A Solo Journey Through London and the Struggle to Find Afternoon Tea

As I walked through the streets of London, I couldn't help but feel a sense of disappointment and frustration. It seemed like every cafe I visited was either closed or had their hours listed online, making it impossible for me to get a cup of tea and a nice treat. I just wanted something as simple as that, but it seemed like the indie shops were more interested in making up their own hours rather than being transparent about their schedules. American corporations, on the other hand, would always be willing to take my money, and that was a hard pill to swallow.

In desperation, I turned to Starbucks, not because I wanted to support the big corporation, but because I just couldn't count on anyone else to provide me with a decent cup of tea. As I walked into the store, I couldn't help but feel a sense of irony - here I was, in London, trying to get my fix of afternoon tea, and yet I was resorting to an American chain. But hey, when you're tired and frustrated, you'll take what you can get.

Before I settled for Starbucks, I had spent the morning shopping for gifts for my friends back home. It was a thoughtful gesture, one that I had been putting off until the last minute. As I counted down the number of people I needed to buy gifts for, I realized just how much I wanted to spoil them with this trip. I got gifts for ten different people, each one carefully selected and wrapped with love.

As I made my way to Jed Books, a used bookstore that specialized in nonfiction, I was excited to find a film about one of the directors we had discussed in our text messages. Matt, one of my friends, was super into film, and he had watched everything from new releases to indie films from the 1930s to 70s. When I found a book called "European Cinema: An Introduction," I knew it would be perfect for him. The book took twelve different films as case studies to explore common themes in European cinema, including a famous French film called "La N."

I also picked up some sweets from Marks and Spencer, including Percy Pigs, veggie Colin and Connie the Caterpillars, and finger sandwiches. It was a thoughtful gesture, one that I hoped would bring a smile to Kaylee and Kristin's faces when they received them.

Finally, I found Michael a set of rings, something he had suggested in our previous conversations. The first ring had a wolf or coyote skull on it, the second just a tan stone, and the third was a cute little hat that said "thank you next." I thought it was a sweet gesture, one that would show him how much I cared.

As I prepared to leave London for good, I couldn't help but feel a sense of sadness. My flight was at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow, and I knew I wouldn't be able to see the city again anytime soon. But despite the frustration and disappointment, I had learned so much about myself during this trip. I had grown in ways I never thought possible, and I would carry those lessons with me for the rest of my life.

The European Trip: A Solo Journey

My trip was initially planned as a romantic getaway to see my boyfriend who was living in England at the time. But fate had other plans, and we had broken up before I could go on the trip. Instead, it became an unexpected solo journey that I would never forget. As I traveled through London and Paris, I discovered new things about myself and grew in ways I never thought possible.

Documenting My Trip

I documented my entire trip, from the moment I arrived in London to the moment I left for home. It was a way for me to relive the experience, to look back on all the amazing things that happened during my time abroad. And now, as I sit here in my own home, I can watch and re-watch these videos whenever I want.

Conclusion

As I settled into my chair at home, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia wash over me. It had been an incredible trip, one that I would always treasure. If you haven't seen the other two vlogs from London in Paris, I have linked them in the description below. And if you have any questions or comments about my trip, please let me know.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's up hello my name is Emma and today is star it's my final summer travel vlog if you haven't gotten the chance to check out either of my previous travel vlogs part one from London and part two from Paris I will link them down below but now we are onto part three which is once again London I have four full days in London before I head back to America for the first time in 16 days so I'm really looking forward to getting the most out of the last bit of my trip that being said I don't really have many plans though like I'm just here to explore and have a good time and check out some things that I haven't gotten to do before when I was in London I'm currently staying at a really nice Airbnb in like the Fulham Chelsea area so I am staying with people who live here so I'm not going to show you the entire thing but I will show you the areas that like I have access to so the first thing you see from my bedroom door is this little coffee table that I've just been using to store a couple of my things then I have my bed which is like super super comfortable so I'm really really pleased with that and this window that overlooks the rest of the apartment complex there is my bedside table with this super super cute painting and then I have a big closet that I can put all my stuff into but I decided not to unpack really so today's plan is non-existent I really don't have a direction but I'm going to go grab like an early lunch because it's just about 12 o'clock now and then I'm thinking of taking the trek all the way to short it which is a neighborhood I visited in my last vlog and I really loved it but I didn't do anything but just like walk along the street so I'd like to explore a little bit more so yeah that's it I'm gonna go eat then I'm gonna take like an hour underground to get from West London all the way to East London but I'm really looking forward to it so honestly I've had like a really boring day I got two shortage and I've just been walking around I actually went to a record store and picked up two vinyls for my dad because he really likes to collect vinyls I thought it would be a cool gift to get him from London I walked to two different piercing places because I really want to get a new piercing while I'm here and they were both closed I get that it's a bank holiday but I'm still disappointed about it because like everything else is open now I've literally just been sitting in this park I think it's called Arnold circus and watching YouTube for an hour it's just really hot out and like I'm feeling lazy I don't want to walk around right now so I've just been sitting under this nice tree and it's been pretty relaxing I just don't spend all day out and about ever I'm always like at home or at work or at school or doing schoolwork so like going and just like non-stop walking around and exploring for what like eleven days straight at this point is not typical for me so I'm starting to run low on energy so I am home from a long day of walking and exploring I have to say it wasn't the most like exciting or adventurous day I've had in my travels so far just because I didn't really have a plan and it really was just like a day to walk around I have discovered while being on this trip that those days are not my favourites I'm gonna make a point to have some plans before I leave each day so that I can feel a little bit more like fulfilled and satisfied with what I do during the day so it's not like just walking I did buy some stuff of course which I'm going to show you so first are the album's I bought for my dad number one is this Todd Rundgren album which is someone that like my dad and mom have talked about over the years as an artist they both really like and then I got my dad at this Black Sabbath album live at last because Black Sabbath is his favorite band so I hope he enjoys them both I'm like really hoping doesn't have both of them because I didn't want to ask him which ones to get but I think it'll just appreciate the thought and then I went to a ton of thrift shops just looking for myself not every single store was open on Brick Lane that like I had seen open before because again it is a bank holiday but I did find two new things that I really like I also went into like seven stores at least and I loved a lot of this stuff it's just on number one like they don't always have it in your size and number two I just don't consider myself to be one of those people that's really good at finding stuff in five stars first I got this 90s button-up cropped top that's like marble