London

So we have just arrived in Paris after spending 5 days in London. London was very nice, but much colder than expected. The following is a little overview of each day:

Day 1
We arrived at London's Heathrow airport very early in the morning and, with the exception of forgetting what color my luggage is and subsequently worrying that I would have to deal with Virgin Atlantic customer service with far too little sleep, had a smooth trip into central London. The only tricky part of getting to our hostel was having to navigate the many flights of stairs between there and Heathrow airport. Erin would wait at the bottom of the stairs while I ran up and down transporting our luggage. This seemed to have been far too much stress for my tired suitcase as it decided that this would be prime time for it to break one of its wheels, requiring me to drag my fully loaded suitcase with stuffed duffle bag perched on top the half mile to the hostel. Despite all this, we finally arrived at our hostel, which ended up being clean and simple – perfect for what we needed.

Not wanting to fall prey to jet lag, we dragged ourselves through London, seeing Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the Thames, King’s Cross (for Platform 9¾), and the area around our hostel. We also picked up a loaf of bread for breakfast in the morning.

Big Ben.

The Underground (Tube).

Actually in the Underground.

Posing with the ubiquitous phone booths.

Lunch across from the Thames.

Posing with the guards.

Day 2

We had a pretty early start and headed to Buckingham Palace first thing in the morning. The first thing I saw when exiting the subway station was The Ritz (picture below for Brian). We then entered through Green Park and followed the path to Buckingham Palace, which we would visit twice more in attempts to see the changing of the guards. After taking copious pictures of Buckingham Palace and the neighboring St. James’s Park, we heard the sound of drums beating in the distance. We decided to follow the sounds and soon fell upon London’s New Year’s Day parade in full swing. There were lots of different bands and performers all moving throughout the streets and thousands and thousands of onlookers. We followed the parade along for quite some time until we were too cold and went into a bookstore for a short respite.

Later on that day, we headed to the other side of the Thames (opposite Big Ben) so we could take some night photos of the Parliament building and Big Ben. We then crossed the river again to see Big Ben and Westminster Abbey up close at night. I think that this area of the city (although very touristy, I’m sure) is my favorite.

The Ritz right outside of Green Park near Buckingham Palace.

Posing with a guard (a little braver this time).

St. James's Park next to Buckingham Palace.

The London Eye as seen from St. James's Park.

The beginning of the New Year's Day parade.

Little kid on stilts at the New Year's Day parade.

Lots of people at the parade.

More people.

Patriotism.

There were some odd characters there too.

Some onlookers trying to get a good view.

Big Ben at night.

Big Ben at night and a double decker bus zooming by.

Day 3

The next day we headed to the area just south of Kensington Gardens. There is a whole row of free museums there and we wanted to go to the Victoria and Albert Museum. Upon exiting the Tube, we were met immediately by Harrod’s, the famous British department store. We went inside for a quick look around. It was much larger than I expected and had pretty much everything imaginable. We then made our way over to the Victoria and Albert Museum followed by Kensington Gardens. Kensington was very nice and extremely large. I liked St. James’s Park (by Buckingham Palace) more, but I’m sure both would be gorgeous in the spring and summer months.We ate lunch in Kensington Gardens and headed over to Kensington Palace, but did not go in as it cost far too much and we still had a lot of other things in the area we wanted to see.

From Kensington we made the short walk up to Notting Hill, which, while at first did not appear to be what we expected, proved to be home to the world’s best hot chocolate (located at Caffé Nero). Later that evening we went to Baker Street, where Sherlock Holmes is said to have lived. Despite its quaint name, Baker Street was not at all and we quickly decided to head back to the areas of the city we were more familiar with.

It was very clean in London, so it was very surprising to see this bit of litter

Day 4

This morning we attempted for a second time to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, but were, again, out of luck. We were informed, however, that the ceremony would definitely occur the next day (our last in London). This was the first day that we had blue skies in London, so we took advantage of that and headed over to the Tower Bridge/London Bridge and the Tower of London. It was quite odd to see a very old castle of sorts in the middle of a major city. While walking from the Tower of London to the Tower Bridge, we were met by a huge swarm of seagulls being fed by a man on the edge of the river. I took advantage of the feeding frenzy to get some pictures of the birds up close. We then headed over to the British Library, but were not able to see much because we were lacking a certain “reader pass” and a home address in the UK.

Swiss Re Building in the background with part of the Tower of London in the foreground.

Seagull squabble.

Ready to dive in.

The Tower Bridge.

The best hot chocolate in the world (to go).

Day 5

We were finally able to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace today, although it seemed odd that they were playing music from the Wizard of Oz during the ceremony. After enjoying a little bit more of St. James’s Park and the surrounding area, we headed over the British Museum, which is near our hostel and home to the Rosetta Stone and many other famous artifacts.

Changing of the guards.

Rosetta Stone.