London

After Berlin we went back to Manchester to try and get some replacement cards and such, then we continued the trip as planned. London!

 

I was tired but my sister was ready to continue the photo documentary the moment we hit the ground. This is from the Victoria underground.

 

After checking into our hostel and leaving or backpack we went to the National Gallery. I'm fairly certain we were able to see every room. We took about 3-4 hours and were surprisingly exhausted by our gallery viewing, but I loved it! I stopped and did rough sketches of some of the pictures and wrote down titles and names to look up later. I would go back here in a heart beat. No pictures of the inside for you though, no pictures allowed.

 

Have to take a picture with a phone booth!

We walked down to Parliament and Westminster Abbey before calling it a day. We met someone who was kind enough to take a picture of the two of us in front of Big Ben. There are very few pictures of us together from our trip.

 

Next day we went straight back to where we had been the day before. It had been getting dark the day before so we wanted to come back and take a few more pictures :)

Then it was across the bridge to see the London Eye. Didn't ride it because we weren't impressed with the line or prices. Too much else to go see that day, but maybe next time.

 

 

Mmmm, we stopped and bought waffles covered in whipped cream, strawberries, and chocolate. They were really good but I think they would have been better without the chocolate. 

Next we went to Buckingham Palace. We were interested in going inside but they weren't open so just pictures of the outside for this one.

 

Plenty of people in front of the gates, but not nearly as many as there would be in two days...but that'll be in the "Bristol" update.

After the palace we went to Green Park right beside it and saw this cool fountain. My sister tells me later that there was a plaque that lets you know it is a Canadian memorial fountain.

Last thing that day we went to the Natural History Museum. I know we didn't see everything here. A lot of really cool things though and we were impressed with what we did see.

Part of the geology section. There is an earthquake simulation room normally apparently, but it was out of order when we went :(

 

New day! This time we run straight to Baker Street to see...

The Sherlock Holmes Museum! We were super excited to see this! We show up and the line is HUGE. A two hour wait to go inside we are told. We consider it, we had really been looking forward to it, but then were told we could go to the gift shop half and we decided that would be good enough and we would push on with our sight seeing.

The Gherkin building. I teased my sister mercilessly about her enthusiasm to see a pickle building. It was cool though.

 

And seriously big.

To go along with the Gherkin's unusual architecture the area around was peppered with some interesting sculpture that we had fun playing with.

 

Then we found it!

 

A TRASH CAN.

 

We spent a lot of our time in London looking for trash cans. We generally bought food on the go from street vendors which were plentiful but we always ended up carrying our trash around for ages because there were either no trash cans around, or they were just really cleverly disguised. There are signs in the subway telling people to throw their trash away because it blows onto the subway lines and causes delays...but I can't blame the litter bugs when we could never find trashcans down there to throw trash in...

The Tower of London.

 

This one was recommended to me by a friend of mine, so since it was our last day my sister and I decided that we were going to pay the entrance price though it was frustrating that we couldn't get student discounts. We were glad that we picked this one to pay for. It had a variety of things to see and we had a very entertaining tour guide :D

One of the display cases. Bedazzled guns, though that's not what the sign called them :P I think it was called The Art of Guns or something along those lines.

A dragon sculpture! What's not to love? Look at that face :P

First castle I have been to in Europe and that is one of the main things I have wanted to see. I loved this one and I will just have to make a point of going out and seeing others on my own now.

View of the London Bridge from inside the Tower.

 

And those are the highlights from our weekend in London. On our last night in London we decided to actually go inside to eat and that was a nice change. Refreshing drink, air conditioning, plates. The UK was experiencing a heat wave that weekend. I found it really pleasant. It was in the low 80s so it felt like summer for the first time! I think it was summer for a whole two weeks (most of which we were shivering in Germany), then my sister left and the temperature dropped 15 degrees.

UK weather is such a tease sometimes. A little bit of sunshine then it hides behind a cloud, little bit of summer, then jumps straight into cool fall weather, little bit of rain but rarely a good storm...Its mild mannered but not to be trusted :P

Bristol pictures up next!