London was a place that held a lot of expectations for me. After all, it’s the land of Harry Potter and Hugh Grant and, to a lesser extent, the queen.

After a whirlwind weekend of Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Westminster Abbey, Leicester Square, the Tower of London, the Globe Theatre and, most importantly, the Harry Potter experience, I could have slept for a week straight. London is the kind of place you could visit 30 times and still not see everything. For instance, I did not see Benedict Cumberbatch, so I will have to come back.

Although I loved the city, I have to say that staying in hostels leaves a lot to be desired. For some reason when I booked the hostel before my trip and it says 12 people to a room, I didn’t think about what that actually entailed. Like the fact that you have to lock up everything valuable and (Mom, stop reading) you might have someone having sex in the bunk below you all night. It was a complete eye opener to the luxury of personal space.

Since I can’t read a calendar, I ended up with an extra day in the UK that I used to take a trip an hour north of the city into Coventry to see my great aunt. I had never met her before, but after twenty minutes of time with her, I could not believe how much she reminded me of my grandma. Her constant phrases of “it’s so lovely you’re here. You’re such a lovely girl,” reminded me of why I decided to take this journey in the first place, and that is because of my grandmother. I would give anything to be able to call her and tell her all about the adventures I’m having with her family, but I know that she knows all about it, because she left so many people behind to look after me.

Don’t worry, my UK experience was not completely boring and introspective, I also got to drink champagne on a Ferris wheel.

Up next: Probably something to do with a sheep in the middle of the road.