Merry Ol' England

So I left Nepal with many tears at the end of March. I had the bestest time ever there, as you all may have been able to tell by the blog. But all was not lost my friends: I still had a week in London with my BFF! April and I did the whirlwind tour, and managed to do London fairly cheaply. We stayed in a single room together (bow chicka wow wow) and managed to cook in our little kitchenette for many of our meals. We also chose not to pay for tours to most landmarks, choosing instead to walk around the outside and take photos for free instead. We also walked for hours upon hours each day and became quite adept at the Tube, if I do say so myself.

Sunday
For our first real day in London (the traveling pretty much wore us out the day before) I really wanted to go check out Picadilly Circus. Which turned out to be kind of lame. Pretty much one building with electric billboards and a statue. But we also went to Trafalger square, St. James Park, Buckingham Palace, and poked around the National Gallery. We also managed to have ice cream with a flake (did I mention we had a whole list of foods to eat in England?) and lunch at Prêt à Manger. These are little sandwich-type restaurants that you can find every 15 feet in London. They are worse than Tim Horton's in Canada! Which, by the way, we also saw one of in London. Also that night we walked around Soho and Chinatown. Soho was also not quite as exciting as I was hoping, but it was a Sunday night, after all.

Buckingham Palace. You cannot actually get close enough
to tease the guards. Lame.

Monday
Monday was crazy. We walked for a very long time. We started out with the Tower of London, which was pretty cool. Then I wanted to walk across London Bridge, which turned out to be so boring! Tower Bridge was much cooler. I had a meat pie (also on the food list. Is it wrong that Sweeney Todd made me want one?) at a pub, and then we went to see Shakespeare's Globe and walk on the bank of the Thames a little bit. We actually payed to get into the Clink Prison Museum, which was both cheap and hilarious. We toured the awesome Tate Modern for a while, then walked over to St. Paul's Cathedral by way of the Millenium Bridge. We looked for cold Diet Cokes for a good half hour, and finally way over payed for them at a Yo! Sushi. Unfortunately we were unable to go inside St. Paul's, as the last service of the day was over by that point, so big boo. So we got some groceries at Mark's and Spencer's Simply Food, and went home for dinner, before doing some walking in Notting Hill and around Portobello Road that night.

Me on the bank of the Thames, where I collected some
lovely sea glass

Me, on the steps of St. Paul's, enjoying a Diet Coke.
Even though we didn't get to go in, that was still
pretty cool.

Tuesday
We started off by going to Big Ben/Parliament, which was pretty impressive. We also went to Westminster Abbey, which was of course beautiful. Once again, we didn't pay to go in, but we did go to the shop. I think the fact that they sell Westminster Abbey shot glasses is hilarious, btw. Then we got lost a bit but finally found 10 Downing St. It's essentially a guarded fence, and in the distance you can see a blue door with a tiny 10 on it. Then, we actually paid to do something! The London Eye, which was totally worth it. The views were amazing! Afterwards we went "shopping" on Oxford St. I use quotations because we didn't really intend to buy anything. Still, going in TopShop and other stores just to browse around was cool.

We got a bit lost looking for the Gourmet Burger Kitchen in Soho, which Kelsa told us we had to try. While looking at our map, a man yelled at us for sitting on the steps of his business. But he was really unreasonably angry, and continued ranting at us as we were halfway down the block! We were exhausted after all this, and our feet were killing us. Also, I was freeeeeezing! I forgot that I'd be out until after dark when I decided I didn't really need a coat that day. But we soldiered on and went on a guided "London Walk" about Jack the Ripper. Which was really interesting and totally creepy. Seriously, the guide was like, "and they found her mangled body 5 feet from where you are standing!".

April, looking teeny in front of the very impressive
Westminster Abbey

A view of the city from the London Eye

Wednesday
We did things a little differently on Wednesday. We got up early and took a train to Brighton to visit our old friend Carol! It was quite nice there, and I was excited to see the water (y'all are aware I'm a fan of water, right?). We walked around the pier and ate fish 'n' chips on the beach of the English Channel. Then we took a super cheap train to Lewes, this little adorable medieval town nearby. Lewes was fun because we got to walk around this old castle (though the towers' spiral staircases were a bit scary) and also we finally found Party Rings! These were cookies (on the list) which we had been looking for for days, and they were awesome! Way better than Jaffa Cakes or Penguins.

April, Carol and I playing dressup with the clothes provided for
that purpose at Lewes Castle. I am a princess, Carol is a knight,
and April is some bizarre cross of a princess and a page...

Thursday
We spent the morning at the British Museum, which was amazing, and way too big to see in the time we had. They had the Terracotta Wariors from China, but the exhibit was sold out, to April's great dismay. But we did get to handle actual artifacts, although the lady who told us about them was a bit snooty. Sorry if I didn't know that only Islam used 8-pointed stars with lustreware surfaces, lady! Then we left the Museum to have lunch (Prêt à Manger again) and take another London Walk, this time on the Blitz, which I was very excited about. However, we went to the wrong Tube station, so we missed it. But that did give us more time to spend at Harrods! It was waaaay too much fun to poke around there and pretend we were rich. I went into the shoe boudoir (!) and held some very expensive heels (some awesome pink sequined Christian Louboutin heels that cost 650£) but did not try any on, despite wanting to. I am, as we all know, very clumsy and would probably have broken the heel of some Jimmy Choos! We also did some shopping in the amazing food halls. The variety of cheeses alone was worth the trip. Then, for our last hurrah, we chilled out and walked around Kensington Gardens for a while.

Me, in the British Museum, admiring the God Shiva. He's
manifested as the Lord of the Dance, and is crushing the
dwarf of ignorance under foot. Take that, ignorance!

So now I'm home, and despite there still being snow on the ground in Ottawa, am happy to see everyone! Colleen has insisted that I inform everyone that I'm alive and well after all my adventures, so, um, hi guys, I'm fine. This will probably be my last post for awhile, as my travels have come to an end for now. But hopefully not for too long! I've developed a bit of a taste for this travel thing, and I'll keep this up when I next manage to jet away. Until then, thanks for reading!