I've been avoiding putting off this post on London just because I did SO much in London and have tons to talk about. But who am I kidding? It's not like I have a billion things to do at the moment... (That's not sarcasm. I literally have zero agenda. Refreshing)
Anyways, in my previous London post, I left off where I was chilling in various coffee shops. At 9:30, the store where I had to pick up my LondonPass opened, and I was ready to roam. If you're ever in London, I highly recommend getting the LondonPass. First of all, London is EXPENSIVE. Goodness. The LondonPass was 47 pounds, I think. I upgraded and got the London travel pass for 56 pounds because it included a free tube pass (and one trip on the tube costs 4.50 pounds. I'm not even joking.) Basically, the LondonPass lets you get into almost everywhere for free. I knew I wanted to go to the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral, and Westminster Abbey, and the prices for those three places were well over 47 pounds in total.
So I hopped the tube over to the Tower of London.
Here's part of the tower of London with the famous Tower bridge in the background. Learned something new. This bridge is in fact called Tower bridge and not London bridge. The real London bridge is the next bridge over to the west and much less impressive.
I did a tour with one of the Yeomen Warders or "Beefeaters". Homeboy was hilarious. I stupidly didn't take a picture of him, but here's what they look like.
This was the part of the tower of London where they housed the crown jewels. Very impressive.
I visited the Tower of London with my fam when David studied abroad in London when I was an unfortunate sophomore in high school (no, seriously), but it was nice to go back after taking more history classes and appreciate the historical significance of all of it.
This was probably my favorite part. This is called "Traitor's Gate", which is a water entrance into the tower. Many a prisoner were lead in this way, including Anne Boleyn. I also saw where she lost her head.
After the Tower of London, I grabbed a sandwich and hiked twenty minutes over to St. Paul's Cathedral. I ate my sandwich in a nice little park next to the Cathedral. Not a bad view.
St. Paul's Cathedral was really neat. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside though, so that was a downer. The audio guides were included in the entry fee (phew), which I thoroughly enjoyed. I started getting tired and I think I dozed off a tad in the pew, but I decided in order to wake myself up, I should naturally climb about 600 stairs to the top of the dome.
Anyways, I hiked up to the whispering chamber, which is part of the dome. You can stand on one side and whisper something into the wall, and someone on the other side of the dome can hear it. It was wild. I was alone, so I just listened to other people's whispers. Pretty amusing.
From the whispering chamber, I went up to the top of the dome and got to see all of London.
Here's the park where I ate lunch.
The sky had storm clouds on and off all day, but it only drizzled a little bit, fortunately.
The problem with traveling alone is that you don't have friends to take your pictures. Womp womp womp.
Selfie central!
Here's the front of St. Paul's.
After St. Paul's, at about 2pm, is when fatigue really started to hit me again. I had planned on walking the 30 minutes from St. Paul's to Westminster Abbey, but about 5 minutes into that, I decided to mind the gap and jump on the tube. A wonderful decision.
Made it over to Westminster Abbey, and of course, I loved that one too. It was neat to see the pictures of Kate and William's marriage in the Abbey and then walk through it. Loved it. It was also really cool to see all the kings' and queens' tombs. The idea of royalty fascinates me.
Just like St. Paul's, photography was not allowed. Bum city. I did get to see the coronation chair which dates back to the 1300s. Too wild.
You can see the storm clouds over Westminster Abbey. I took this right before I went in for my tour.
And one hour later, clear skies. Weird.
I couldn't get enough of the blue skies and clouds.
Right next to Westminster Abbey are the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, which I'd already seen about 10 hours earlier, but I still snapped some more pictures.
More selfie strugs.
And again. I'm a sucker for a nice cloud.
At this point, I was dying of fatigue. It was only about 5pm and I was meeting up with friends at 8pm. Well, with my LondonPass, I could take a boat tour of the Thames for free. So I did that. No pictures from that, unfortunately. I was wiped out.
I kind of wandered around for the next two hours and then finally met up with two of my sorority sisters from Wake. One of them is getting her Master's at King's College and the other was in London for a conference. We met up and went to a couple pubs.
It was really good to see them and I was sad to have to leave!
Anyways, I hopped on the tube back over to Victoria Station and caught my bus back to Lille at 11:30pm. I arrived in Lille right on schedule at 6am...went home and proceeded to sleep for the next six hours. Oof.
Anyways, that was my London trip in a nutshell.
Don't forget to keep checking my post entitled "Little message"! I update it with a picture everyday!
Luv,
Sarah
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