Day 14

  London, United Kingdom
Wednesday, October 1, 2008

We were woken up by dad bright and early this morning to get ready for our last day in London. We completely packed our suitcases and got dressed, heading down for a 7.30am breakfast. Once again I had scrambled eggs, bacon and toast with orange juice. As soon as we had finished eating we returned to our rooms to clean our teeth, finish packing our bags and completely search our rooms before it was time to leave. We dragged our suitcases down the stairs to reception where they would be staying while we headed out for the day. We stacked our suitcases and back packs up before leaving for the day.
 
Dad, Nikita and Noah turned right from the hotel to find somewhere to exchange money while I lead mum, Celeste and Bronte to the Euston Square Underground Station. When we arrived we waited outside for the rest of the family to turn up and around 15 minutes later they did. They looked like they were about to die though as dad had made them run all the way from where they had changed the money. We headed into the Underground to buy our tickets and found that we could say 8 pound if we waited until 9.30am before buying our tickets because it would be in the off-peak hour time. Dad purchased the tickets and we waited for 10 minutes before we were finally allowed to scan our tickets and enter the underground.
 
We traveled down the escalators and found the Westbound Circle Line Platform that would take us to our first destination for the day, the Abbey Road crossing.

Crossing Abbey Road

We traveled 2 stops then disembarked at the Baker Street Station. We changed over to the Jubilee line and traveled one stop to St. John's Wood. We traveled up numerous escalators before we finally reached ground level and began on a walk to find the crossing. After managing to complete a huge square we were overly excited to have found the crossing. We found the webcam positioned in the tree outside the Abbey Road recording studio and waved to the family that were watching us there.
 
It took awhile but we eventually managed to get a photo of all 5 of us kids walking across the crossing like the Beatles. It is really hard to get photos though because as it is a regularly used crossing you need to wait until there are no cars coming in either direction to be able to pose in the middle of the crossing for a photo.

Dad at Abbey Road Recording Studio

We spent half an hour taking photos on the crossing and outside the Abbey Road Recording studio and waving to family through the web cam before heading back to the station. When we arrived back at the station we visited the Beatles memorabilia store to buy a few souvenirs and some snacks before heading back down to travel to our next destination.
 
We once again boarded the Jubilee line and this time traveled southwards for 4 stops before changing to the district line at Westminster station and traveling 7 stops to Tower Hill. After disembarking the train we headed up to the ground then walked to our last stop in London, the Tower of London. After purchasing our tickets we entered the tower and joined the 11.30 tour.

With the 'beef eater'

The tour lasted one hour and our tour guide, or beef eaters as they are called, spoke to us about some of the most significant parts of the tower including the Bell Tower, the Bloody Tower and the Crown Jewels. Once our tour had ended we were free to walk around by ourselves to enter the parts he had told us about. Our first stop was the crown jewels where we saw the most impressive diamonds and jewels I had ever seen in my life. It was not surprising that when we entered the vault room we found out that each door weighed 200 tones especially considering the value that would be in the jewels we saw in there.
 
After admiring the beautiful crowns and jewelry we headed for a look around the White Tower. They are not sure of the complete use of the White Tower but today it was used to display the King's armory, the King's horses, numerous attacking devices such as cannons and also swords and battle axes. We climbed to the top floor of the tower where they had numerous interactive games which are always a lot of fun. I used the archery skills I had learnt at school to successfully 'hit' my target and used my hand-eye coordination to complete a battle training exercise.

Outside the Tower of London

We all had a turn on each of the different activities before heading to the back staircase to climb down to the ground level and to no surprise exited through the gift shop.
 
It was then time for us to leave the Tower of London and return to the hotel. We stopped at the Subway just outside of the tower for lunch before heading back to the underground. We took the circle line back to the Kings Cross station then walked for 5 minutes back to the hotel. Upon arrival we pulled our suitcases out to the front of the hotel to wait for the taxi. Mum, Celeste and Nikita were going to travel back to the car park with the suitcases while dad, Bronte, Noah and I were going to take the tube. We returned to the Kings Cross station then took the Hammersmith & City line 6 stops to Whitechapel and after a short walk arrived at the car park proudly beating the taxi.
 
We hopped in the car and after waiting 10 minutes the taxi eventually arrived with mum and the girls. We packed our suitcases in the back of the car then headed off on our 4 hour drive to Devon. I sat in the front with mum and dad to help navigate our way out of the very busy London. We had the GPS and a road map...what could go wrong? Dad wanted to try and find a way that would get us onto the M4 without going through the gridlock centre of London and having to pay the congestion tax but it seemed no matter how far we traveled off the route the GPS wanted us to go, it continuously wanted to send us smack bang through the centre of London.
 
It took an hour but dad eventually figured out why, there was no other way to cross over the Thames river than to go through London. We then attempted to go around the river and somehow cross over it somewhere else. 2 and a half hours after leaving the car park we thought we were making progress until we realized that we had somehow ended up right where we didn't want to be...Piccadilly Circus inside the congestion zone. So after 3 hours of trying to avoid the congestion zone then driving right through it we ended up on the M4 and on our way to Devon.
 
The problem now was that poor Noah had been sitting in the back of the car for the last hour telling dad how much he needed to go to the toilet...problem was dad didn't have pulling over on his mind at the moment. After passing 3 service stations dad eventually pulled over at a place we could eat and Noah could finally go to the toilet. We brought a small snack from burger king before hitting the road again. Dad decided to follow the GPS for the rest of the trip as he finally realized that it did know what it was doing. I listened to my iPod for most of the trip before falling asleep for the last hour and a half.
 
At 10.15pm we finally arrived at our Aunty Margaret and Uncle Phillip's house in Devon, who I haven't seen since I was about 4 years old. There were hugs all around before we sat down for a lovely roast dinner that Aunty Margaret had prepared for us and for dessert we had trifle. By this stage it had gone 11pm and I was absolutely exhausted. I said goodnight to everyone and headed upstairs to the room I would be staying in. Celeste and Noah would also be staying here in the next room while mum, dad, Bronte and Nikita were staying at a nearby bed and breakfast. After changing into my pjs I hopped into bed and fell straight asleep.