London Bridge Isn’t Falling Down

The morning after our interesting journey to beautiful London, Kristen woke up extra early to wash Matt’s clothes so he would feel clean for our first day out in the city.

We bought tickets using our UK pounds for the double decker bus tour and to get in to the Tower of London (which is next to the famous bridge, the Tower Bridge). Walking to our tour bus we saw so many cool vehicles: the taxis look like ones we’ve seen in old movies and there were smart cars everywhere.

Yes, we took photos in the red phone booths... they are on every corner!

A large chunk of our afternoon was spent finding internet since we have no phone and calling baggage claim reps...each time finding out that there was no update on where Matt’s bag was. However, we made the most of our day. The amount of history in London is overwhelming, but we did our best to soak in as much as possible. Here’s our attempt so list as much as we can remember from the tour:

We saw a filming site from Mary Poppins, Lewis Carroll and Elton John’s homes, Alice’s home who inspired Lewis Carroll to write Alice in Wonderland, we saw a brick building that was built the year that our country was being established, we saw embassies - including Australia’s which was used for filming of Harry Potter. (breath) We saw Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Trafalger Square with a massive statue of Admiral Lord Nelson, and The London Eye (a ferris wheel) built by British Airways that makes them 10,000 pounds each revolution.

We also saw the numerous statues of famous folks all over the city - funny story: they have statues of Abe Lincoln and George Washington - and apparently George Washington once said before he died that he would never set foot on British soil again, so the statue sits atop soil brought over from America. Neat.

The Marble Arch was cool as it had been at Buckingham a long time ago but the Queen did not like it so she requested her coach to be constructed too large to fit through the archway... so the arch was relocated. We saw the building where passengers bought their tickets to board the Titanic. Piccadilly Circus is a smaller version of our Times Square and it was neat to see all the broadway shows playing in this area.

We got off the bus to walk to Buckingham Palace. The long road we walked down reminded us of where Princess Diana’s funeral ceremony was because people lined the street we were on. Arriving at the Palace we were in a mob of people pushing against the gate to watch the changing of the guards. With their tall black hats, red uniforms, and riffles, they must have been hot! Two sets of guards walked from different places accompanied by a band playing regal queenish music. It was neat to watch and then we were back on the bus to check out Parliament.

Parliament and Westminster Abbey are near each other and attached is Big Ben. We learned that Big Ben is named because of the bell inside of it - the tower is not actually called Big Ben. But it’s huge. Also, the man who designed the bell was very short and stout and his nickname was Big Ben - hence the name of the bell.

That night we walked up to the ticket booth in Piccadilly and got wicked cheap tickets to see a broadway show! We sat 4th row from the front (we could see them spit - we were that close) and laughed out loud watching Avenue Q. After the show, we saw the city lit up at night, had some dinner, and noticed that at all of the pubs people would get their drink and stand outside the pub to socialize. Weird, but kinda cool.

When we returned to scouting central, and Matt’s bag had arrived!! Our second night in London just got way better.