pattern and I think it's really cute it also has shoulder pads which I thought was like a nice little addition and I think it looks really cute I don't own anything like it and then I also got these cute little daisy pearl hanging hearings and then in the last three things I bought were like from a souvenir shop I just keep stopping in them hoping that I can like find cute England stuff for all the people that I need to pick up stuff for I got this British flag postcard for myself and just because I really like art prints and stuff and I thought it was perfect it was only 30 pens like I haven't been spending that much money which is good I also picked up this little London pouch for my supervisor at I just figured it would be something she would enjoy and I got this little box of tea three different teas I actually got one of these for myself like a different brand different photos and I still have two boxes and it's like 2013 just because like I just loved the idea of it so I figured I could give one to my manager one to my supervisor and either keep one for myself or give it to someone else so a pretty successful shopping day I would say for now what I'm gonna do is I just ordered some pizza and picked it up and now I'm going to eat some dinner and maybe read or edit a video or something just like have a chill night in so honestly I wasn't having a great day just start I haven't been feeling very well and I feel like it is just a big combination of the heat in London because it's like 85 degrees out every day which I haven't been loving and I'm just not used to going out every single day and spending so much time walking and exploring so my energy is just really depleted which sucks because I only have like three days left and I really want to make the most of them but God do I just want to lay down and rest until the end of eternity so I got to Notting Hill which is where I am and I had planned on like spending all day here just exploring walking around going to a few places that like I had marked on my map and so once that happened I was feeling really low and I just wanted to like quit for the day take the El and just go home and rest so that I could be better equipped for the rest of my days but I was like I'm in Notting Hill and the main reason I've come to Nottingham is because I wanted to visit the location for the music video of affordable chains by little peep and so I was like I'll just make the trek there take some photos and then go home but I got there and it was so awesome to be there and y'all completely rejuvenated so I'll show you the footage that I took there really quick y'all I am right in front of the four gold chain through Zeke video filming location and I like can't believe I'm really here this is like one thing that like I had to do before I left England was to come to this filming the only one I know of I don't want to spend too long here because like obviously this is a place where people actively live but I got some really cute shots on feedstuffs and I'm like I just wasn't having a great day up until now but I came here and now I'm feeling so good so yeah going to the like iconic for gold chains stooop was really awesome and now I'm going to head off to some afternoon tea do some reading and drink some tea eat some scones and then we'll see where I go from there if I'm still feeling tired I will definitely go back to my Airbnb I just rest for the night otherwise there are a few more things I wanted to check out in the Notting Hill area so hopefully I will be feeling good enough to do that later if you don't think of Clarion J's every tiny oil cucumber sandwich are you even a Mortal Instruments man so I got home from Notting Hill a little while ago and I've just been sitting and chillin on my phone and it's honestly just been what I really needed I'll talk a little bit more about my day and like fill in the gaps that I feel I haven't talked about yet after I go find some dinner but I figured why not start with today's haul because that's what these logs are becoming I'm doing like these daily mini hauls but honestly a lot of the gifts are for other people so I don't feel bad about it this is the hat I bought Michael says thank you next on it I thought it was really cute and it's like a color I can see him wearing a lot I still want to find him like one more small thing that I feel is a little bit more indicative of me actually being in London because like he can buy this in America but I hope he likes it and then I did buy two things for myself because I'm just a ho for shopping the first thing is just this really really cute item I found while in the Notting Hill bookshop and it is a book fan so essentially the exterior of it is like made out of a book and then when you open it it's a van with some book pages on it honestly I just thought this would be like a cool item to keep on my bookshelf but as I was walking around in the heat today I was like wait I could actually use it as a fan who knew you could use fans as fans and the other thing I'm really really excited about is this little handcrafted notebook I bought I was walking down Portobello Road as like the market was like just beginning to close I missed a lot of it which is a shame but like it's fine but there was this one stand that had these amazing notebooks and I couldn't help but gush over them so I found this one that has like the London Underground map on it and I have really been wanting to get a nice journal for me to make like a little travel scrapbook when I get home I know a lot of people like to do like journaling everyday while they're on vacation and that's something I would have loved to do but I just know that like I want to dedicate time to making it really special and what exactly I want from the scrapbook so I'm gonna do it when I get home and something else I love about it is this little lock so all you do is you just like push this little clasp and it opens also the N pages have this like vintage map of the world which I feel was like a good way to tie like London together with all the Paris stuff I'll also be putting in it so it's not like just a London Journal every time I do open it though I'm afraid I broke it because I just sort of like flops over heard it looks like it fell off so i'ma go find some food be like apartment complex development area I'm staying in does have this little strip that has a couple of restaurants and stuff so I think I'm gonna head down there find something to either take home or maybe sit there and eat and just like relax for the rest of the night so it's pretty late but earlier tonight I had a really nice dinner there's this place called time and honey that's like in the same sort of like apartment complex and my Airbnb is in and it was really nice I went there for breakfast yesterday I think and it was pretty good but I really enjoyed the dinner I had I was planning on just taking it away and bringing it back to my room to eat but the waiter was like if you stay to eat I'll get you free drink and I was like I'm not gonna say no to a free beer and I also took his recommendation oh my gosh what was it called I think it was called like chicken kaufe there were like little chicken sausages with rice and fries or chips as a call tear and like a little salad and it was really good it was not something I would have ordered myself so I definitely think I need to start taking like recommendations from the people who work at the restaurant because it was really really good I feel like I didn't talk about the fact that I went to afternoon tea today which was really lovely and I'm so glad I was able to do it because before I had gone to labret groove which is where the four gold chains music video was filmed I was like I'm just gonna go home right after like I have to cancel my tea reservation which I was sad about but I pushed through and went and it was freely really cute the tea shop justic or was like very classy it was like exactly what I think you'd expect from a small tea room us Goins were delish sandwich was delish and tea was delish I had a great time and I got to bring home like half of it which was really good I was expecting it to not be a good day when I woke up not feeling well but it actually turned into me you like one of my favorite days that I've had in London so far good morning or should I say afternoon because it's like 2:00 p.m. at least maybe it's 3:00 I really thought that's like today it was gonna be a totally open day where I could do whatever I wanted but at like noon when I was still in bed and like just getting ready I realized that my tickets to the Warner Brothers Studio London tour were for today and not tomorrow so I'm currently taking the