london
Forgive my spelling and Grammar, The exhange rate makes Internet expensive so I am typing as fast as I can.
This morning we all woke up around 6am. There really wasn't any reason to wake up this early other than our hostel is right on a busy street and everyone else in the city woke up. We did, however, go to bed at about 10pm last night so 6am was just fine with all of us. After taking quick showers, gathering our things, and checking maps we headed out the door. The final destination was Kingston palace via the Thames river and the millenium bridge.
Today I was a little sneaky in that I told Jenson and Amanda that Big Ben wasn't that far way (I walked to it yesterday) and that we should walk. He He.. they didn't know what they were in for. To save time I'm just going to write down the sites we saw in the order we saw them (Internet here is pretty expensive).
Tate Modern Museum
Bernie Spain Gardens
London Television Centre
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Crossed over the River Thames via Hungerford Foot Bridge
Big Ben
Ministry of Defense
Houses of Parliament
Westminster Hall
Westminster Abby
St. James Park
Buckinham Palace
Harrods
Hyde Park
The Lido Park
Kensington Palace
The distance from the hostel to Kensington Palace was approximately 5.5-6miles and I have no idea what it is in kilometers (you can figure that one out for me). After going to Kensington Palace we decided to take the tube back towards the hostel. On the way back we stopped by St. Paul's Cathedral but didn't want to pay the ?8 entry fee so we took a few quick pics and headed back towards the hostel.
We arrived back at the hostel at approximately 15:30 and decided to take a nap. We all woke up at 19:00 (remember 24 hour time here) and then decided to head out towards Piccadilly Circus. We got back on the tube and arrived at Piccadilly Circus a bit later. Two of our roommates were from New York and they told that Piccadilly Circus is similiar to NY times Square and although I have never been there (NYC) it looked just like the pictures. Big HUGE scrolling Billboards, a HUGE Vodaphone sign and just an insane amount of people. The area stretched for about 20-40 big city blocks and we walked almost all of them in about 3 hours.We even accidentally found the red light district.
.We headed back to the Hostel at ~11:20 and arrived at our room at ~11:45. I wasn't tired so I headed to the bar down the street to grab a pint, listen to some live music and write this blog. Jenson and Amanda have gone to bed and I'm about to head that way too but I just put in another ? in the machine and I'm going to continue writing for another 20 minutes (told ya internet was expensive, $6/hr US)
Alright now for some info on a few specific places
Westminster Abby:
Amanda really wanted to go to Westminster because of the whole Princess Diana thing (London forgive me, but I don't care that much about the Princess). We paid the ?5 student admission price and took our dear sweet time walking through it (Have I mentioned how freakin' expensive London is, I am so glad we are leaving tomorrow morning). Westminster abby was amazing and it was definitely a good experience. The only thing is that they do not let you take pictures inside, which is an incredibly lame policy.
I have a feeling that my Grandma would be very disappointed though if I did not get pictures of the inside. So out of love for my Grandman (Love ya) Jenson and I took a few sneaky pictures inside. A few of them turned out very well and a few more of them didn't come out at all BUT more importantly we didn't get caught. Our next destination was Buckinham Palace via St. James Park.
Buckinham Palace:We started walking through St. James park at approximately 11:15am and upon entering the park we heard a parade. We weren't quite sure what was going on but we ran towards the sound of the music to find out what it was. The music was coming the Royal band that was marching towards the Palace to announce the changing of the Guards which happens everyday at noon unless it is raining and then the Band refuses to play "in the wet" (as they say) and thus the guards don't get changed. The change took approximately 45 minutes and was fairly interesting. The queen is not in town (the flag of England was flying above the palace) but it was still an interesting changing of the guards. After we watched the changing (and took about 50 pictures a piece) we headed out toward Harrods and Kensington Palace. Both of these weren't the greatest and I'm running out of time so I'm going to have to finish this up.
Miles walked: 6 miles
Pictures taken : 230+
How long it will take you to get bored of my picture: 5 minutes
Tomorrow we depart for Paris aboard Easy Jet airlines at 9:10am from Luton airport. We are going to have to catch a 50min train ride at approximately 6:00am or so (latest would be 7am), they arrive every 15 minutes at a cost of ?9. Once we arrive in Paris we are checking out our rental car and heading for Normandy.
That's all I have for now. I'm not sure about the internet connectivity in Normandy but as for London internet is everywhere (including 100 connections at a 200 seat Burger King, oh ya and McDonalds, Burger King, KFC and Starbucks are everywhere in London.
The flight to London took approximately 8 hours of straight flying. Amanda and I flew Air Canada out of Vancouver direct to London. The flight was actually pretty decent. They served us dinner and breakfast (at the appropriate times), played two movies and several TV shows. Personally I took advantage of the soothing music played on channel 5 and the complimentary pillow and blanket. I slept about 5-6.5 hours of the flight taking time to eat dinner and breakfast.
When we arrived we had no trouble at all finding the tube and it was only a 45 minute ride to piccadilly circus in Central london (We did not take Heathrow express, because we are poor students). We only had to transfer twice.
Flying Tip: if you know that you are going to be flying overseas make sure that you swamp yourself with homework the week before the trip. This way you will be awake all night and going to bed early in the morning. Essentially you will be shifting your time schedule to match that of where you are flying.
My companions did not swamp themselves with homework and thus received the normal 8 hours of sleep at the normal Pacific-standard time hours. They are both suffering from severe jet lag and just wanting to go to bed. Unfortunately its the middle of the afternoon here and the have to stay awake just to get themselves adjusted. I find it amusing because I have a TON of energy.
We arrived at the hostel around 10:30 and found out that we couldn't check in until at 2pm. Amanda was not feeling well so she hung out at the hostel and I locked up my bags and headed out into the town. From 11am until 3:15pm I walked around downtown London, I have checked out the London Bridge, Millenium Bridge, the London eye (and I rode it), Big Ben, House of the Lords, St. Johns (james?) Cathedral and a few other places in Central London.
When I arrived at the hostel at 3pm Jenson had finally arrived. He missed his flight out of Calagary (We were on different flights) and had to sit standby for the next flight. Luckily he got on and he is here now, suffering from severe jet lag and is as tired as Amanda.
And now I must go and make sure that both of these two don't go to bed until at least 8pm. I'm going to take them to the London Bridge and we are going to walk across it.
