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  London, United Kingdom
Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Hello there mates!  I'm in London!  Getting here was actually easier than I thought.  The airplane went right from Granada to Stansted Airport outside of London, and then we caught an airport bus into the city, and then a taxi to the hotel.  We arrived at the hotel around 2AM.  I am here with Julie, Jackie, and Amy and we are all sharing a hotel room, and one full bed.  Actually, it's quite cozy.  Today we got up for the continental breakfast at 9AM.  Not only did we stuff ourselves to last all day, we took ham and cheese sandwiches and rolls for dinner.  Afterwards, we found the Big Bus!  Of course we had to sit up top, front row.  We got our little headphones and went around the city listening about all the different buildings and streets.  The National Gallery of Art was one stop and we heard the word free so we hopped off.  We looked at some paintings for a bit and I have to admit some were pretty neat.  My favorite painting was a winter scene of a man kneeling below two evergreen trees that had a cross shinning thru one of them.  There were two large rocks beside him, crutches on the ground, and an eerie castle far in the background.  After the art museum we stopped at the Saint Paul Cathedral and glanced in.  We went over Millennium Bridge and stopped in the Globe Theater as well.  Afterwards, we walked around town.  We found a chocolate restaurant place and went inside, go figure.  They were closed, but one of the workers told us of a really good chocolate stand down the street.  We ventured off determined to find it and found a whole outside market!  There were stands with cheese, meat, seafood, bread, fruits, and desserts.  We spent over an hour sampling food from every stand, literally every single stand.  It was great.  We might have to go back there tomorrow for lunch!  After our outing at the market we headed back to the hotel.  Along the way, we went over the London Bridge.  Basically, today we saw the whole Big Bus Tour.  This included all the major sight sees of London.  Back at the hotel we enjoyed our ham and cheese sandwiches from breakfast, tea and/or coffee, and played cards.  Oh, and later we went to an internet café and I got to witness Julie "flip shit."  Take note, don't ever get in the way of Julie and her skype.

Today all 4 of us were out of the hotel by 8:40AM determined to see the changing of the guards.  We took a tour through the Big Bus Company beforehand.  During our little tour we heard stories of past Kings and Queens and monuments/items around the city that are there because of them.  We saw the guards change at Saint James Palace, the old entrance to Buckingham Palace, the new regime come out of the military building, and finally the actual changing in front of Buckingham Palace.  It turns out the changing does not take place when it rains because the hats the guards wear takes days to dry.  A funny fact I learned today was why the marathon is exactly 26 miles and 385 yards, or so they say in Britain.  When London held the Olympics a long time ago Queen Alexander thought it would be nice if she could sit and have breakfast while watching the runners through her window of Windsor Palace.  She also thought her grandchildren would like to watch as well.  Therefore, she pulled some strings and the course was changed at her request.  The course went from around 26 miles to exactly 26 miles and 385 yards and has forever stayed that way.  Another story I heard occurred when the city of London thought two guards at the old archway entrance of Buckingham Palace all times was unnecessary and therefore, was not going to last much longer.  The Queen at the time was entering the palace and realized the two guards were drunk.  Her punishment was the guarding must continue for another 100 years.  When the 100 years were up the city decided to continue to have two guards at the archway at all times.  London is hosting the 2012 Olympics and it turns out the sand volleyball is going to take place in this U shaped area where jousting battles used to be held.  I learned that the royal family must be seen by the public and cannot be transferred from place to place behind tinted windows because Britain is not a monarchy, it is run by Parliament.  An example of this is when the Queen meets leaders from other countries they ride together in an open carriage to the meeting building, and if it rains a clear top covers them.  The guide said he did not think the top is even bulletproof.  Another fact is Parliament and the Prime Minister must "okay" a royal wedding before it can take place.  Those are a few stories I remember from the tour.  Later we went on a Beatles Tour around London.  It was really interesting.  Not only did we hear the whole story of the Beatles and see where events took place, we learned about other artists such as Mozart, the Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix.

For our third day we took a day trip to Stratford, Cotswold, and Oxford.  In Stratford we learned about Shakespeare, saw his birthplace, and Anne Hathaway's Cottage.  We got to walk around downtown a bit, stopped in a café and got a tasty white hot chocolate, and messed with a guy that was painted silver from head to toe.  Of course we lost track of time and ended up running to the bus; it seems like we are always doing that.  Afterwards we took a drive through the Cotswold's.  We all thought we were going to stop there, so that was a bummer, but ah well.  We passed through a little town called Woodstock!  I tried to catch a photo of the "Welcome to Woodstock" sign, but we were driving too fast so I just took a few of the streets.  I thought it was pretty cool.  Lastly we arrived in Oxford.  Our first stop was Christ Church.  We heard stories about the writer of Alice in Wonderland and also saw where the director of the Harry Potter movie got the idea of what the Great Hall should look like.  Afterwards we just walked around the town/University.  We arrived back at the hotel around 7PM and had our tea and played cards.  Tea and cards is beginning to be a daily even in London. 
We spent our last day in London being total tourists.  We finally got to play with the guard!  Let's just say three different tourist groups came and went while we were messing with him.  We took so many photos and finally broke him, shhhh it's a secret.  It turns out he is 22 years old and has been in the military since he was 18.  It was pretty funny; whenever tourist groups came he straightened up and didn't move or talk, but once they left...Well, after we got our guard fix we stopped in a souvenir shop and Jackie and I bought huge London pencils.  The rest of the day was spent pointing to everything we could with out huge pencils and talking with a British accent.  Once we got tired we hopped back on the Big Bus, even though our tickets were no longer good, and headed to the hotel.  We had our tea and cards time and let's just say Amy kept us pretty entertained.  We finally had to pay for a meal because we got downstairs for breakfast too late this morning.  We went to a little Italian restaurant across the street.  I ordered the lasagna.  The lady tried to charge us almost 4 extra pounds, 8 U.S. dollars, but we showed her that Americans are not dumb!  We just hung out for the rest of the night because we had to leave at 3AM for the airport.  Cheerios London!

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