london, england

We were so excited to finally be going to London! We arrived at Paddington Station, one of London's EIGHT train stations. The first thing we did was buy an Oyster travel card, which gave us unlimited use of all the tube (subway) lines and buses for one week. The tube network is just amazing. There are 12 different lines runnig all around the city, which really puts Vancouver's two lines to shame! We then took the tube to Piccadilly Circus station where one of the main tourist offices was and where we bought our one week London Pass. The London Pass gave us entry into a whole long list of attractions around London. The one week pass was kind of expensive, but if you added up the individual costs of everything we wanted to do it would cost more, so it ended up saving us quite a bit of money in the long run! We got to the hostel a little too early for check in, so we locked up our packs and headed to the zoo for the rest of the afternoon. It was so much fun! We watched the penguin feeding and saw all sorts of other animals. They had this butterfly tent that you could walk into and be surrounded by tons of free flying butterflies. There must of been hundreds of them! If you held up your hand they would even land on you.. hehe..

The next morning we got up early because we had a lot to do! We started of with the Tower of London. It's there that London's crown jewels are kept. We were lucky there was practically no line to see them. It's funny, they have a moving sidewalk around them so people don't hold up the line by staring too long..haha. Also within the Tower gounds was the White Tower, where arms were stored. There was an exhibit about the 5th of November (I can't remember what year!) when Guy Fawkes tried to blow up the parliament buildings to protest the government. If anyone's seen the movie V for Vendetta you'll know more about that. There's the whole rhyme from the movie "remember, remember, the 5th of November, gunpowder treason and plot... " and it goes on. It was cool being able to relate that to the theme of the movie. After that we headed to Tower Bridge, where there was an exhibit covered by our London Pass that we checked out. The exhibit was ok, it was mainly for the views at the top or the bridge tower that we went up for though! After that we crossed the bridge to the south bank where we headed to the HMS Belfast. It's a big warship that's been turned into a really extensive museum. It was also covered by the London Pass. From the gangway onto the ship we got a good view of the tower bridge actually opening to let a ship underneath which was neat. After that we grabbed some lunch then headed to St. Paul's Cathedral, which was huge! We climbed ALLLLL the way to the top which gave us an awesome view of the whole city. After that we crossed the pedestrian only bridge across to the Tate Modern gallery. For the most part it was pretty hippy dippy and far out, but there were some cool Picasso's and Dali's. There was one painting that was a huge gray canvas. Just gray. There was some long winded explanation beside it about how the artist was trying to convey sadness in the world or something like that. Blech. After the museum we headed to the last stop for the day, a place called Vinopolis. We probably wouldn't have done that, but it was included in the London Pass. It was basically a little wine museum, and we got 5 free wine tastings with the tour. I definitley like white wine better.. I tasted some pretty nasty red ones, they tasted the way burning fireworks smell..*shudder* It was cool though because we've been wanting to learn more about wine since it's such a common drink here!

