I am alive!

Bonjour!
It has been a whirlwind adventure since I left Portland on the 28th. I arrived in London for a three day stopover the 29th around 8am and met a lot of the people on our trip. Everyone seems very nice and a lot are open to traveling and adventuring around France and Europe.

I have a place in my heart for London and would really love to go back there and stay for more than three days. Both times I have gone we have only been there long enough to see the major touristy things.

Our hotel was in Kensington. Think upper east side Manhattan as a comparison. A very rich area which, according to Constable Jenkins, whom we chatted with for about 45 minutes, is very safe and high end. The princes William and Harry go to a lot of the pubs where our hotel was located. :-)

When we first arrived, the rooms were not quite ready for us to put our things away, so we decided to adventure out into Kensington. We traveled to the Natural History Museum shown to the left. It was an absolutely beautiful building. We saw dinosaurs, whales, elephants, muscles, and various other things. It was quite fun.

Afterwords we enjoyed fish, chips and my first British bier at the St. Regent Prince restaurant. I was told that if I went to London and didn't have fish and chips it would be blasphemous to the British people...so not wanting to offend them I had one of the best fish and chip lunches I believe I have ever had!

After lunch we managed to get back to the room for a little rest and then went out later that night for a few pints. It was a nice and interesting way to get to know the people we will be spending the next 4 months with. The hotel was quite nice and we were on the 12th floor overlooking the city.



The next day was our full day in London. We had a 3 hour bus tour planned and our tour guide was a fantastic British women. Leaving the hotel at 8am, we began in Kensington and worked our way into downtown London. I found out that it costs 8pounds to drive into London as a congestion fee. Everyday people will pay that to drive their car into london. It being such a big city (9 million) I can understand why and it makes a lot of people take the tube/bus.
These were the highlights of the tour:
Buckingham Palace. The Queen was not in, so no fun parade today...but I do remember being there the first time! I did see the poofy hat guards, which was awesome. Apparently they "stomp" around to stay warm, because it was rather cold.








The large statue outside of Buckingham Palace. Thought it was quite pretty. I am a fan of Lions

















St Paul's Cathedral and Big Ben! Big Ben is much smaller then I had thought. They apparently call it the clock tower and the bell inside is named Big Ben. Attached to the Parliament building. St. Paul's is absolutely beautiful inside. I remember going there the first time and we peaked inside (you have to pay to go all the way in) a
and it is still pretty. Also the London Eye, which we did not ride, but I did see up close. We rode it the first time we were in London and it was awesome, but I do have to say that once is enough.

A few of the other places we stopped off and saw were Harrods, the famous department store, Sloan St - known for designer shopping, Hyde Park and the Duke of Wellington, who is known for the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. We also went to the Royal Green Park where there is no flower beds because the plague bodies are buried there and if you disturb the soil strands of the plague can infect. Scary!

We saw Westminster Abbey which is absolutely beautiful and finished at the Covent Gardens. We then had the rest of the day for wandering around London ourselves and so we broke off. I really REALLY wanted to see a show while we were in London and tried to get tickets to Lion King...sadly they were rather expensive and nobody seemed to want to spend the money, or had already seen it. If I manage to make it to London again, I'm planning on seeing that!

After a very disappointing lunch hour, we walked over to the other side of the river. We wandered down the walk where the London Eye is and the Tate Modern. We took the tube over to the Tower of London where they house the Jewels and torture/beheaded people. It was fantastic! Pictures..
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