Merry Old London

Lindsey here. Brett said he's done with his blogging duties for a while. So I guess you'll have to live with my less-funny, probably less frequent blogs from here on out. Sorry.

Here in Europe they actually take time off from work to celebrate Easter. So Brett had a Friday and Monday off of work, so obviously we decided he should also take the Wednesday and Thursday before that off so that we could go to London. The cheapest flights we found were out of Bratislava, if you're unfamiliar with the place, see our previous post. The airline is called Ryanair and it comes complete with no seating arrangements and some of the classiest Europeans you'll find. You know the types... just imagine that Europe had Wal Mart, that's where you'd find all of these people. You know they type... They're not intimidated by lines, because they don't stand in them. And they are not afraid to run or push you out of the way for a better deal, or in this case a better seat or to be one step ahead of you getting off the plane.

After a long and gross day of buses, planes, and "tubes" as they call them in London, we finally arrived at our hotel in London. After we got settled in, we went to check out the City and grab something to eat. We were fortunate to arrive on a very sunny day and this was literally the first thing we saw once we got into the city via Westminster station:



Then we went in search of food. London is a little pricy and we didn't know where anything was so we ended up eating at McDonald's. Before that, I honestly can't remember the last time I ate at a McDonald's. For some reason I think that a lot of American's who opt to not eat at McDonald's in the states end up eating it in foreign countries though, so whatever.

We covered a lot of ground that first day. Here are some pictures:


That night the wireless internet at our hotel wasn't working and I had a deadline and Brett had to get a hold of his friend (we were supposed to be meeting up with her the next day). So we took our little laptop and set out in search of an internet cafe. Now, first let me say that we were staying on the outskirts of town (much cheaper that way) and secondly, London is not as big on internet cafe's apparently. So after much searching and walking, we ended up at McDonald's for a second time. Who ever would have guessed we'd eat there twice in one day? Well, they were the only place with wireless internet, so we were grateful.

The next day we wandered around the city some more and then met up with Brett's friend, Nicola, for lunch. She's a Londoner who was attending the Monterey Institute and who also spent last summer in Syria. So this was actually the third country we've seen her in. After lunch we wandered around some more and checked out some shops. That was pretty much that day.

The next day we decided we were going to do our "Hop on/Hop off" tour. Basically they are these buses that drive around and make stops at all the popular tourist spots. So you can get on and off at any time. It's a pretty sweet deal. A favorite on this day was the Tower of London. It's a castle on the shores of the Thames. It's more famous as the place where greats like Ann Boleyn and William Wallace were executed. Speaking of that Boleyn girl, they had a Henry VIII exhibit going on at the time. Henry the 8th was an all around gross person. Here's a taste of the tower he once occupied:


While we were there, one of our objectives was for Brett to eat bangers and mash and fish & chips. Well, we at least accomplished half of that objective by getting him the fish & chips. And I ate all the salt & vinegar chips I could handle.

This blog is starting to get long, so I'll try to wrap things up...
Basically we saw all we could including Trafalgar Square, the National Gallery (complete with some actual Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Picasso paintings), the London Eye, the Imperial War Museum, Abbey Road, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, some of the beautiful parks, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some other things... But we walked till our feet hurt every day and I even talked Brett into seeing a show. Our last night there we went and saw Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It was actually really awesome and I think Brett even liked it. :)

You can a better feel for the whole experience by checking out our 150+ pictures here.

We left Sunday morning ridiculously early and took Monday to recuperate from the trip. In conclusion, it was awesome and I highly suggest going.