overground I'm like just finishing my second stop that I have to take one more like train or bus to the studio tour and then I can go so the guy who scanned my ticket asked me if I had been here before and I was like well I've been here but many years ago and he's like you probably won't even recognize it no I was like yeah okay like I know that there's new things that I'm sure it'll be very similar but even the entrance is just completely different and a million time forming a day I just got hit like such a wave of excitement and I'm so happy to be here I feel like I'm back in Harry Potter world like the with doing world it's an amazing trip I'm really excited to go through this tour again so I decided to go into the gift shop and like do all of my merch shopping before I go through the tour so I don't have to worry about doing it after and like this is dangerous because I've already seen at least like five things that I could realistically see myself leaving with today so we'll see but I'm most definitely definitely getting myself some Harry Potter Mirchi I'm in the cafe right now it's like the halfway point of it I wanted to save a little money today so I got one of those just go like three pound meal deals which honestly is like a steal the tour so far is so cool like there's a lot that I have already seen but they've added so much and not that it was ever not going to use is amazing the first time I was here but I feel like what they've added just brings so much more to the tour things I hadn't seen before but definitely the Forbidden Forest I'd like really new and I thought it was like seriously cool you felt very immersed in the forest I think Kings Cross station is also new I do not remember that being there when I came here the last time I actually feel like I'm making really great time with the tourists I don't have to stop for a couple of things just because number one I've ever seen a lot of the door before and number two at like I just recently went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter I feel like they've also added a few cool new like voodoo booth opportunities and whatnot like the hopper things for us you can get on and take photos in front of it but I've already written in the hog Worth Express at the wrist a World of Harry Potter so like I don't need to wait on the line to do that let me show you what I bought I was so good I only bought two things but I feel like I should go back and find myself one more thing for peace okay this be first thing is this Hermione Yule Ball dress tournament I like gushed over this when I was at the theme park and I wanted it so bad but that was like a massive Harry Potter merge like I gave up so much money to buy my bro and my scarf and just Weasley sweater and everything I didn't want to buy it while I was there but I have been eyeing it for so long I've been thinking about it since I left the amusement park so I got one and like every year my mom and my sister and I we always get new ornaments and thought this would be like her really really lovely once the other time from now I had a time trainer from such a long time ago I maybe it was like 13 when there was like a Harry Potter exhibition in New York it kind of like a miniature version of what they had here so I got to see a lot of hops and costumes and at that exhibition I bought or my mom bought a time-turner for me but over the years it has broken from me wearing in and like using it in videos and stuff so I really wanted to get a new one and I felt like this was like the investment for me to get for myself yeah I'm having a great day I'm making great time and I can't wait to continue the tour I'm like so interested this is what else they're going to have because of all the new stuff here just in the first half I'm just like what else is they add so I'm home after a lovely day at the Warner Brothers Studios the main reason why I came back to London instead of going somewhere else is because like my plane ticket was already from London but the second main reason was I wanted to go to Harry Potter Studios again and this week was like the only time I could find an open slot I literally cannot believe I almost missed it oh my god such an idiot but I made it and everything was fine it was more than fine it was a really wonderful day so I was able to make it through a couple of things quickly but like nonetheless it was so cool I feel like they just added so many amazing things and it was totally a highlight of like my entire trip afterwards I got some drinks with a friend we went to this gay bar near Piccadilly Circus that was called the yard and I really really liked it there were a couple of gay bars in that area that looked really cool so definitely next time we come back to London I'll have to go back to the yard and check out some of the other spots tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow what is on the agenda for tomorrow nothing I do want to get like up and out early tomorrow I'd really like to have like a full day and I also want to spend a little time in the morning like packing up so don't have to do everything right before my flight but yeah overall really really great day I was expecting it to be like super chill do nothing rest day but it turned into something I was very exciting now it is time for me to go back to watching Doctor Who and go to sleep I'm really amazed that I've almost completed five full seasons of Doctor Who in like the two weeks that I've been here I just watched Vincent and the doctor while I was doing a little bit more packing and I cried because I always cry and now I'm watching The Lodger which is another favorite episode of mine it just makes me laugh so hard and 11 is my favorite so like being back in Matt Smith's episodes has been super super exciting good morning it is my last day in London before I go home and I'm so sad literally the fact that I have to like go back to normal life after two weeks of doing nothing but what I want every day like I want a refund I decided to finally get some use out of the balcony so I'm sitting here eating some breakfast and I'm about to do my makeup with like this lovely view Thames in the background I have like a weird amalgamation of leftovers for because I have my chicken kapha with chips and rice and then the sandwich I'm gonna hopefully get ready pretty quickly because it's a little bit later than I would have liked to get out my last day but I spent the morning like doing a little bit of packing and relaxing so it was all-around good and then we'll head out what the I fought another butchers I've got no self-control to be fair it is another book that I can't get in the US and I saved money on international shipping so it's gonna buy it anyways I mean good plan on my part I've really only been out and about for just like a little while I think right now I'm in like the Leicester Square Piccadilly area I went to foils which honestly it was probably my favorite like chain bookstore that I've been to in London I know that like waterstones has in my opinion been like the big one but I really we'll finish this later right now I'm actually standing like right under the pallet feeder which is where they show and perform Harry Potter and the cursed child which is really cool speaking of Harry Potter though I went to this little shop slash exhibition called the house nut and it was all about the graphic designer from the Harry Potter and fantastic film it was so great more on that later right now I'm actually about to go get some piercings so finally I found a shop that was willing to take me as a walk-in and I'm hyped my goal was really to get like this three piercing thing but they said they would probably only do two to not upset the healing process and like honestly I always loved a shop that's going to tell me like to do less because that means that they're very trustworthy in my opinion so hopefully I'll come back with some new piercings maybe we'll walk around a little bit more get some lunch I'll show you the things I bought at house Amina Lima and the books that I bought but honestly it's turning into a really good day I'm glad that I like came over here for my last full day in London to do some exploring and I think I'm just going to keep moving east a little bit and hit all the bookstores I want to pour in so y'all want to know something wild so this is the current bookmark I'm using and I actually got it because I bought like a used book and this was still in it and I brought it with me to England because I was like ah duh British flags I accidentally stumbled into the bookshop where they're from what like a weird bout of synchronicity that like the one bookmark that I decided to bring