The next morning was another early one! We started by heading to the Parliament buildings and Big Ben to take some pictures. Big Ben is actually the name of the bell INSIDE the tower, but the whole thing has become known as Big Ben. It was so huge..the clock face alone is 23 feet across! We crossed the bridge and headed to the aquarium, but it didn't open for another half an hour or so, so we decided to go for a ride on the London Eye in the meantime, even though it cost like $30 cdn =(. The London Eye is the world's largest observation wheel. Basically it's a giant ferris wheel! Each capsule can hold something like 25 people though. It took 30 min to go all the way around, and by the time we were done the aquarium was open. After the aquarium we went to Westminster Abbey, a massive cathedral where all England's coronations take place (it was Anglican - did you know it's against the law for any royalty to be Catholic?), and where a lot of famous people have been buried.. some dating back to the 1300s! We actaully stumbled in for free through the giftshop..hehe. There were a couple different sections where they would check tickets occasionally so we were kind of worried, but it all worked out! Westminster Abbey was one of the few things that wasn't included in the London Pass for us. When we were done there, we made our way to Trafalgar Square, stopping at the Crest of London souvenir store to pick up our free teddy bear souvenir (a perk thanks to the London Pass!) It was funny, there were a few different store locations throughout the city, so we ended up going to three different ones and collecting three different bears! When we got to Trafalgar Square we ate lunch at Subway then went to the National Portrait Gallery. After that we continued walking to Covent Garden, where I bought a new daypack. It has much better padding and support than my old one, and it was on sale! hehe..Then we stumbled across The Canada Store! lol.. it was right next to the Maple Leaf Pub. It was really neat, they sold all sorts of Canadian brands of food and things that they don't have over here normally, it was like walking down the aisle at Safeway! They even had the big cannisters of Tim Horton's coffee!! I so wanted to buy one.. but wouldn't have the room for it. We both got a can of A&W root beer, and it was grand! The Bristish Library was open late that nght, so we also went and checked that out. It was here that they had things like original hand written music scores by Mozart, hand written lyrics by The Beatles, the original copy of Alice in Wonderland, ancient religious texts, and also the Magna Carta. The Magna Carta was a hugely significant document outlining certain rules for the King. For the longest time kings would have free reign, with no accountability. The Magna Carta held them responsible to a certain set of governing rules, including a prisoner's right to a trial by jury. By the time we were done there it felt like my feet were going to fall off. I was so glad to get back to the hostel and head to bed.

After our first couple of days bumrushing London, we slowed it down a bit. The next day we started with Buckingham Palace and saw all the commotion of tourists for the changing of the guard. We also stopped by Wellington Arch quickly, and as we were there we saw part of the procession for the changing of the guard pass underneath. We then headed to the Chelsea Footbal Club Stadium where we were going on a tour! Again, it was part of the London Pass and was a nice change of pace. Our guide was such a character, and told us to call him Elvis, haha.. You could tell he was so passionate about his job, he's been a Chelsea fan all his life and now leads tours of the stadium. We saw the press room, media area, the wives and girlfriends' area, and the players' dressing rooms. The away team had didly squat in their dressing room, but the Chelsea one was state of the art. Our guide explained all the subtle things done to the away teams dressing room to inconvenience the players in every way. The locker shelves were really low so they would always have to bend down (and maybe pull something!), the whiteboard was tiny, and the dressing area was L shaped so the players wouldn't be able to see everyone and get any sort of energy going before the game. After a lunch of fish n chips, we headed to Harrod's department store. It was HUGE and sold everything you could imagine there. It was 5 levels, all serviced by a huge Egyptian themed escalator. In the toyland section they had miniature, driveable Hummers for sale for $22,000. One of the guys working there said David Beckham had been in the month before and bought a couple for his sons. If that wasn't what you were looking for, they also had a miniature Mercedes Benz for 9,000 pounds. In the electronics section they had a gold-plated plasma screem TV and home entertainment system for 55,000 pounds. This place was just crazy! For our evening activity, we went to the National Gallery, where they had paintings by Rembrandt, Rapheal, da Vinci, and Van Gogh. Unfortunately the Van Gogh wing was closed when we were there though.

By the next day we were feeling pretty burned out. We relaxed in Hyde Park for a bit, before going on a tour of Kensington Palace, where Princess Diana lived. We were really lucky with the weather the whole time we were in London. It was beautiful and sunny everday except for our last one! We spent most of the day after that at the Natural History Museum, then headed to the British Museum where they had things like the Rosetta Stone and pieces of statues and marble from the Parthenon in Greece.

We spent most of our last day in London at Wimbledon Stadium where we went on a tour. It was yet another thing that was included in our London Pass. We tried to get back to the city in time to go on a boat cruise up the Thames, but didn't quite make it. Instead we tried going to Vinopolis again for some more wine sampling, but when they swiped our card they saw that we had already been and wouldn't let us in =( Instead we went to Nando's for dinner, which would be our last time eating there until we got home. After dinner we headed to the hostel and made it an early night. The next morning we were catching a flight to Switzerland, which we got an awesome deal on! We each paid only about $30 cdn for the flight.