London: Home to royalty, bad teeth, and austin powers.
We arrived in London yesterday, and were able to spend an hour in the airport on a search for the underground "tube" station. We found the correct line only to have the final stop that was announced over the speakers to be called "Cockfosters". Being us, we thought that this was hilarious and continued to laugh for 58 minutes until our stop. After finding the hostel we spent the rest of our evening walking around the neighborhood between Soho and our hostel and finally retiring to bed at 9:00. We also met our fourth roommate, a Frenchie named Kevin.
Today, we went on a 2 1/2 hour free walking tour to cover the big sites of london. We got to see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, Hyde Park, Nelson's column, Leicester Square, Trafalgar Square, The national gallery, St. James Park, Wellington Arch, Royal Horseguards (The Queen's personal guards), Whitehall, Big Ben, 10 Downing st.(where the prime minister lives), Churchills War Cabinet Bunker, The houses of parliament, Westminster abbey, and some other palaces, and Prince Charles, William and Harry's house. We finished this by walking over the Thames and taking pictures of the London eye(we didn’t ride it) and the back of the house of parliament. We ate some fish and chips and mushy peas (which were disgusting) at a super old pub. All in all we walked about a zillion miles and are doing a 3 hour walking tour tomorrow.
(alex)london: a strange city of tiny cars, smaller streets, hidden buildings, and secret alleys. My first experience was a 3 our wait in an airport. Some High points: Cockfosters was a word that continuously made me laugh still to this minute!
Westminster abbey was incredible and big ben is awesome. Personal favorite was scottish man playing bagpipes on a bridge over the river thames. My first meal was an incredible cheese whiz, butter, chicken salad hoagie that was delicious, until
three hours later when my stomach felt incredibly bad. the generator kind of looks like you might be sold in the middle of the night but the inside is very nice, everyone is young, younger than i, a mere lad of 20. everyone looks 14. One word:
awesome
(david) London's most impressive feature is the shear oldness of it. Unlike big cities I’m used to in the good ole U.S. of A, sky scrapers are not common. All of the buildings appear to be around 5-7 stories tall and are much older than the
majority of US buildings you would see in a major city. Another interesting element of the city is how new/restored buildings are integrated with the older buildings that already exist. For example, every couple of blocks, it's quite common to see a new chic glass building meld into a building that appears to have been there for centuries. so far the city has been very fun. It is overcast and looks like it will rain at any moment (but so far we've been lucky and it hasn't). The weather is cold, but nothing a coat, scarf, and hat & gloves (if necessary) can't handle. The Soho section of the city, to me, seems like the most interesting and flashes a lot of creativity just from the face value of the buildings and shops.
(brittany) The best part about London so far has been the Haribo candy called "Tangfantastic". It is a mixture of all the good haribo candies and then made sour. It is delicious. The second best thing London has to offer is the houses of parliament. It was huge and a lot more golden than the pictures make it out to be. The people of London pretty much look like Shaun of the Dead. No joke. The hostel is really not that bad, although the metallic decor is terrible. Alex eating the butter hoagie was also a highlight, because it was the most disgusting thing that I have ever tasted and he ate the whole thing. All in all, London is as much interested in octomom as we are.
(We)I'm excited to explore more of the city over the next two days, in which we hope to see several free art/photography galleries and museums, as well as The London Bridge. More pictures to come!