to England that I literally like came from nowhere because it was in a book I already bought happens to be from one of the book stores that I've decided to go to I also didn't know that Persephone books was a publisher I just thought it was a book store and then when I walked in and all the books had the same great packaging I was like wow like I guess I like print their own cover is it's really cool but they all like they're all their own books which is really cool so right now I just decided to pop a squat in this little park I believe it's called Bushwick Garden Square honestly I'm like really feeling the vibe here there's like a bunch of leaves on the ground so it feels like fall and the trees are gorgeous their branches and leaves hang so low so it's just like a cool area honestly I might just stay here prove it but I've been having such a good day so far and I haven't felt like I'm updated to do it all so that's what we're gonna do now first up I went to foils which I talked a little bit about and it decided to buy the collector's edition of wicked Kingdom by Leigh bardugo I don't know why I asked thought it was a good idea to buy this big-ass hardcover because I do not have space for it but I figure it out oh yeah I have the six of crows collector's edition and I was going to buy this anyway so it just made more sense for you to get it while here then I went to a house Amina Lima which was so freaking cool like it was on Momo's recommendation list of something she wanted to do when we were together we didn't get to it so I decided to go myself because it was in the area that I was gonna be in today and I literally didn't even know what it really was at first I just knew it was like a Harry Potter type shop and so I asked one of the shopkeepers because I was like listen I'm here on a recommendation I don't even really know what his face is and he said that the two designers just wanted to open up a face like a little gallery for Harry Potter fans to like come and see all of the original artwork for free and it was so it's like four floors and just like all of these things that you do not notice from the Harry Potter films all of like the posters and advertisements and tickets and like the marauders map and just like pretty much most of the art from Harry Potter like the black family tree oh my god everything it was so much cooler than I expected so honestly if you're a Harry Potter fan and you're going to London you must begin to have subpoena Lima I did buy things because it's my last day so I got all my money to blow so the main thing that I ended up purchasing was this pack of postcards of book covers that were designed for Harry Potter so obviously advanced potion making is one of them but on the back they have details would be Dover barred dark hearts defense ha grits a history of magical water plants on the Mediterranean fantastic beasts and where to find them ruin dictionary history of magic Triwizard tragedies and Gilderoy Lockhart's travels with trolls and so there's actually two sets of every postcard in here so I thought this would be a really great gift for me to give to Monika so like I'll keep half the cards that I'll give the other half to her because I don't think she had leave but I feel like it's something she'd really appreciate and then at checkout I like knelt down to get my wallet out of my bag and I saw these adorable poet's cards it has like this stained glass look to it but it hasn't slowed there ain't crest on it and I was like I just I have to get it to put on my wall so yeah both of those things were in like the first like hour of what I did today so I started off things really strong then I got my piercings which I actually didn't show you but so these are my two new piercing if they're even in frame I can't look at my viewfinder right now I actually wanted to get like three in a row then I got some lunch at a Tokyo which was really really good one of the people who work at the piercing and tattoo shop had a bento box they obviously got from right across the street and I was like I want a bed Toba so it got one along with some gyoza and some Japanese soda and miso soup and it was just really really delicious I actually got to take a lot of it home which I've been loving like leftovers are really underrated always buy food and just have half of it later then I went to Persephone books which I talked a little bit about so let me show you I got their bimonthly or biannually newsletter which I'm excited to flip through later and I bought some bookmarks so I was like listen like I'm having this like weird bookmark experience coincidence thing I feel like I gotta buy some bookmarks here they were only 50 P and give me a break so I picked up four of them one for me Monica and Natalia and Michael shining such a great day don't don't really have any plans for today I'm in the middle of walking to Jed books which is like the third to last bookstore I would like to visit today seriously though I just want to sit here and read for a bit so I think the probe gonna do you know we really almost made it through like my entire trip without a big mishap like I thought me almost forgetting my Harry Potter tour tickets we're gonna be the worst of it but no I just broke my camera the lens is stuck it fell and it is broken I have to drop hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a new vlog camera now and I'm so freakin upset about it trying to look on the bright side that this happened on like the last day of my trip and like the rest of my footage is completely fine and perfect but man I'm so so good at right now I'm in that mood where I just like don't even want to like do anything for the rest day like I just want to go back to my Airbnb and lay down so I decided I'm not going to give up right from the get-go I'm going to go find a cafe have a cup of tea maybe a nice little dessert slash snack because that's just what you do in England when you encounter problems you get tea and I think it might really help me raise my spirits a little bit and then afterwards I'll decide on how I'm feeling if I want to go find something else to do or if I want to just head back to my Airbnb like that's fine I think this is a very reasonable reaction for me to be having great now so I have walked to maybe like five cafes and they're all either closed even though they said they were open or they don't have their hours listed online all I want is a cup of tea and a nice treat so I don't cry it's not too much to ask for so now I'm walking to Starbucks because I just can't count on you indie shops that I want to support because y'all like to make your own hours but American corporations will always want to take my money so before I take my last sleep of England I thought I'd show you like the final things the final gifts I bought for other people today I just counted before and like I got gifts for ten different people like I just really wanted to spoil some people in my life with this trip so I'm really satisfied with that I got everyone the first is for my friend named Matt he is super into film like into film more than anyone I've ever met in my entire life he watches the new releases he watches indie films and he's like also into like European indie films from like the 1930s to 70s like he's so into film and so I did manage to go to Jed books today before I went home which was a really nice used bookstore it was definitely more focused on nonfiction compared to a lot of the fiction book stores I went to so I didn't personally find anything I wanted there but they had a really nice film section so I was like oh maybe I could like find him a book about one of his directors that we've talked about in searching our text messages so I couldn't find the names of any of the directors that he was interested in but I did find this book that is European cinema an introduction and so it basically takes like twelve or so different films and uses them as a case study to explore a lot of the common themes but what's interesting about this book is one of these films they talked about is a very famous French film called La N and looking back in our text messages and Matt talked about how he recently bought it because he wanted to rewatch it so I thought it would be a really great fit for him next I just picked up a few sweets for Kaylee and Kristin like Kaylee has lived in London for a long time and the two of them are actually coming back to London in a few months so I didn't really need to get them any like quick to central London souvenirs so I just picked up these from M&S these are percy pigs and these are veggie Colin and Connie the caterpillars and these don't have gelatin in them so I hope they enjoy