London: Day 3

Our final day started off with us delightfully leaving our hotel, which in 3 weeks will be met with a wrecking ball -- and it couldn't have happened sooner.

After dropping off our bags at the front desk and paying 5 pounds for the privilege (the first hotel in Europe we've stayed at that charges for that), we hoped onto the tube and headed towards the the City to check out St Paul's Cathedral and the financial district.

After exiting the subway and walking in the wrong direction for about 15 minutes, I asked a very helpful policemen bobby, who pointed us in the right way.

The odd thing about St. Paul's was how there were hardly any tourists there -- just normal, everyday people. Who would've thought, a church in Europe where people actually came to worship and not just to pose and take pictures... like this:


After St Paul's, we walked over to the financial district, or "Bank Junction"



and stopped by the Bank of England museum to learn about things we forgot shortly after.

We hopped back onto the tube towards Buckingham Palace, where it was a foot race to make it for the changing of the guard. Luckily, we made it before it began, but unfortunately, the masses had already swarmed the area.



After crowding around the gate and admiring the back of peoples' heads for half an hour, we decided to leave and promptly dubbed it, "most over-rated changing of the guard...ever."

We then proceeded to take a stroll in the park where Waverly met up with some of her friends:


To cap off our adventures in London, we headed over to the biggest tourist sucker of them all, the London Eye. The ride took about 30 minutes, with the first 10 minutes filled with "ooo's" and "awww's" and the last 10 minutes with "is this thing over yet?"





With all the main sights of London under our belt, we retrieved our luggage, dragged it cross town to a random train station in order to catch a train to Luton airport, where it was off to the one most beautiful cities in all of Europe...

London: The Cornish Pasty

I feel in love with the Cornish Pasty during my summer in Bristol some 5 years ago. Picture an apple turnover, with meat, potatoes, and onion stew inside. Amazing stuff, and I ate one almost everyday. History has it, workers in Cornwall wanted to have their meat stew for lunch at work, but being difficult to eat, their wives conveniently baked it into an enclosed crust. I actually had the opportunity to go to the Cornwall area that summer and try one there.

So on a cold night, Waverly and I spotted the Cornish Bakehouse, and we of course had to indulge ourself -- the sign did say "award winning" after all.

London: Day 2

With this being our only full day in London, day 2 was jammed pack with good old English excitement. Our fist stop was Westminster, where we strolled along the river, with the London Eye across the water and Big Ben straight ahead. Before we reached Westminster, I had the sudden urge to make a phone call while holding the phone booth door open:



After I finished my call, we found ourselves at Westminster Abbey, where I pretended to be a student and Waverly and I both got in for a discounted price of 14 pounds (that's 28 dollars to you Yankees). It was interesting to see all the elaborately decorated tombs of the royal family, and the highlight was being able to sit see the coronation chair.



After the Abbey, we headed across the street to the Parliament and sat in both the House of Lords and House of Commons for some riveting debates about the UK Royal Mail.

We eventually pulled ourselves away from the intellectual battle over what time post offices should be closed and hopped on the tube and took it to the Tower of London, which can be seen here, behind the giant fish & chips we had for lunch:



The great thing about the Tower of London is how throughout the years, it's transformed from a Royal Residence to a prison, and now a tourist destination with a temporary ice skating rink built on what used to be the moat.

After doing the usual Tower of London things...

...posing in front of the Bloody Tower (or at least the sign for the Bloody Tower):


...looking at knights in shining armor:


...and taking pictures in front of head chopping blocks:


...I managed eventually to kill our camera battery taking a zillion pictures of the Tower Bridge:


...so we decided to head back to the roach Regent Palace Hotel, charge the battery, and take a nap before finishing off the rest of the night, which included:

Eating dinner at a pub (fish & chips and meat pies were on the menu):


and then heading back to Westminster, to see the glorious lights at night:

London: Day 1

London was the first leg of our final trip in Europe. We planned on flying to London, then to Paris, and finally to Geneva and taking the train back to St. Gallen.

With full suitcases, we arrived in London in the afternoon, and what a surprise, it was overcast, gloomy, and looked like it was going rain. We unloaded our things at the Regent Palace Hotel in Piccadilly Circus and it was pretty much what you'd except from a big, 1000 room hotel that was 100 years old and going out of business at the end of the year; weathered, worn out, and kinda unpleasant. But for 49 pounds a night (an absolute steal especially when they were charging walk ins 129 pounds a night), and being located in Piccadilly Circus, you couldn't really complain.

We headed over to the British Museum and marveled at the world's greatest treasures under one roof. The British Museum is kind of like if your neighbor came into your house and stole all valuable things, and then displayed it in their living room and invited everyone on the block to come and look at it. The best example being the Parthenon, where the most famous ruins sit in the museum and not in Greece.



Other highlights from the museum included the Rosetta Stone:


and Cleopatra's mummy:


After being told the museum was closing and ushered off several times (there was just too darn much to see), we roamed around the streets and at night's end, found ourselves at a pub, where I ordered one of my favorite drinks, snake-bite and black.

Busy Times Ahead

I can't believe our time in Switzerland is winding down. We started it off big with our 4 city trek of Salzburg, Vienna, Prague and Munich and we're gonna end in style too. Go big or go home I right? (And in our case, we're going to do both.)

Here's our travel schedule for the rest of our time in Europe:

Dec 06th-10th: Rome
Dec 13th-15th: London
Dec 15th-19th: Paris
Dec 19th-22nd: Stuff in Switzerland (TBD)