Sophie Torgerson
One of the things that has always been on my bucket list has been to travel to Europe. I was ecstatic when I made the decision to study abroad in Denmark in June of 2019. The majority of the trip would be spent in Aalborg, which is a smaller-sized city in the northern region of Denmark. The last couple days would be spent in Copenhagen, the capital and largest city of Denmark. The program was only three weeks, and although I was told we would have free time most evenings and weekends, I wasn’t expecting to have enough time to travel outside the country, although that was something I was interested in. However, in our second week abroad, a few of my classmates were researching things to do for the weekend and came across a $39 round-trip ticket to London for the following Saturday. I decided that I couldn’t let this incredible opportunity pass, as I wasn’t sure when the next time I would be in Europe would be, so a couple hours later, four of my classmates and I booked our flight.
All photos courtesy of Sophie Torgerson
The flight departed Aalborg Saturday morning, and came back earlier on Sunday morning. That meant we would have less than 24 hours to spend in London, so we had to carefully decide the things we wanted to make sure to have time to see, and we had little time to plan. We all came to the agreement that we wanted to, at the very least, get a brief overview of the city and try to see as many of the main sites as we could, such as Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, and the Tower of London. We also agreed that we didn’t want to spend too much money, as we still had to travel to Copenhagen the next week.
The biggest way we were able to cut costs on this excursion was making the decision to not get a hotel room or Airbnb. We, instead, would spend the night at the airport. Our flight the next morning left around 7 am anyways, so since we estimated we’d have to be at the airport three hours early, we didn’t think it would be worth it to spend over $100 on a hotel room for only a couple hours of sleep. Another way we cut costs was giving ourselves a self-guided tour. I would have liked going on an organized city tour to get more of the historical and cultural knowledge about the city, however, that would have been more money a lot of us didn’t have to spend at the time, so we decided against it.
We spent the day moving from site to site (with help from Google Maps and Uber). Mapping things out beforehand definitely came in handy, so we could see things in the most efficient order to save time. Surprisingly, in the time we had, we were pretty successful in seeing most of the major sites. Arriving at the Stansted Airport, in the northeast section of London, we took a train to London Liverpool Street, where we were able to start our journey. We ate at the first place we could find, and I was able to try English chips (what we would consider fries in America) for the first time. From there, we made our way to see the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, the London Eye, Parliament Square, Buckingham Palace, Piccadilly Circus, and took a few stops to take pictures in the infamous red phone booths, and eat fish and chips at a local restaurant. My one wish would be having more time at each site to actually experience them more; however, it gives me all the more reason to go back.
I’m so thankful that I came across this opportunity to visit London, during my time in Denmark. The trip was short and sweet, but allowed me to get a broad overview of a city in a whole new country, and confirmed my need to go back. I hope that one day I’m able to visit again with more time to be able to experience things more in depth and gain a wider understanding of the country. I know that I definitely want to find more fish-and-chips restaurants to try, actually buy a ticket for the London Eye, and take a tour on one of the red tour buses. It was great in itself having the opportunity to study in Denmark for three weeks, so also having the chance to see another country that I wasn’t expecting to see was an extra bonus. Long story short, always take an opportunity for more travel if you can!