We woke up super early to get to the train station for our
train to London. I had been on European trains before, and you pretty much
just jumped on the train and took off. Well not the Eurostar train from Paris
to London. We had to go through airport style security and through customs. The
British customs agent asked me the most questions I have ever been asked at a
customs checkpoint. Where are you staying? When are you leaving London? What
airport are you flying out of? Where is your next stop? When are you going back
to the US? And on and on and on. He was not playing.
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| Backpack train station selfie |
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| Train selfie |
After we got on the train, I fell right to sleep and woke up
in London 2 hours later. I was aware that our hotel check-in was not until
later that afternoon, so we decided to check our bags at the train station.
[Later, we found out that we could have left our bags at the hotel for way, way
cheaper. Oops.]
We hopped on the Underground and headed for Buckingham
Palace just in time for the changing of the guards. I thought that we were
getting there early, about 40 minutes beforehand, but there were thousands of people
everywhere. There was nowhere to stand, and you could barely walk down the
street. Once the ceremony started, people were pushing and shoving to get a
good picture/video. One lady kept sticking her giant iPad in front of my face
to snap a picture through the gates. It was mass chaos. I could not see over
the people to watch the ceremony, so I stuck my selfie stick high in the air and
watched through my phone screen.
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| Victoria Memorial |
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| So. Many. People. Everywhere. |
After grabbing a bite to eat, it was time for our tour of
Buckingham Palace. Tours are only available during certain times of the year when the
queen is not staying at the palace, and we happened to be visiting London at the
right time. I had booked our tickets months in advance, and this was one of the
things that I was most looking forward to. The tour did not disappoint. A
special exhibit was going on where the palace was decorated and set up for a state visit. We saw the dining room, place settings, and all that
it took to pull off such a huge event. The audio guide was also really good
with great information about the palace and all of the rooms. We were not allowed to take pictures inside the palace, and
were only able to take this picture once outside in the gardens.
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| We loved Buckingham Palace! |
After the tour, we hopped on a red double decker bus toward
the London Eye. Warning: the London bus system is almost impossible to use.
Buses are numbered, stops are lettered, lines are colored – or something like
that. It was way confusing, and we never figured out how to use the buses. We
just stuck to the Underground.
The London Eye was actually kind of scary. The capsule
rotates around the circle, different from a ferris wheel. There were also a group
of ten teenage boys running and jumping around the capsule, which did not make
it feel any safer. It was cool to see the city from up high, but I probably
would not pay the money to do it again.
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| Big Ben and Parliament from the ground. |
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| Big Ben and Parliament from the eye. |
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| Thank goodness the streets were marked telling you which way to look before crossing the streets. Getting used to cars on the left side of the road is really hard. |
We tried to take the bus to Leicester Square, but ended up
taking the Underground instead. There is a TKTS booth in the square that sells discounted
West End tickets (the London equivalent to Broadway). They had pretty good
prices on Les Miserables tickets, so we decided to go. The show was fantastic,
and Jeff sang the songs through the rest of our trip. [I have a video in
Florence, of him singing “Who am I? Who am I? 24601!!!!!!!!” in the middle of a
public square.]
After the play, we made our way back to the train station to
get our bags. At this point, it was around 11pm. When we got to the baggage
check counter, the guy told us that we barely made it, and he was 2 minutes
from closing the place. For some reason it never crossed our minds that the
baggage check place would close. Thank goodness we made it back when we did.
We walked a few blocks to our hotel – Tune Hotels. I was
little worried about the hotel and had read some mixed reviews. It is a budget
hotel, and we had booked the cheapest basement room with no windows. [London is
super expensive, and this was our cheapest option.] I was expecting the
equivalent of a cruise ship room – just a bed and no room to walk. I was
actually pleasantly surprised with the room; it was bigger than our Paris
studio apartment. The bed was comfortable, shower was great, and everything was
clean.
