to offer. Westminster Abbey, for example, is one of the most beautiful churches I’ve ever seen. And with all the royal coronations done on location and with so many important figures buried or memorialized there, I would also call it powerful. Other than Westminster Abbey, I was also impressed by Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and the London courthouse. London Bridge, on the other hand, was a disappointment. Having heard about the bridge so much and with the old nursery rhyme that pays tribute to it, I expected a beautifully designed bridge. To the contrary, it is the most boring of all bridges with no design aesthetics whatsoever.

The most beautiful area we visited was the city of Bath, which is two and a half hours west of London. On the last day of our trip, we joined a tour for a day-trip to Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and Bath. The city of Bath was built around the hot springs that the Romans discovered in the area in 90AD. The Roman Baths occupied a huge area of the city. To the present day only a small portion of it has been dug up. The bulk of the area still lies underground yet to be unearthed. Anyhow, with a beautiful river running across town, a charming little bridge lined with shops, and the entire city built with one single façade of yellow brick houses, Bath looks absolutely gorgeous. It is as picturesque as any scene you find on jigsaw puzzles. I can imagine myself visiting Bath often for weekend trips if I were to live in London.

The one biggest problem I had on this trip was the weather. London is too darn cold!!! I don’t deal with cold weather too well. This has always been the case throughout my life. I don’t know why. Maybe my body just can’t generate enough heat to warm me up when the surrounding is cold. For me to be in London in early March was not the smartest idea. But when that’s the only time I can go, what can I do? Nothing really. So I roughed the cold. It wasn’t fun, but I survived. The way I consoled myself at the time was to constantly remind myself that at least it wasn’t snowing or raining like it did the week before my visit. That was a blessing I counted.

Another thing that posed as a little of a problem was the poor exchange rate we got for the dollar. The 2:1 (dollar to pound) ratio we got really deteriorated our buying power. All the numeric values posted in pounds in London looked the same as those in the US in dollars. BUT…we had to multiply all the pounds by two to get the equivalence in dollars. As a result, everything was essentially double the price as in the US. That really hurt. Given that, we didn’t spend much on this trip. Maybe I should rephrase that. We didn’t “buy” too much but we still spent a lot of money. How’s that for Econ 101?