Day 2: We came, we saw, we saw it all (more or less)

I should be in bed. No seriously, I have to be up and moving in less than 7.5 hours. Some crazy person decided that we need to leave at 7:30 tomorrow morning, with wake up calls a 6am, bags have to be packed and ready to get on the bus by 6:30, breakfast at 7 and then we leave at 7:30. Give that it takes me a bit of time to get moving, I need to set my alarm for 5:30. Balls.

We had a very long but very good day today and I think we saw it all. Sadly, we did not have enough time to get to the Sherlock Holmes museum but we saw everything else:

 Kensington Palace and Gardens
Hyde Park
Marble Arch
Buckingham Palace
British Parliament
Big Ben in a Box (it's covered in scaffolding as it's being refurbished)
Westminister Abbey
St. Paul's Cathedral
The London Eye
Millennium Bridge
London Bridge
Tower Bridge
Tower of London
River Thames (including a boat ride on it)
Trafalgar Square (including Canada House!) - saw the square twice actually....
St. James Palace
Hyde Park (again, but this time I got to step inside it)

And I think that's most of the highlights. After a great breakfast at the hotel (they do it well...tried black pudding. Didn't like it),  we left the hotel at 9:30 and got back a little after 6. We took a Hop On, Hop Off bus. It took us over 2.5 hours to get from our hotel to the Tower of London. We saw a lot during that time but my god, the traffic. At one point, Dad said that the bus driver had more balls than he did. LOL. That bus made it through some tight spots.

I was sad that Big Ben is all covered up but his sister, the Victoria Tower, was gorgeous. Seeing the British Parliament really reminded me of Ottawa's Parliament prior to when it burnt down. And the bells in the Peach Tower sound very similar to the ones in Big Ben (the tour guide played them on his phone).

The highlight for me was seeing the Tower Bridge. It's so iconic. It was incredible to see. The Tower of London was also very cool, as were their Ravens. Beautiful birds really. The crown jewels were very shiny so I was happy about that. Just wish there was more of them to see. They actually put you on a conveyor belt so that the crowd keeps moving. I made friends with a Beefeater and we saw a re-enactment of Anne Boleyn losing her head.

Trafalgar Square was bustling with people and we got to see both sides of Canada House as we toured the square.

We had to switch bus routes on our way back and the stop happened to be right beside Hyde Park, so I was able to see a tiny slice of it while killing time.

The tour bus turned out to be a great way to see the city. Too bad the traffic made it such a long way to see the city! Oh! And we had fish and chips for lunch so that's one British thing off the list. LOL.

We're off to Stratford-Upon-Avon and York tomorrow. Looks like we're in for some good weather again as well.

I must sign off now and get myself organized for tomorrow before heading to bed.

Good Night!

Sarah
XOXO