First Stop London!

What a whirlwind 2 days! After leaving Dulles at 7:45pm and arriving in Keflavik, Iceland at 6:15am and not actually getting to London Heathrow until 11:00am left the tank pretty empty. I tried to sleep on the flights as much as I could but my body was still telling me that it was 6am. After we went through customs and grabbed our bags we were off on Tube. It was an incredibly long ride into the city and then a half mile or so walk to our apartment. It was an exhausting experience.

After grabbing a quick lunch, we decided to walk downtown to try to see as much as possible. The first iconic building we came to was St. Paul's Cathedral which is done in the Baroque style. It was such a beautiful church and a lot bigger in person. We followed a path down to the River Thames onto the Millennium Bridge which is known for being destroyed in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The view from the bridge was breathtaking! Just about everything I had seen on television from London was visible.

St. Paul's Cathedral

Tate Modern (background) and Millennium Bridge (foreground)

From here we left to go to 20 Fenchurch Street, informally known as the Walkie-Talkie Building. We had reservations to tour the Sky Garden located on the top of the building. What breathtaking views we saw! It was amazing being so high up and seeing everything. We got there at the perfect time to watch the sunset. Following that, we made our way across London Bridge down the river walk to the Tate Modern which we had learned about in class. It is an art gallery in a repurposed power station. It was actually underwhelming in regards to my expectations. After leaving there we finished the river walk, crossed back over, and called it a day.

Saturday is when we had a full day of running around London and seeing everything we possibly could. We were out of the door by 9:30 and got some breakfast at a nearby coffee shop. Our first stop was to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Boy were there a lot of people there! It was a really cool experience seeing the guards march down the street. Next was Admiralty Arch, Trafalgar Square, and the National Portrait Gallery which interesting but were not standouts.

Buckingham Palace

Located in the heart of London is the real meat, Westminster. Located here are such buildings as Big Ben, the Palace of Westminster, and Westminster Abbey. I loved how beautiful and intricate these buildings are. I was a bit in awe of them. 

Westminster Abbey

Big Ben

We sketched some in front of Big Ben before leaving to wander through West End and get some lunch. We decided to go to the British Museum from there. The museum was amazing! It was huge and had a lot of cool exhibits such as mummies, Greek and Egyptian architecture, and the Rosetta Stone. I still like I like the Smithsonian better but this was definitely a close second.  From there we went to the Tower Bridge and see another piece of iconic English history.

Tower Bridge

After we got our fill of that, which was pretty quickly since it was pretty cold and windy, we walked the waterfront again along a new section to see City Hall and Hay's Galleria. It was getting colder out so it was time to head back to the apartment but not before meandering through the rest of London. We stopped to see the Cheesegrater Building, the Inside-Out Building, the Gherkin, and Leadenhall Market (the original stand-in for Diagon Alley in the first few Harry Potter films). It was finally time to call it a day and put a stamp on London.

Some observations I made: Mind the Gap is a real thing. I finally understand what it's about and it is iconic in its own right. I like to hear Britons talk and I don't really care what they are talking about. There are no rules of the road at all. People drive wherever. I don't know how many almost accidents I saw. There was a two way street that made no sense. It was very confusing. And I walked about 10 and a quarter miles today and that number probably won't get smaller.

Tomorrow I leave for Lisbon, Portugal and start the next adventure!