You may or may not know but during the last week of the Easter holidays I went on a bit of an adventure. It started in Bristol where I stayed with my good friend Katie. We went on a tour of the area, finding all the street art and simply having a look at Bristol's streets. I had the pleasure of being treated to dinner at Pizza Express and played a game of jungle themed mini golf with Katie and her friends from uni, who were lovely. I was having a brilliant time and this was only the first few days of my adventure. Katie and I did a bit of shopping (of course!) and I ended up buying a toothbrush that looked like a red lightsaber from Primark (which I will never regret because of my inner childishness). Once reaching HMV I obviously had to get a 5SOS t-shirt to wear for the gig that weekend. That t-shirt has since become my favourite and I will continue wearing it late into my adult life. We also went to Bristol's museum and art gallery which I have to say was pretty interesting and with free entry and pretty cool place to visit if you have some spare time. Unluckily we didn't reach the art gallery before it was closing time but that only adds to the excitement of seeing it the next time I'm in Bristol!
After the couple of wonderful days I spent in Bristol Katie and I woke up early, headed to the coach station and made our way to London! We did a lot of travelling that day and I'm pretty proud of how we managed the tubes in London with little experience. The first stop we came to was the Buckingham Palace (which is a very stereotypical tourist spot to go to when in London) and took a few snapshots and footage before moving onto Hyde Park. I have to say, Hyde Park wasn't at all what I expected but it definitely lived up to my expectations of how big it was! We walked along the edge of the park after having lunch and watching a man expertly feed pigeons, trying to find the Royal Albert Hall but in the end decided to cut across the middle of Hyde Park because it was taking too long and there were other things we wanted to see.
Our next destination was was the Sherlock Holmes museum near Baker Street Station. We ended going up the wrong side of the street (thank you Google Maps!) and walking back down it to cross and walk back up the other side. Despite our detours, it was still an adventure and we had lots of fun! We didn't go into the museum as it would have run out of time to do other things but it would be a lot of fun to do the next time we're in London. After this we took a tube from Baker Street Station to Temple (I think?) and made our way to Covent Garden (which has to be my favourite place in London that I've been too!). We walked around the square, watched a street performance and decided that we were going to sit down and relax for a bit. This is when I spotted the Ladurée shop and freaked out. I've wanted to try Ladurée macarons for years now and I even tried making macarons as a part of my Food Technology coursework during the time I spent in Sixth Form but nothing could compare to the professionally made macarons.
After the little bakery shopping spree I went on, Katie and I decided to sit down in this cute little place (which I forgotten the name of but if I remember it I'll update this post) and had a cup of tea and a chat. The lady at the till talked to us about 5 Seconds of Summer, saying she had gone to the show the night before and loved our t-shirts. She was lovely and if I knew her name I'd give her a shoutout and try to hunt her down! After our tea we had to make our way on the tube all the way up to East Ham where we had to check into our Premire Inn room (big love to Premire Inn; I love how heaving their mattresses are!) as quick as we could as we were running late for getting to the concert. Luckily the man at the desk was lovely and helped us by ringing a taxi to take us to the O2 arena. The taxi man was also lovely and chatted to us about the concert and wished us a nice time.
Obviously when we got there we got a bit lost yet again but we didn't panic and we found the right path with the help of a lady who passed us by. As soon as we saw the stalls selling mercy and the digital advertisement boards with the lads' faces on them we just kind of lost our shit. We made our way in, ate sandwhiches for dinner and I bought a programme to add to my collection at home. I can't begin to explain how I felt in the area. Before a guy called Jessa Rae (not sure about spelling so I apologise) came on as the support act for the evening we did a toilet stop and grabbed a couple of beers before rocking out to Jessa Rae and the best pre-gig playlist I've ever heard (goddamn 5SOS have good taste in music)! When they came on stage I couldn't help but fangirl badly. I've never been so carefree at a concert but I loved it! I filmed a lot of it and although it was shaky due to my excitement I'm proud of it. I think one of the best parts of the gig is when they performed a song they had made up on the spot called... wait for it... Fish and Chips! God, they're dorks but I love them all too much!
After the concert we made our way to the tube and headed back to East Ham, groaning to ourselves how we wished the gig would have continued on forever and cheering about how the songs we wished they would play but doubted they would was played. As soon as we got to our room we basically crashed, having been busy all day. We rung our parents to let them know we were a-ok and I transferred everything on my camera to my iPad and looked through it all, unable to stop smiling.
The next day wasn't very eventful compared to the day before but it made me very happy. We had some breakfast and travelled from East Ham over to Crawley were a lot of my family live and spent half the day with my grandparents. We also saw my uncle and that night after a dinner from the Chinese we went out with my sister (Shala) my brother-in-law (Jim) and their friends to a pub in East Grinstead to celebrates Jim's birthday. My sister talked to me about the house they were thinking of getting and how I could go up more often and even stay with them for a while in order to get a job and move up their permanently which I have definitely thought about. We left early in order to get a good night's sleep as we were up the next day by 6:15am. My grandad took us to the nearest station and we made our journey home, starting at the station at 6:51am, Katie's ending around 11:00am in Bristol but mine lasting until roughly 6pm as I had to go through the following process: Crawley - London Victoria - Bristol - Newport - Carmarthen - Home. It was a long day of travelling but I loved it anyway!
I actually got home and the first thing my step mother asked was if I want to go to town for dinner as she fancied Chinese. I agreed but seeing as I had had Chinese the night before and I'm not too fond of Chinese anyway, I went for a good old Maccies.
I had the time of my life during those 5 days and I wish I could live it all over again (or better yet, have an adventure everyday as a part of my job!) but until the next time I have to settle back into college and work. Seeing as I did take a lot of footage though, I edited it together and produced a vlog which is now up on my YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/pjS2kM5FISQ
I would be forever grateful if you'd check it out and leave a like?
Thank you for reading and I'll talk to you all again soon.
Love,
A Wanderlust Being.