them and finally I found Michael a set of rings which is something that I wanted to get him because that was one of these suggestions he gave when I asked what he would want so the first one has this little like wolf or coyote skull this one just had like a tan stone on it and this one just as next which I thought was cute because I got in the Hat that says thank you next so like they all match together so yeah this is my last night in London because my flight is at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow so I'm basically just getting up and going to the airport I will definitely do like a final like overall trip wrap up once I get home and settled but wish me luck traveling really every afternoon tea complete with a scone thought agreement damn and even a little finger sandwich so I am home from my European travels for summer this was truly the trip of a lifetime for me and not only did I get to go back to my favorite place in the world which is London but I also got to explore a city I have dreamt about and been very passionate about I was a teenager many of you know that this trip was initially planned for me to see my boyfriend who was living in England at the time but we had broken up before I was able to go so it was a very unexpected solo travel trip but I wouldn't change anything about it I learned so much about myself and grew way more than I ever expected to in that like two-week trip so yeah I'm really grateful I had the opportunity to take this trip and I'm even more thankful that I documented the entire thing so that no matter how old I am I can go back and relive this exact trip the way it was and I also hope you guys enjoyed following me along on these summer travel vlogs if you haven't seen the other two from London in Paris I will link those in the description again and definitely let me know what your favorite part of either this vlog or any of my London and Paris vlogs were because I just I love reminiscing on all the amazing things that happened but that is it for this video thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you soon for a new one byehey what's up hello my name is Emma and today is star it's my final summer travel vlog if you haven't gotten the chance to check out either of my previous travel vlogs part one from London and part two from Paris I will link them down below but now we are onto part three which is once again London I have four full days in London before I head back to America for the first time in 16 days so I'm really looking forward to getting the most out of the last bit of my trip that being said I don't really have many plans though like I'm just here to explore and have a good time and check out some things that I haven't gotten to do before when I was in London I'm currently staying at a really nice Airbnb in like the Fulham Chelsea area so I am staying with people who live here so I'm not going to show you the entire thing but I will show you the areas that like I have access to so the first thing you see from my bedroom door is this little coffee table that I've just been using to store a couple of my things then I have my bed which is like super super comfortable so I'm really really pleased with that and this window that overlooks the rest of the apartment complex there is my bedside table with this super super cute painting and then I have a big closet that I can put all my stuff into but I decided not to unpack really so today's plan is non-existent I really don't have a direction but I'm going to go grab like an early lunch because it's just about 12 o'clock now and then I'm thinking of taking the trek all the way to short it which is a neighborhood I visited in my last vlog and I really loved it but I didn't do anything but just like walk along the street so I'd like to explore a little bit more so yeah that's it I'm gonna go eat then I'm gonna take like an hour underground to get from West London all the way to East London but I'm really looking forward to it so honestly I've had like a really boring day I got two shortage and I've just been walking around I actually went to a record store and picked up two vinyls for my dad because he really likes to collect vinyls I thought it would be a cool gift to get him from London I walked to two different piercing places because I really want to get a new piercing while I'm here and they were both closed I get that it's a bank holiday but I'm still disappointed about it because like everything else is open now I've literally just been sitting in this park I think it's called Arnold circus and watching YouTube for an hour it's just really hot out and like I'm feeling lazy I don't want to walk around right now so I've just been sitting under this nice tree and it's been pretty relaxing I just don't spend all day out and about ever I'm always like at home or at work or at school or doing schoolwork so like going and just like non-stop walking around and exploring for what like eleven days straight at this point is not typical for me so I'm starting to run low on energy so I am home from a long day of walking and exploring I have to say it wasn't the most like exciting or adventurous day I've had in my travels so far just because I didn't really have a plan and it really was just like a day to walk around I have discovered while being on this trip that those days are not my favourites I'm gonna make a point to have some plans before I leave each day so that I can feel a little bit more like fulfilled and satisfied with what I do during the day so it's not like just walking I did buy some stuff of course which I'm going to show you so first are the album's I bought for my dad number one is this Todd Rundgren album which is someone that like my dad and mom have talked about over the years as an artist they both really like and then I got my dad at this Black Sabbath album live at last because Black Sabbath is his favorite band so I hope he enjoys them both I'm like really hoping doesn't have both of them because I didn't want to ask him which ones to get but I think it'll just appreciate the thought and then I went to a ton of thrift shops just looking for myself not every single store was open on Brick Lane that like I had seen open before because again it is a bank holiday but I did find two new things that I really like I also went into like seven stores at least and I loved a lot of this stuff it's just on number one like they don't always have it in your size and number two I just don't consider myself to be one of those people that's really good at finding stuff in five stars first I got this 90s button-up cropped top that's like marble pattern and I think it's really cute it also has shoulder pads which I thought was like a nice little addition and I think it looks really cute I don't own anything like it and then I also got these cute little daisy pearl hanging hearings and then in the last three things I bought were like from a souvenir shop I just keep stopping in them hoping that I can like find cute England stuff for all the people that I need to pick up stuff for I got this British flag postcard for myself and just because I really like art prints and stuff and I thought it was perfect it was only 30 pens like I haven't been spending that much money which is good I also picked up this little London pouch for my supervisor at I just figured it would be something she would enjoy and I got this little box of tea three different teas I actually got one of these for myself like a different brand different photos and I still have two boxes and it's like 2013 just because like I just loved the idea of it so I figured I could give one to my manager one to my supervisor and either keep one for myself or give it to someone else so a pretty successful shopping day I would say for now what I'm gonna do is I just ordered some pizza and picked it up and now I'm going to eat some dinner and maybe read or edit a video or something just like have a chill night in so honestly I wasn't having a great day just start I haven't been feeling very well and I feel like it is just a big combination of the heat in London because it's like 85 degrees out every day which I haven't been loving and I'm just not used to going out every single day and spending so much time walking and exploring so my energy is just really depleted which sucks because I only have like three days left and I really want to make the most of them but God do I just want to lay down and rest until the end of eternity so I got to Notting Hill which is where I am and I had planned on like spending all day here just exploring walking around going to a few places that like I had marked on my map and so once that happened I was