Day 3. Monday.
Despite being exhausted from the day before, I woke up at 4:30 am wide awake. I couldn't fall back asleep... so I was a little Westminster Crabby when we started our day. Breakfast cheered me up a bit, as we made friends with Taylor (Tyler, not sure what his name really was), from Brisband, Australia. Now, thanks to my favorite Aussie Laura, I am becoming quite an Australian expert so when Tyler said he didn't understand why Americans wore flannel....and that we looked like Lumperjacks, I replied, yah that's so bougin. One point for proper use of an Australian term. He was quite entertaining, after quitting "Uni" he came to London and has been there since October living/working at the Hostel. He gave us some good laughs and some good advice "Never trust a man with facial hair, at least not completely". Sounds pretty legit to me.
We headed into town, even with a little sun shining beautifully on the River Thames, and headed to pick up Claire's Billy Elliott ticket from the theater. After a little wait and some slow people, we headed to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. We wanted to be a little early, so we could get a location. We found a place against the fence and sat for a bit waiting for it to get started.
Now, I'm not sure what I was expecting (maybe some fireworks or a flash mob dance..yes Thriller would have spiced it up a bit) but changing of the guard was significantly boring. After a long wait for things to get started, it was just a lot of marching. The band helped a little bit. I couldn't help but wonder if sometimes this ordeal wakes Harry or William, like their own personal royal alarm clock.
The whole procedure seemed to be somewhat of a waste, but I understand the historical significance and the tradition behind it. (I wouldn't want to offend any of the Guards of the World out there). By the time we left, the place was so packed with tourists, all lined up to see this world renowned event. I mean, the hats were definitely the best part. We watched for about 45 minutes but we're getting cold and wanted to get on our river cruise at 12:20, so we hiked it back to Westminster Bridge to catch our City Cruise that was apart of our London Pass.
Now I love boats so a chance to cruise down the River Thames was very much appealing to me. Even though it began to flurry when we were on it. We went under the famous bridges. Waved to the towns folk for good luck and even went under London's own "Channel of Love".
We went down the river and saw some historical sights. We went under the London Bridge (which luckily wasn't falling down and was actually not impressive at all). The famous bridge is actually called the Tower Bridge and it was beautiful.
We got off the boat and headed to the Tower of London, famous for its torture and image of power. Right on. For future London travelers, if you want to get the most out of the Tower of London (and the 17 pound entrance fee) you should allow for at least half a day. That was not in our schedule, and I was not in the mood to deal with crowds or lines. It was very interactive and probably good for children too, but not for tourists who had big plans for the day. The line to see the Crown Jewels was very long, and after a failed attempt at cutting the queue, we decided it wasn't worth our time to wait. We saw the famous Beefeaters and some of the famous medieval graffiti from prisoners and we decided to move on.
Claire has an obsession with cathedrals, and I will give her this, I've never been disappointed, so we headed (like a mile) to St. Paul's Cathedral. More line waiting, and I was severely crabby and tired at this point, but I sat down for a few minutes while Claire held our spot in line, and we finally got in. The Cathedral was beautiful, not surprising, but I wasn't sold until we got to climb up to the dome. The dome is the 2nd largest in the world, and I think 32 meters across. But we got to keep climbing and going outside the dome. It was ridiculous. So many stairs. My legs were literally burning. At this point we had walked probably 5 miles already that day. 582 steps to the top I believe. But just like Diamondhead in Hawaii, the view was totally worth the hike. Life's a climb, but the view's great.
We climbed up to the almost top.
Some illegal photo of the dome. (I do not understand why some places don't let you take photos)
View from the top down.
Hello London.
We climbed back down, and our legs were shaking. We got some sandwiches to go and headed to the Tower Bridge for a quick tour. It was cool to be on the top of the bridge and learn something about it. It was built in 1894 after 8 years of deciding on a design. And the spoof in Spice World about a bus having to jump it when it was going up actually happened in the 80s.
(we were up in that top part)
We wanted to make the 4:20 boat so we cut our time short and walked speedily to the boat, but we just missed it. So we found a table and chilled til the next one. It began to rain so we abandoned our plan to walk home (plus our legs were jello), so we bought another all day Tube pass after getting off the boat and took our favorite mode of transportation. A quick change at our hostel and it was back on the Tube for some musicals. I really wanted to see Wicked, and Claire had seen it twice already so she opted for Billy Elliott. Luckily they were right next to each other.
Wicked was amazing! It was moving and the singing was great and the special effects were awesome. I loved the songs. "I'm not that girl", "Defying Gravity", "What is this Feeling?" and "For Good" were my favorites. "What is this feeling" reminded me of the numerous Mundelein Lights shows I saw, and "For Good" made me miss all my DeeZees and the nights in the kitchen. My ice cream at Intermission made for a perfect show. It gave me the chills.
I met up with Claire (our shows got out about the same time) and we took the Tube down to Westminster Bridge. We wanted to see Big Ben at Night. It was magical.
Back to our hostel, but in desperate need of a snack, the guy at the front desk (who may or may not have thought we were idiots) pointed us in the direction of the Mickey D's. Once again, McDonald's is a reliable place...open late. Not much is open late in Europe as far that we've seen, and we trusted McD's more than any random grease shack. Potato wedges and a cheeseburger hit the spot then it was back home and time for bed.
Every bone in my body hurt. All those steps. Plus at least 8 miles of walking. And the stairs up and down the tube....
Random observations throughout the day:
There was an Abe Lincoln Statue in Parliament Square. Way to represent Illinois Abe.
There are lots of tourists for a Monday in February. And a great percentage of them were taking group photos with peace signs. I don't know how you get anymore stereotypical. Maybe throw in a fanny pack...
No comments:
Post a Comment