London

The last time that I was in London I was with my soccer team which made sight seeing a little limited.  Nearly 8 years have past since then and I cannot remember all the details of the trip.  Therefore, I enjoyed spending three full days in London exploring exactly what I wanted to explore; which was basically everything!  Annika and I arrived to our hostel quite late on Thursday night which made for a relaxing night and fresh start.

On Friday, we went on a free walking tour offered by our hostel which lasted for three hours.  It was fantastic as our tour guide was enthusiastic.  We saw all the main royal sights and got to learn lots of cool little tidbits of info.  For example, someone once paraglide onto the roof of Buckingham Palace.  Afterwards, Annika and I searched for a market that I remembered from my previous trip.  When I thought it was impossible to find, as I only had a vague memory left, we stumbled upon it!  I picked up some souvenirs before we headed to the London Eye.  The views were quite nice but it is a tourist attraction which of course was overly overpriced.  We joined a pub crawl later that evening which went to five different bars.  We figured it was the best and cheapest way to capture the nightlight in London.  I met heaps of Australians and so we had plenty to talk about!

On Saturday, we bought a circle cruise boat ticket which allowed us to visit several tourist attractions along the Thames.  First we hopped off at Shakespeare's Globe.  Unfortunately, there was a play in the theater and there were no tours at the time.  Therefore, we hopped back on and headed to Tower Bridge and the Tower of London.  We spent several hours inside the Tower of London, learning all sorts of things about the incredibly old fortress and of course, we saw the royal jewels.  I do love to learn which made the afternoon incredibly interesting for me.  We spent the evening visiting Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, and roaming SOHO.  We ate sandwiches on-the-go nearly the whole weekend so we decided to enjoy a sit-down dinner.  We roamed a little more before heading back to the hostel to enjoy a nightcap with an Aussie we had met at the bar crawl.

On Sunday, we started the day once again at Shakespeare's Globe.  We were able to go on a tour and see the recreated theater.  I felt like I was a part of the movie "Shakespeare in Love" as it was filmed in the theater.  As I am a fan of Shakespeare, I liked learned about the history of his time.  The theater has only a few additions like lights for the night performance and sprinklers on the thatch roof.  After our tour, we went to Harrod's because I figured I had to at least see the place.  We then through Hyde Park to Kensington Gardens where we took a short break in the shade to relax our feet.  Once we arrived to the other side, we traveled to Madame Tussauds to checkout the wax figures.  There were many celebrities and familiar figures but I enjoyed seeing  many national faces such as the queen and the many princes.  I took a picture with Shrek to prove to the boys that I had met him.  They are going to England in a few weeks time; I hope that they don't go looking for him!  After the museum, we headed back to the hostel to relax and pack before our alarms went off at 3 am!