feeling really low and I just wanted to like quit for the day take the El and just go home and rest so that I could be better equipped for the rest of my days but I was like I'm in Notting Hill and the main reason I've come to Nottingham is because I wanted to visit the location for the music video of affordable chains by little peep and so I was like I'll just make the trek there take some photos and then go home but I got there and it was so awesome to be there and y'all completely rejuvenated so I'll show you the footage that I took there really quick y'all I am right in front of the four gold chain through Zeke video filming location and I like can't believe I'm really here this is like one thing that like I had to do before I left England was to come to this filming the only one I know of I don't want to spend too long here because like obviously this is a place where people actively live but I got some really cute shots on feedstuffs and I'm like I just wasn't having a great day up until now but I came here and now I'm feeling so good so yeah going to the like iconic for gold chains stooop was really awesome and now I'm going to head off to some afternoon tea do some reading and drink some tea eat some scones and then we'll see where I go from there if I'm still feeling tired I will definitely go back to my Airbnb I just rest for the night otherwise there are a few more things I wanted to check out in the Notting Hill area so hopefully I will be feeling good enough to do that later if you don't think of Clarion J's every tiny oil cucumber sandwich are you even a Mortal Instruments man so I got home from Notting Hill a little while ago and I've just been sitting and chillin on my phone and it's honestly just been what I really needed I'll talk a little bit more about my day and like fill in the gaps that I feel I haven't talked about yet after I go find some dinner but I figured why not start with today's haul because that's what these logs are becoming I'm doing like these daily mini hauls but honestly a lot of the gifts are for other people so I don't feel bad about it this is the hat I bought Michael says thank you next on it I thought it was really cute and it's like a color I can see him wearing a lot I still want to find him like one more small thing that I feel is a little bit more indicative of me actually being in London because like he can buy this in America but I hope he likes it and then I did buy two things for myself because I'm just a ho for shopping the first thing is just this really really cute item I found while in the Notting Hill bookshop and it is a book fan so essentially the exterior of it is like made out of a book and then when you open it it's a van with some book pages on it honestly I just thought this would be like a cool item to keep on my bookshelf but as I was walking around in the heat today I was like wait I could actually use it as a fan who knew you could use fans as fans and the other thing I'm really really excited about is this little handcrafted notebook I bought I was walking down Portobello Road as like the market was like just beginning to close I missed a lot of it which is a shame but like it's fine but there was this one stand that had these amazing notebooks and I couldn't help but gush over them so I found this one that has like the London Underground map on it and I have really been wanting to get a nice journal for me to make like a little travel scrapbook when I get home I know a lot of people like to do like journaling everyday while they're on vacation and that's something I would have loved to do but I just know that like I want to dedicate time to making it really special and what exactly I want from the scrapbook so I'm gonna do it when I get home and something else I love about it is this little lock so all you do is you just like push this little clasp and it opens also the N pages have this like vintage map of the world which I feel was like a good way to tie like London together with all the Paris stuff I'll also be putting in it so it's not like just a London Journal every time I do open it though I'm afraid I broke it because I just sort of like flops over heard it looks like it fell off so i'ma go find some food be like apartment complex development area I'm staying in does have this little strip that has a couple of restaurants and stuff so I think I'm gonna head down there find something to either take home or maybe sit there and eat and just like relax for the rest of the night so it's pretty late but earlier tonight I had a really nice dinner there's this place called time and honey that's like in the same sort of like apartment complex and my Airbnb is in and it was really nice I went there for breakfast yesterday I think and it was pretty good but I really enjoyed the dinner I had I was planning on just taking it away and bringing it back to my room to eat but the waiter was like if you stay to eat I'll get you free drink and I was like I'm not gonna say no to a free beer and I also took his recommendation oh my gosh what was it called I think it was called like chicken kaufe there were like little chicken sausages with rice and fries or chips as a call tear and like a little salad and it was really good it was not something I would have ordered myself so I definitely think I need to start taking like recommendations from the people who work at the restaurant because it was really really good I feel like I didn't talk about the fact that I went to afternoon tea today which was really lovely and I'm so glad I was able to do it because before I had gone to labret groove which is where the four gold chains music video was filmed I was like I'm just gonna go home right after like I have to cancel my tea reservation which I was sad about but I pushed through and went and it was freely really cute the tea shop justic or was like very classy it was like exactly what I think you'd expect from a small tea room us Goins were delish sandwich was delish and tea was delish I had a great time and I got to bring home like half of it which was really good I was expecting it to not be a good day when I woke up not feeling well but it actually turned into me you like one of my favorite days that I've had in London so far good morning or should I say afternoon because it's like 2:00 p.m. at least maybe it's 3:00 I really thought that's like today it was gonna be a totally open day where I could do whatever I wanted but at like noon when I was still in bed and like just getting ready I realized that my tickets to the Warner Brothers Studio London tour were for today and not tomorrow so I'm currently taking the overground I'm like just finishing my second stop that I have to take one more like train or bus to the studio tour and then I can go so the guy who scanned my ticket asked me if I had been here before and I was like well I've been here but many years ago and he's like you probably won't even recognize it no I was like yeah okay like I know that there's new things that I'm sure it'll be very similar but even the entrance is just completely different and a million time forming a day I just got hit like such a wave of excitement and I'm so happy to be here I feel like I'm back in Harry Potter world like the with doing world it's an amazing trip I'm really excited to go through this tour again so I decided to go into the gift shop and like do all of my merch shopping before I go through the tour so I don't have to worry about doing it after and like this is dangerous because I've already seen at least like five things that I could realistically see myself leaving with today so we'll see but I'm most definitely definitely getting myself some Harry Potter Mirchi I'm in the cafe right now it's like the halfway point of it I wanted to save a little money today so I got one of those just go like three pound meal deals which honestly is like a steal the tour so far is so cool like there's a lot that I have already seen but they've added so much and not that it was ever not going to use is amazing the first time I was here but I feel like what they've added just brings so much more to the tour things I hadn't seen before but definitely the Forbidden Forest I'd like really new and I thought it was like seriously cool you felt very immersed in the forest I think Kings Cross station is also new I do not remember that being there when I came here the last time I actually feel like I'm making really great time with the tourists I don't have to stop for a couple of things just because number one I've ever seen a lot of the door before and number two at like I just recently went to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter I feel like they've also