24 Hours in London

  London, England, United Kingdom
Friday, October 10, 2008

London! Are we actually in London? We're not exactly sure yet.

Another epic entry, but it was an epic day. We're gonna have to stop doing stuff just so we don't have to write so much, I mean seriously. Ok, readers digest version at the bottom for those who don't have any attention span and wanna seem interested. For everyone else, you're brave souls and we love you for it. It commences.

Museum Madness

Our hostel, which was right across the road from the British Museum, was a very old house (not sure how old, but it's London so think over 100 years easy) and was very cramped. The hallways barely fit two people side by side, and once you added backpacks it became slightly comical. The staff was nice enough so once we had our shower and stashed our bags we headed out.

Shy Venus

Our first stop was the British Museum. We trudged across the street (remember - still very tired here so hence the trudging), and despite bleary eyes, were in complete awe of the incredible artifacts from all over the world, many of them coming from former British colonies around the globe, or Britain's own historic past.

Moai Man

Room after room was filled with amazing treasures, from ancient Egyptian artifacts of incredible design and detail dating back thousands of years, mummies, statues, sarcophagi. Others held Japanese art and Samurai armour, Greek statues, reliefs from the Parthenon and giant sculptures and reliefs from Persia (ancient Iran). The museum also houses the famous Rosetta Stone, a giant tablet that contains three translations of a single passage, one in Egyptian Hieroglyphic, one in Ancient Egyptian Demotic, and one in Classical Greek. This stone was one of the key items to assist modern scientists to translate Egyptian Hieroglyphics which had previously been a mystery.

Golden Ladies

After about an hour and a half in the museum we were pretty spent and very very hungary, having not had anything to eat except a 'protein biscuit' since our little airplane snack. We found a local market and followed the crowd to the back of the store where we scored an amazing, and cheap, curry with rice that was more than enough for two people.

Sitting in a nearby park, eating our food, Gabrielle crystalized what we'd been feeling all morning into a few words. 'You think about what we've seen this morning, Ancient statue, Egyptian mummy, priceless manuscript... I could really kill for a sandwich right now'.

Feeling a thousand times better we headed off for a serious round of sightseeing. Using our handy metro passes we mastered the London tube and came up at the Houses of Parliament and turned around to see Big Ben looming impressively above us. This is when it hit. We're in London.

Gabrielle and Ben

Bubbling with excitement (Dan admits, he bubbled too) we ran around in circles taking endless amounts of photos of Big Ben and the surrounding sites including the London Eye, amazing views up and down the river Thames, the London Aquarium, and all of the other amazing architecture that stood high above us. We walked across the bridge for different views and photos before heading back towards Westminster Abby.

Westminster Abby

We lacked the finances to actually go into anything that had an admission fee (darn British Pound being so high) so we settled for outside views of everything. After Westminster Abby we walked through a very serene park and came out the other side at Buckingham Palace. To be honest, we thought it would be bigger, but I guess if you're royalty what else do you have to prove. The outer palace area contained three gates, each named after different British colony, and of course the Canadian gate was the most impressive by far (go Canada!!!). Unfortunately for Gabrielle there was no New Zealand gate, so she settled for cheering for the Canadian one anyway. Filling the middle of this space is an enormous statue / fountain that, again, seemed like it should have gone with a bigger palace due to its impressive nature. The palace was guarded by soldiers in the classic red coat and giant bearskin hat, as well as regular uniformed police with machine guns. Fortunately the police were very polite and took the time to chat up the spectators in between looking fierce and guard like.

Not As Big As We Thought

Back on the tube, we headed the Tower of London for a walk around and over the bridge. This was one site we wish we had the money to get into, just for all of the drama that took place on this site. Feeling very very done we dragged ourselves back to the hostel for a sleep, waking up just in time to meet Gabrielle's cousin Ian who's been studying and now working in London for over a year now.

Cheers

Guiding us around London like a pro, Ian took us out to an amazing Thai restaurant for dinner and his favorite pub for a round of fantastic beer. Everyone else in the world has to get in on this pub thing. It was packed with everyone socializing after work and had an awesome atmosphere. We checked out Ian's digs, small but the fanciest student flats we'd every seen, before taking one last tour around the city on a double decker bus. One last tube ride and Ian dropped us back at our hostel.

London Night Tour

It was an epic day in London, and tomorrow we're off to Lisboa, Portugal. We've had an amazing time and hope to come back some day for more than just a whirlwind tour, but for now it'll have to do.

All our best from London

Dan and Gabes


Readers Digest Version:
Shower: Good
Museum: Amazing, want sandwich
Food: Not sandwich but better than good
Big Ben: Big
Buckingham Palace: Could've been bigger
Tower of London: Historical and Walled
Sleep: Much needed
Night out with Ian: Food, Beer, Busses - good times had by all
More sleep - Tomorrow Portugal