As any other Arsenal fan from abroad, visiting London and watching Arsenal play was on the top of my bucket list.

During my teenage and student years, this was all only a dream and something that made me study and focus on work more, so I could afford it when I grew up. I couldn’t imagine asking my parents to pay for a trip like that, so it had to wait until I had a proper job and I could save up for it.

The dream came true in May 2017, 11 years after I started following Arsenal in Croatia.

3Saturday, May 6th

We managed to do The Big Ben and telephone box combo in one photo // Full English breakfast, so good // Buckingham’s Palace // Leicester Square // Tower Bridge

I couldn’t sleep too long as always when I’m too excited.

When we both woke up, had a coffee with our hosts and went to grab some breakfast. We agreed the day before that we will have the classic full English breakfast and we found a nice place right near the Regent’s Park. The breakfast was massive and yummy – although Nikola said my version is better (I taught him well).

After breakfast, we walked it off in Regent’s Park. It’s such a lovely place – even though it was cloudy and windy – full of so many different people and so many different dogs! We really enjoyed this piece of green heaven in the middle of this massive city. We wanted to spend more time there but we had to be in Oxford Street by noon for our main plan that day – our tour of London.

If you remember my story from Zagreb away, we met up with three Arsenal fans and showed them around Zagreb, so they wanted to “return the favour” in London.

We met up with Greg and Maggie, our tour guides for the day, close to Oxford Street, and, after lots of hugs, our five-hour tour started.

We wanted to see all the usual tourist stuff, no matter how clichéd it was. This was our first time in London ever!

Mags and Greg took us to all the stunning places – starting from Oxford Street, then over to St James’ Park, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Parliament, the London Eye, The Shard, Tower Bridge, the Tower of London.

We had a few pint breaks in between of course!

After all the sights, we visited Borough market, a fascinating place that Nikola loved the most because it wasn’t the typical tourist destination and was filled with local people. There we met up with Sean, the last member of our Zagreb group, and his lovely wife, and had more pints in more pubs.

M Y E S C A P E 2
The squad in pub // Mags and I love selfies // The squad again // Just the lads // Sean and I

The tour ended at night in Leicester Square where we saw all the lights and so many people having fun and enjoying themselves – none more than us. Mags, Greg, Sean and his wife were so kind to us, showed us everything we wanted to see, shared stories about the city, Arsenal and life, all as if we had been friends for a whole lifetime.

Even though we walked 22km (according to my phone), we were so happy at the end of the day, and fell asleep with massive smiles – excited for the big day on Sunday.