The next day in London was also filled with many many activities to do! This was the actual “cultural” part of the trip and we had to see the BIG things. Like… BIG ben, parliament, the London eye, Westminster abbey, and the British Museum!!
So every major city we go to in Europe, there is a company that does Free Tours of the city we are in. If you have read my other blogs, you can see we have done these Free Tours in Munich and in Dublin. These free tours are walking tours and they take you to popular places around the city you are in, but the down side of these tours… they take FOREVERRRR. Literaly… 4 hour long walking tours. And I am allll for walking and getting that exercise in, but sometimes I just need to sit down and have a chocolate bar and just chill a little bit. SO the girls and I decided we would have our own personal walking tour!
To get around London, the best, easiest, and cheapest way to travel is the Underground! It’s just like the subway or metro in DC. So we got our Oyster cards (they are little cards that are like mini debit cards. You put money on the oyster cards and you swipe them to get through the gate things… like a subway system whatever.) Thank GOD I am travling with directionally functional girls because I literally would be LOST most of the time without them (shoutout to Kira and Katie!! – these girls are like our personal GPS system… but in human form.) SO we started off with traveling to see Big Ben. To my surprise…. Big ben is actually connected to parliament! Who would have thunk it?! Well, Tour Guide Kelly filled us in (my one friend Kelly was travling with us and she brought her Kindle while we were exploring London so every time we got to a new destination, she would Wikipedia the place we were at and then tell us allllll there is to know about that place. That’s why we called her Tour Guide Kelly. AND she talked in a british accent! 10 points for Kelly!) SO big ben parliament and Westminster abbey were all literally in the same square so we did not need to walk far at all (thank you baby jesus). Right around the corner, about 3 streets over, is the London Eye. The London Eye is basically a huge ferriss wheel that is decked out and really big and cool and if you buy tickets (14 pounds – I did not buy tickets because I can just google a bird’s-eye view of London…. And I am on a budget. I’d rather buy an invisibility cloak than spend my money on the London eye). SO next on the stop was the British Museum. Before we hit the British museum, we ate at a restaurant nearby…. Of course it was an Irish pub. I ordered a cheeseburger.
The British museum was large and in charge. And it was a huge building that kind of resembled what it would be like if you were inside of a very large marble. The ceilings were cool looking and it was just large and round. The only great thing about the British museum, beside the fact that it has a lot of cool old things from all over the world, is the Rosetta stone. The RS was a lot smaller than I thought—about the size of a 42 inch plasma tv. It was nice to say that I visited this museum, but to be honest… we have visited so many museums, they are all starting to cluster together (annnnd we go to ANOTHER museum in Amsterdam… more to come on that later). So we ended with the bristish museum and made our way back to the hostel to get ready for the evening! Unfortunately.. we were in London during the weekdays… so we attempted at going out but there was NOTHING happening. All the “bars” and “clubs” closed early at midnight or 1, but we couldn’t even find these places in the first place so it didn’t really matter. London was not as poppin’ at night time compared to the other places -- that doesn’t matter because I am on these traveling trips for the culture aspect… right?
SO London was a pretty wicked place to be! We had a good time even though it was FREEZING – the coldest place I have been so far!
CIAO FOR NOW!
FUN FACTS
There is NO Mexican restaurants ANYWHERE in Europe. We thought that London would be a good place to find Mexican food and we wasted probably an hour a day walking around trying to find a Mexican restaurant. Even though we couldn’t find a Mexican restaurant, we found out they had CHIPOTLE!!! And of course we ate there… twice.
Pigeons I think where originated in Europe. Specifically LONDON. I swear, I have never seen so many dirty birds in my life.
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