kailee & co.: england

Well I am just getting around to writing about our time in London, England this spring. My best friend McKenzie graduated from college

so we decided to go to London to celebrate!

We are officially big girls now. We traveled across the world and back by ourselves.

I loved our cute hotel that was in Paddington. ^

And I was really in love with that window in our room...

There was no screen like we have at most hotels at home, so it allowed me to basically hang out the window every morning and take in the views.

We started our first day of exploring near Victoria where we got on a hop-on, hop-off bus tour to take us around the city.

Buckingham Palace for changing of the guard!

Feeling a bit patriotic

The next day was one of our favorites.

We walked a couple miles from our hotel down the street

lined with ivy and embassies, to Kensington Palace.

Whenever I travel I love getting to go to places that have so much history to them.
Parts of this palace are hundreds of years old with some original floors and walls and of course, Will & Kate and even Prince Harry live here (somewhere)!

We had a traditional tea at the Orangery for lunch

Loved the typical gloomy day in London...

The next day we were in shock when we woke up and the clock said 2pm. Considering I had gotten no sleep for the first two nights, it was nice to finally be able to sleep. But we had planned to take a train to Windsor Castle, which closed at 4!

We were determined, so we hurried and got ready, hopped on the tube to Paddington Station and then on to a train to Windsor.

We were so glad we decided to go even though we didn't have as much time there as we would've liked. The grounds were amazing!!

Hard to believe the queen actually lives there during the summer.

For lunch (more like dinner) we stopped in at the Duchess of Cambridge and had some delicious fish and chips before walking around and exploring the town of Windsor.

I absolutely loved Windsor!!! I highly recommend it.

We were train PROS by the end of this trip.

Back on a train again the next day, this time to Oxford!

We had some thai food on our way to the school, which apparently is popular in Oxford.

We did a lot of walking this day, partly because we got lost on our way back to the train station.

I have to say, Oxford is MUCH prettier than UNLV. haha!

Another early morning the next day as we met a tour group at Victoria bus station. On the agenda for the day was Stratford Upon Avon, Bath, and Stonehenge.

We knew we would be pressed for time at each place if we wanted to see all three places, but it was nice to get a glimpse of each one.

In Stratford, we actually went into the house and room where William Shakespeare was born. The town is obviously much bigger now and was quite charming.

I was pleasantly surprised by Bath. I didn't know much about it before except for the Roman baths were there, which we didn't get to go into because of time.

However, our cheeky British tour guide told us all a secret way to see the baths...

Go through the front doors and tell them you are going to use the toilet. After using the toilet, go around the corner and there are windows that look directly into the baths.

sneaky sneaky (and totally legal)

Our final stop of the day was Stonehenge.

For some reason I had a much different picture of this experience in my mind, lol! It was really quite strange seeing these weird rock formations in the middle of nowhere.