Monday, March 3, 2008

London in 2 Days..


London

February 27-March 1, 2008


This City is amazing, I had such a wonderful time. In this picture I was standing in front of the London Eye, The worlds tallest obervation wheel (fantastic views of the capital)

The side walks were fun with all the busy people and street performers it was great to be in an English speaking country!



Kiah and I started our trip off a little risky. I had booked our 72 euro roundtrip tickets from Madrid to London a few weeks back and I wound up a little confused in the process. Some how I wrote Kiah's name instead of mine on the easyjet website and so two tickets were booked under her name! So I left things a little last min and got on a six hour bus to Madrid to see if I could get the name changed (because the website wanted me to pay more than the cost of the tickets just to have my name changed) back to Britta the day of our flight. With only half an hour to wait for our plane everything worked out great and we arrived in London at the Gatwick airport around 10pm and caught the Metro (tube) to central London where St. Christophers hostel awaited our arrival.



London Bridge station was the closest metro and train station to our hostel! To think that in Alaska when I was 5years old I was singing "London Bridge is falling down!" and 13 years later I am really here!





This is the world famous London Bridge! It wasn't as spectacular as I thought :D




Kiah and I woke up early and started our first day off right with a good breakfast (that came with our hostel) and started walking all over central London. Tate Modern Museum was one of the first places we toured. This Museum had some very interesting artwork, I would recommend taking a little time to see this building (Plus it is FREE).




Oh yes, I met James Bond at the Tate Museum he is quite a character really great to talk to!


This picture is taken from one of the windows of the Tate Museum, I believe we are looking at St. Pauls Cathedral, This is a fun looking bridge! The Millenium footbridge. I thought that London Bridge would be a little more creative for example like this one.






Here is the famous British Airways London Eye!



Kiah and I walked down the Thames River and enjoyed all the city life in Central London. Tourists and Locals alike listen to musicians under a bridge, In the distance you can see Big Ben and the houses of Parliament. I miss London already!



A close up with Big Ben..





I am a huge Harry Potter fan! This picture reminds me of the movies, well the 5th movie where Harry is flying down this river with the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben in the night! That is one thing I miss too about home my Harry Potter DVD collection haha.




Here is my postcard perfect picture of Big Ben, beautiful isn't it! I love London. When my parents came back from London a while back, they brought with them a Big Ben piggy bank to put my money in, I still use it!



Big Ben again with the London Eye in the background.




The beautiful Westminster Abbey.
This church is still in use with daily prayer and worship. The Abbey is designed in the shape of a cross and was founded in the 10th century. This building has witnessed a thousand years of history and the coronation of nearly every king and queen of England. The tombs of many historic people for example: Henry VII, Elizabeth I, Mary I, Mary Queen of Scots, Geoffrey Chaucer and many more are located in the Abbey.




Behind the Abbey.








Now you can't go to London without taking the traditional phonebooth picture.




Kiah and I really had a wonderful trip. We walked just about everywhere so that we could see everything. This is one of the places that we just happend to run across on our way to Buckingham Palace, this is St. James Palace (I believe).



Piccadilly Circus of London better than Times Square of New York! Packed with people and double-decker buses. If I wasn't a student traveler I would have attempted to walk into some of the outrageously expensive designer stores. Of course, I did not even want to tempt myself so I just looked at the pretty colors the signs made.




In Piccadily I had Burger King! We don't have Burger King in Sevilla. Well I really only got an ice cream cone which only cost 1 pound, but I still bought it in Burger King.




Another picture you can't leave London without, One of the Buckingham guards.



Here I am in front of the gates to the Queen's Palace. I was in London when the news of Prince Henry coming back from Iraq covered the headlines of every paper in London. That was exciting!





The full view of the Palace.






The second full day in London was very cold. It felt really good to be in England coming from Spain even though the weather was a little blustery.
My brain was very confused first getting off the plane from Spain. I attempted to speak Spanish to the passport guy until Kiah reminded me that we weren't in Spain. I kept reading the menu in resturants thinking I was reading Spanish. Most baffling was driving! I walked infront of a car at a stoplight and didn't see anyone on the front left (normal 'drivers side') side of the car and thought "no one is driving this how is it parked here" until it started moving on the green light and I saw the guy sitting on the right side! Ha



These are two twins that Kiah's brother knew were living in London. The second day we met up with these wonderful girls and they walked around with us and later that night took us to their "flat" and cooked us dinner! Our first real dinner in England. We were so thankful for meeting them, they told us we are welcome anytime (I might take them up on that offer again).





The impressive British Museum.
The English: amazing archeologists, historians, and thiefs (in a good way)



This library was probably the size of 3 basketball courts.



Rosetta Stone- Key to Egyptian hieroglyphs

Egyptian mummys


Terracotta artwork



Roman/Greek temples (how they brought these over I have no idea)



Oh and why not take some of the statues that were located in the Parthenon as well. They even have an exibit displaying some of the Southwestern (Alaska/Canada) Native Totem poles! I told Kiah, hey this looks familar and sure enough it was taken from British Columbia.






















1 comment:

Heather said...

Oh gosh! Everything is so beautiful! Australia doesn't have the history that Europe does...you are so lucky! But, I thought the London Bridge got moved to Arizona after it fell. Did I make that up somewhere along the way?