**I have been traveling with my friend Katie for the past few weeks, so WE = Katie and I**
Our journey began on Sunday August 17th with a flight from MSP to Detroit for a brief layover before our nearly 7 hour flight across the Atlantic to London. Clearly, I haven't flown international in a while as I was truly fascinated by the personal TVs and wide selections of movies (I watched 'Prince Caspian'!), as well as information about our flight in progress, displaying altitude, distance traveled, wind speed, etc. Also, they were far more generous with food than I remember from my previous experiences. We got full cans of pop, dinner, breakfast and a snack...I was rather impressed!
Katie and I on the Plane
Enough about the long boring flight, onto the more exciting stuff... We arrived at Heathrow on Monday morning (6 hour time difference), went through customs, and got our luggage, and i immediately pulled out my Columbia fleece - London is COLD! We wound our way through the airport and found our way to the tube (subway station) to find our way to our youth hostel. We found the hostel without any major glitches, but lets just say I wouldn't advise traveling extensively through the tube with about 80 lbs. of luggage up and down many flights of wet stairs (it rains a lot in London--pack your umbrella Megan!). We dropped off our stuff at the hostel even though it was too early to formally check in, and then we headed out to explore and walk off some of the stiffness from the plane.
We basically wandered aimlessly until we stumbled across sights of interest and a much needed spot for lunch. The Eye of London, Parliament and Big Ben, and Westminster Abbey were among the big-ticket sights for the afternoon. After our audio guided tour through Westminster Abbey we headed back to the hostel for a much-needed shower and some rest. Towards dinner time we took a bus (yes, double-decker. no, not nearly as cool as the Knight Bus!) to check out Camden Markets. After we wandered around there for a while we headed back to the hostel and called it a night.
Big Ben! (actually, it's not so big!)
Westminster Abbey
Our day began with a "free" tour of London (you were basically forced into tipping the tour guide). It was a great way to see a lot of the city and take in some of its history. In short, the tour included: the Tower of London, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, HMS Belfast, the Royal Exchange and financial district, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Globe Theater, Tate Modern, Millennium Bridge, Church of the Knights Templar ('the D'Vinci Code', anyone?!), Fleet Street (unfortunately there were no signs of Johnny Depp...), and the Royal Court of Justice (featuring the clock used as the Hogwarts clock in Harry Potter). After our tour was through, we walked past Buckingham Palace and found a place to sit for a while in St. James Park. Without question, the highlight of the day was seeing "Wicked". It was a great production!
Harry Potter Clock!
This one's for you, Alyssa!
8.20
The day started off with a visit to the Tower of London, featuring a hefty price tag of 14£ (about $25), so I had my hopes set high. We had a bit of a guided tour with a Beefeater (aka the guards of the fortress who originally acquired the name because they tested all of the food before it was fed to the figures of authority), followed by time to take in the rest of the fortress on our own. Seeing the crown jewels was definitely one of the more interesting aspect of the Tower of London, but we stayed nearly 4 hours just to make the admission price more worth-while. The day continued with a walk across Tower Bridge, up the bank of the Thames, and to the Globe Theater and Tate Modern. We managed to meander our way to Greenwich for the much acclaimed 'fish & chips'...low price was a plus, but it really wasn't that great. After we were through with dinner, we wandered through Greenwich Park to find the Prime Meridian. We concluded the day by traversing back to downtown London and taking in the National Gallery.
Tower Bridge
Fish & Chips (and European Coke...so much better than American)
Standing on the Prime Meridian (I was in 2 time zones at once!)
8.21
The day started off splendidly with trip to Abbey Road (I attempted to get a cool picture walking across the road, but failed miserably as the traffic was rather heavy). That highlight was followed by a pit-stop at Baker's Street (Go Sherlock!) on our way to see the Changing of the Guards at Buckingham Palace. Unfortunately arriving a half hour early was completely pointless...apparently if you want a chance of seeing anything you should get there a good 3 hours early!
Abbey Road!
Peter Pan
The afternoon consisted of a trip to the British Museum where we saw the Rosetta Stone! We stopped off at a grocery store to find something for dinner, and then found a bench along the bank of the Thames and enjoyed a gorgeous sunset aross the London skyline. From there we headed towards Picadilly Circus (Times Square of London) and we found 1/2 price tickets to go see "Spamalot."
8.22 Our last day in London started off with a visit to King's Cross Station and Platform 9 3/4 followed by an afternoon of wandering around London. At 5 we headed over to the theater for "Spamalot" only to find out we were going to be moved from our crummy 4th balcony seats to row I on the floor...how lucky can you get!? We were pretty darn excited about that! "Spamalot" was a really funny show (couldn't help but think of you, Jen!) and it was really a great way to end our stay in London!
Katie with our well-used and abused map after a week in London
No comments:
Post a Comment