added a few cool new like voodoo booth opportunities and whatnot like the hopper things for us you can get on and take photos in front of it but I've already written in the hog Worth Express at the wrist a World of Harry Potter so like I don't need to wait on the line to do that let me show you what I bought I was so good I only bought two things but I feel like I should go back and find myself one more thing for peace okay this be first thing is this Hermione Yule Ball dress tournament I like gushed over this when I was at the theme park and I wanted it so bad but that was like a massive Harry Potter merge like I gave up so much money to buy my bro and my scarf and just Weasley sweater and everything I didn't want to buy it while I was there but I have been eyeing it for so long I've been thinking about it since I left the amusement park so I got one and like every year my mom and my sister and I we always get new ornaments and thought this would be like her really really lovely once the other time from now I had a time trainer from such a long time ago I maybe it was like 13 when there was like a Harry Potter exhibition in New York it kind of like a miniature version of what they had here so I got to see a lot of hops and costumes and at that exhibition I bought or my mom bought a time-turner for me but over the years it has broken from me wearing in and like using it in videos and stuff so I really wanted to get a new one and I felt like this was like the investment for me to get for myself yeah I'm having a great day I'm making great time and I can't wait to continue the tour I'm like so interested this is what else they're going to have because of all the new stuff here just in the first half I'm just like what else is they add so I'm home after a lovely day at the Warner Brothers Studios the main reason why I came back to London instead of going somewhere else is because like my plane ticket was already from London but the second main reason was I wanted to go to Harry Potter Studios again and this week was like the only time I could find an open slot I literally cannot believe I almost missed it oh my god such an idiot but I made it and everything was fine it was more than fine it was a really wonderful day so I was able to make it through a couple of things quickly but like nonetheless it was so cool I feel like they just added so many amazing things and it was totally a highlight of like my entire trip afterwards I got some drinks with a friend we went to this gay bar near Piccadilly Circus that was called the yard and I really really liked it there were a couple of gay bars in that area that looked really cool so definitely next time we come back to London I'll have to go back to the yard and check out some of the other spots tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow what is on the agenda for tomorrow nothing I do want to get like up and out early tomorrow I'd really like to have like a full day and I also want to spend a little time in the morning like packing up so don't have to do everything right before my flight but yeah overall really really great day I was expecting it to be like super chill do nothing rest day but it turned into something I was very exciting now it is time for me to go back to watching Doctor Who and go to sleep I'm really amazed that I've almost completed five full seasons of Doctor Who in like the two weeks that I've been here I just watched Vincent and the doctor while I was doing a little bit more packing and I cried because I always cry and now I'm watching The Lodger which is another favorite episode of mine it just makes me laugh so hard and 11 is my favorite so like being back in Matt Smith's episodes has been super super exciting good morning it is my last day in London before I go home and I'm so sad literally the fact that I have to like go back to normal life after two weeks of doing nothing but what I want every day like I want a refund I decided to finally get some use out of the balcony so I'm sitting here eating some breakfast and I'm about to do my makeup with like this lovely view Thames in the background I have like a weird amalgamation of leftovers for because I have my chicken kapha with chips and rice and then the sandwich I'm gonna hopefully get ready pretty quickly because it's a little bit later than I would have liked to get out my last day but I spent the morning like doing a little bit of packing and relaxing so it was all-around good and then we'll head out what the I fought another butchers I've got no self-control to be fair it is another book that I can't get in the US and I saved money on international shipping so it's gonna buy it anyways I mean good plan on my part I've really only been out and about for just like a little while I think right now I'm in like the Leicester Square Piccadilly area I went to foils which honestly it was probably my favorite like chain bookstore that I've been to in London I know that like waterstones has in my opinion been like the big one but I really we'll finish this later right now I'm actually standing like right under the pallet feeder which is where they show and perform Harry Potter and the cursed child which is really cool speaking of Harry Potter though I went to this little shop slash exhibition called the house nut and it was all about the graphic designer from the Harry Potter and fantastic film it was so great more on that later right now I'm actually about to go get some piercings so finally I found a shop that was willing to take me as a walk-in and I'm hyped my goal was really to get like this three piercing thing but they said they would probably only do two to not upset the healing process and like honestly I always loved a shop that's going to tell me like to do less because that means that they're very trustworthy in my opinion so hopefully I'll come back with some new piercings maybe we'll walk around a little bit more get some lunch I'll show you the things I bought at house Amina Lima and the books that I bought but honestly it's turning into a really good day I'm glad that I like came over here for my last full day in London to do some exploring and I think I'm just going to keep moving east a little bit and hit all the bookstores I want to pour in so y'all want to know something wild so this is the current bookmark I'm using and I actually got it because I bought like a used book and this was still in it and I brought it with me to England because I was like ah duh British flags I accidentally stumbled into the bookshop where they're from what like a weird bout of synchronicity that like the one bookmark that I decided to bring to England that I literally like came from nowhere because it was in a book I already bought happens to be from one of the book stores that I've decided to go to I also didn't know that Persephone books was a publisher I just thought it was a book store and then when I walked in and all the books had the same great packaging I was like wow like I guess I like print their own cover is it's really cool but they all like they're all their own books which is really cool so right now I just decided to pop a squat in this little park I believe it's called Bushwick Garden Square honestly I'm like really feeling the vibe here there's like a bunch of leaves on the ground so it feels like fall and the trees are gorgeous their branches and leaves hang so low so it's just like a cool area honestly I might just stay here prove it but I've been having such a good day so far and I haven't felt like I'm updated to do it all so that's what we're gonna do now first up I went to foils which I talked a little bit about and it decided to buy the collector's edition of wicked Kingdom by Leigh bardugo I don't know why I asked thought it was a good idea to buy this big-ass hardcover because I do not have space for it but I figure it out oh yeah I have the six of crows collector's edition and I was going to buy this anyway so it just made more sense for you to get it while here then I went to a house Amina Lima which was so freaking cool like it was on Momo's recommendation list of something she wanted to do when we were together we didn't get to it so I decided to go myself because it was in the area that I was gonna be in today and I literally didn't even know what it really was at first I just knew it was like a Harry Potter type shop and so I asked one of the shopkeepers because I was like listen I'm here on a recommendation I don't even really know what his face is and he said that the two designers just wanted to open up a face like a little gallery for Harry Potter fans to like come and see all of the original artwork for free and it was so it's like four