I went with my friend Samantha (and a couple other people who were staying with friends so I only saw on the flight over). We got in friday night around 3 am to the hostel. The hostel was actually nice: we had the room to ourselves, a kitchen in the room, a bathroom with shower in the room, doors that lock. impressive (for a hostel). Anyways the first day we got up and went to see Westminster Abbey. We just looked, we decided not to pay the 12 pounds to go inside.
After that we saw the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben (the clock attached to the parliament). That's my friend Samantha.
After that we went on the London eye which is a giant ferris wheel. Unfortunately it was raining for most of the time we were in it, so it was kind of hard to take pictures from it.
Here I am inside one of the bubbles (they were enclosed so we didn't get wet).
After that we wandered around a bit, looked at some random old looking buildings and eventually ended up at the Tower of London, which is a tower than was used as a prison and as a place to guard the royal jewels and stuff. Sir Walter Raleigh was kept there! There were also lots of murder mysteries involving kings and royal people trying to gain power. here is the tower from the outside.
Here it is from the inside.
There were many towers and buildings/museums to explore here so we stayed here until it closed at 4:30, when it was already completely dark in London! I guess it's pretty far north. The Tower is right next to Tower Bridge which was really pretty at night!
We went up on Tower Bridge and we could see London Bridge, which was also lit up.
From London Bridge we could see fireworks! Not sure what they were for, maybe Guy Fox day celebrations lasting into the weekend? Anyways it was pretty cool to just walk by a big fireworks celebration... couldn't get any good pictures of it though. After that we crossed to the other side of the river and went to the Tate Modern art museum which was free and very modern art-y. After Tate Modern we crossed a pedestrian bridge that led to St. Paul's Cathedral which has a very interesting dome at night. It has random words flash across it like "fame" and "love" and "earth" and some arab words. Sometimes it made sense and sometimes it made no sense at all. strange.
Here is one side of the london skyline at night.
Then we went to see Picadilly Circus, which was very New York - like and ate at an Indian restaurant that was closeby. After that we went to Trafalgar square which has some tall monument in it and I have no pictures of it because it was night. Then we went back to the hostel.On Sunday, we went to St. Jame's park and Buckingham Palace. In St. James park we saw the royal marching band and a parade of veteran war heroes with lots of medals. We were actually trying to see the changing of the guards but that didn't happen so the parade sufficed.
These guys were my favorite (outfit wise).
St. James park was really pretty and fall-ish.
There was a bridge over the lake that supposedly has a "protected view" that no one can change. I never figured out which side the protected view was, they were both really pretty.Side 1
Side 2
That's Buckingham palace by the way. Buckingham Palace was not nearly as impressive as I thought it would be, and there weren't very many guards. We did see a couple though. They were wearing their jackets over the normal red coats. Oh well.
After that Samantha had to leave to go to the airport so I dropped her off at the hostel and went to eat lunch which was pie! I actually enjoyed the food in London, contrary to what most people warn against. I did mostly eat just pies so maybe thats why. But there are so many different kinds of pie! I had potato, feta/spinach, and turkey/bacon (thats three different kinds). They were really good for the cold London weather.
After that I went to walk through Hyde park. The first thing I saw in Hyde park was Speaker's corner, where a bunch of people stand around and practice their right to free speech by talking to whoever will listen about their opinions about... whatever! Here they are.
Hyde park itself was really pretty.
On the other side of Hyde park, I saw a bunch of guard like people on horses carrying swords!
Here is a memorial about something that I was too lazy to walk over and see.
From there, I figured I should go to atleast one of London's famous museums, so I chose the museum of natural history, which turned out to be a good choice. Saw lots of dinosaur bones and stuffed mammals. Here is the natural history museum building. There is an outside ice skating rink in front of it.
After that I just wandered around a bit, ate dinner and went back to the hostel. I left the next morning. On the way to the bus stop, I found out that a train on the metro line I had to take to the bus stop had broken down and there were major delays. Luckily my stop was the last one the train was running to, and I got there early anyways. London was one of my favorite places I've visited in Europe so far and I would definately go back there. Maybe I'll try fish and chips next time.