floors and just like all of these things that you do not notice from the Harry Potter films all of like the posters and advertisements and tickets and like the marauders map and just like pretty much most of the art from Harry Potter like the black family tree oh my god everything it was so much cooler than I expected so honestly if you're a Harry Potter fan and you're going to London you must begin to have subpoena Lima I did buy things because it's my last day so I got all my money to blow so the main thing that I ended up purchasing was this pack of postcards of book covers that were designed for Harry Potter so obviously advanced potion making is one of them but on the back they have details would be Dover barred dark hearts defense ha grits a history of magical water plants on the Mediterranean fantastic beasts and where to find them ruin dictionary history of magic Triwizard tragedies and Gilderoy Lockhart's travels with trolls and so there's actually two sets of every postcard in here so I thought this would be a really great gift for me to give to Monika so like I'll keep half the cards that I'll give the other half to her because I don't think she had leave but I feel like it's something she'd really appreciate and then at checkout I like knelt down to get my wallet out of my bag and I saw these adorable poet's cards it has like this stained glass look to it but it hasn't slowed there ain't crest on it and I was like I just I have to get it to put on my wall so yeah both of those things were in like the first like hour of what I did today so I started off things really strong then I got my piercings which I actually didn't show you but so these are my two new piercing if they're even in frame I can't look at my viewfinder right now I actually wanted to get like three in a row then I got some lunch at a Tokyo which was really really good one of the people who work at the piercing and tattoo shop had a bento box they obviously got from right across the street and I was like I want a bed Toba so it got one along with some gyoza and some Japanese soda and miso soup and it was just really really delicious I actually got to take a lot of it home which I've been loving like leftovers are really underrated always buy food and just have half of it later then I went to Persephone books which I talked a little bit about so let me show you I got their bimonthly or biannually newsletter which I'm excited to flip through later and I bought some bookmarks so I was like listen like I'm having this like weird bookmark experience coincidence thing I feel like I gotta buy some bookmarks here they were only 50 P and give me a break so I picked up four of them one for me Monica and Natalia and Michael shining such a great day don't don't really have any plans for today I'm in the middle of walking to Jed books which is like the third to last bookstore I would like to visit today seriously though I just want to sit here and read for a bit so I think the probe gonna do you know we really almost made it through like my entire trip without a big mishap like I thought me almost forgetting my Harry Potter tour tickets we're gonna be the worst of it but no I just broke my camera the lens is stuck it fell and it is broken I have to drop hundreds and hundreds of dollars on a new vlog camera now and I'm so freakin upset about it trying to look on the bright side that this happened on like the last day of my trip and like the rest of my footage is completely fine and perfect but man I'm so so good at right now I'm in that mood where I just like don't even want to like do anything for the rest day like I just want to go back to my Airbnb and lay down so I decided I'm not going to give up right from the get-go I'm going to go find a cafe have a cup of tea maybe a nice little dessert slash snack because that's just what you do in England when you encounter problems you get tea and I think it might really help me raise my spirits a little bit and then afterwards I'll decide on how I'm feeling if I want to go find something else to do or if I want to just head back to my Airbnb like that's fine I think this is a very reasonable reaction for me to be having great now so I have walked to maybe like five cafes and they're all either closed even though they said they were open or they don't have their hours listed online all I want is a cup of tea and a nice treat so I don't cry it's not too much to ask for so now I'm walking to Starbucks because I just can't count on you indie shops that I want to support because y'all like to make your own hours but American corporations will always want to take my money so before I take my last sleep of England I thought I'd show you like the final things the final gifts I bought for other people today I just counted before and like I got gifts for ten different people like I just really wanted to spoil some people in my life with this trip so I'm really satisfied with that I got everyone the first is for my friend named Matt he is super into film like into film more than anyone I've ever met in my entire life he watches the new releases he watches indie films and he's like also into like European indie films from like the 1930s to 70s like he's so into film and so I did manage to go to Jed books today before I went home which was a really nice used bookstore it was definitely more focused on nonfiction compared to a lot of the fiction book stores I went to so I didn't personally find anything I wanted there but they had a really nice film section so I was like oh maybe I could like find him a book about one of his directors that we've talked about in searching our text messages so I couldn't find the names of any of the directors that he was interested in but I did find this book that is European cinema an introduction and so it basically takes like twelve or so different films and uses them as a case study to explore a lot of the common themes but what's interesting about this book is one of these films they talked about is a very famous French film called La N and looking back in our text messages and Matt talked about how he recently bought it because he wanted to rewatch it so I thought it would be a really great fit for him next I just picked up a few sweets for Kaylee and Kristin like Kaylee has lived in London for a long time and the two of them are actually coming back to London in a few months so I didn't really need to get them any like quick to central London souvenirs so I just picked up these from M&S these are percy pigs and these are veggie Colin and Connie the caterpillars and these don't have gelatin in them so I hope they enjoy them and finally I found Michael a set of rings which is something that I wanted to get him because that was one of these suggestions he gave when I asked what he would want so the first one has this little like wolf or coyote skull this one just had like a tan stone on it and this one just as next which I thought was cute because I got in the Hat that says thank you next so like they all match together so yeah this is my last night in London because my flight is at 2:30 p.m. tomorrow so I'm basically just getting up and going to the airport I will definitely do like a final like overall trip wrap up once I get home and settled but wish me luck traveling really every afternoon tea complete with a scone thought agreement damn and even a little finger sandwich so I am home from my European travels for summer this was truly the trip of a lifetime for me and not only did I get to go back to my favorite place in the world which is London but I also got to explore a city I have dreamt about and been very passionate about I was a teenager many of you know that this trip was initially planned for me to see my boyfriend who was living in England at the time but we had broken up before I was able to go so it was a very unexpected solo travel trip but I wouldn't change anything about it I learned so much about myself and grew way more than I ever expected to in that like two-week trip so yeah I'm really grateful I had the opportunity to take this trip and I'm even more thankful that I documented the entire thing so that no matter how old I am I can go back and relive this exact trip the way it was and I also hope you guys enjoyed following me along on these summer travel vlogs if you haven't seen the other two from London in Paris I will link those in the description again and definitely let me know what your favorite part of either this vlog or any of my London and Paris vlogs were because I just I love reminiscing on all the amazing things that happened but that is it for this video thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you soon for a new one bye\n"