Winning London

Day 8

After a two hour flight, an hour line at customs and what felt like a 10 hour bus ride (really it was an hour and a half, but watching the couple in front of us make out for about an hour caused it to seem much longer) we made it to our studio in London. We were happy to have our own studio but not so happy about lugging our 35/40 lb bags up 6 flights of stairs. We through our stuff in our room and began walking to find a place to eat. It wasn't long before we stumbled into a small diner. We ordered food and began eating when we both looked at each other and asked why no one in the diner was speaking English, after all we were finally in an English speaking country. We ate and then went to meet up with Blair's friend Matt. He was a very good tour guide taking us to see the London tower and the London bridge. We then took a walk through the financial district where Matt worked, he told us that during the weekend the district was pretty much vacant but very busy during the week.  

We then headed to a local bar where were grabbed a table outside and enjoyed a beer. Matt told us that there was a huge rugby game on earlier that day and there were tons of people out celebrating. Around 7:00pm we were pretty entertained when we saw a guy try to get into the bar but he was not let in because he was piss drunk. After the bar we went back to Matt's flat where we played drinking games. We had a blast as Matt and his flatmate Vicky taught is some new games we are definitely bringing them back to the states.

We were very tired from traveling all day and wanted to make sure we made it back before the Tube (pronounced chube) stopped running.  Matt walked us to the underground only to discover it was closed. We then tried to catch a nearby bus but we missed it by about 30 seconds so Matt put us in the cutest taxi we have ever seen and sent us on our way. 

The taxi driver was very nice talking to us, through a microphone, about the family he has in Michigan and about our travels. He dropped us off at the closest Underground station to catch Tube . We were very nervous after waiting for about 12 minutes that the Tube was not coming but it finally arrived and was pack. We pushed our way in and held on. At the next station the coach got even more packed and tons of people pushed there way on. The conductor made an announcement that if people continued to hold the doors open it would shut down and we would all have to walk so everyone adjusted enough for the doors to close. With two more stops to go we got worried what would happen at the next stop. We made it there and loads more people piled it. At this point we felt like a pack of sardines jammed in so tight we could not even move. We waited there for about 10 minutes because the doors literally could not close due to the amount of people but finally with some more adjustments the Tube was able to drop us off at Victoria station. We walked to our hotel, made some phone calls back home and passed out. 

Day 9

Today was the day we were going to make a tour! We got up, had breakfast, then headed off to Victoria Station to find out tour bus. We searched and searched but couldn't find "gate 3" anywhere. We finally found a tour guide and asked him where he thought we were suppose to meet, he was actually not the tour guide for the tour we were taking (our tickets didn't have a company listed on them) but he knew where we needed to be anyways. It turns out we were at Victoria Station, we were suppose to be at Victoria Coach Station, which was only across the street.  As soon as we got their we found our gate where our tour bus was waiting. This double decker bus was not only green and brown, but it looked like it had just come from the Harry Potters movies.  Jill and I hurried upstairs to get a seat. We knew it would be cold and windy, but we wanted the full double decker bus experience. 

On the bus we made 3 friends from California.  Turns out they had not planned for the cold weather, so they had to buy sweatshirts along the way.  They also had bought a ticket for the London Eye, but later on they tour they asked us "what the big Ferris Wheel  was".  After explaining it was the ticket they had bought, they were excited. 

Our first stop on the bus was Westminster Abbey. We were able to get off the bus, take pictures, and hear about the history. This was a very cool sight. While getting off the bus we also noticed the big red telephone booths.  I was extremely excited, so we took plenty of photos in and around it. 

The bus took up to all the must see places, Big Ben, London Bridge, London Castle, Buckingham Palace, and a mini river cruise. We were able to stop at Buckingham Palace and watch the changing of the guards. This was an exciting experience.  We were suppose to be able to walk right behind them guards, but due to the filming of a tv show called Top Gear, the road was closed off.  Top Gear is a tv show, that we don't have in the states that shows off different kinds of cars. All the cars were parked all over the road, which led our tour guide to believe there was really a traffic jam, not a tv show filming. That was ok for us, we were still able to see the changing of the guards. 

After Buckingham Palace we said goodbye to our new friends, who were headed to the London Eye and we headed to our last sight, Harrods. This department store was amazing. It was also a little overwhelming. We decided to head to the food court and grab some lunch. The food court is not an average American food court. This food court had restaurants, and food stations. It was more like a mini grocery store then a food court.  All the food looked delicious, so we decided to get a few things and split them.  We looked for tables to eat at, then finally realized they had no tables for us. We found a bench outside the store and ate. The food was just as delicious as it looked. 

Since we were already out this way, we decided to go shopping for a little. Nothing caught our eye so we headed back to our bed and breakfast.  We managed to find our way back just fine, with a little use of my handy-dandy map! 

Since we had been up for a while we decided it was a good idea to nap before dinner.  When we finally got up we decided dinner would be sushi. We didn't choose just any sushi restaurant, we chose one that we had read about before coming to Europe. This sushi restaurant was suppose to have a drone that would fly you your food. We were so excited for this experience. 

We managed to maneuver the Tube and find the restaurant. This sushi restaurant is also very unique because all the sushi was on a convaitor belt. We choose to do the all you can eat Sunday sushi night. This meant we had an hour to eat as much sushi as we wanted...yum!  The food was good, but after talking to the staff we found out they stopped using the drone to deliver food. This was not the answer we were looking for, but continued our meal anyways. 

Just as we were finishing dinner my friend from summer camp, Will, met up with us. Will said he would show us around for a little then we'd grab some drinks. Sounded great to us. We show Oxford circus and Piccadilly square, which is London's version of time square. 

We then headed to a local pub. This pub was actually really cool. It was very comfy and had classic London pub look to it.  When we got there we were told they were closing in about an hour, so we decided to have a drink there then head somewhere else. The only problem was it was a Sunday night. To us this didn't mean much at first, but as we went from bar to bar looking for something that was opened we understood. Apparently things close very early on Sundays.  After about a half hour of looking, we finally found one that was open. We went to a 3 story bar. The first two stories had a Dj. The top story had live music. We really enjoyed it! 

After a drink or two we were getting kind of tired, so told Will we were going to venture home. He decided to leave as well. Since the Tube was closed we needed to take the bus home. Lucky for us, Will knew which bus we needed to get home. We hopped on the bus, paid for our ticket and headed back to Victoria station. From there Will walked us home. We said our goodbyes, it was awesome to see him, and headed to bed. We wanted to try to make the most of our last day in London tomorrow! 

Day 10 

We woke up pretty early today for no reason, early enough to have a proper English breakfast. So we put on our shoes and went to the hotel for breakfast. When we walked in we were told that because we have a studio, we could not eat in the hotel and had to go back to the studio for toast. We went back and got ready for the day. Our adventure started when we went to exchange some money and hit some touristy shops for some souvenirs to bring home. 

We picked up our theater tickets and headed form Abbey Road. We managed the Tube and found our way just fine. We took some touristy pictures there. We were also told there was a webcam we could pull up for 24 hours. We decided to try it out. We also encountered a group of students with their teacher. They must have taken at least 10 pictures each. They also kept walking through other people's pictured. Blair was not to happy about that so she kindly asked them to watch where they were walking. 

We then went back to the hotel to nap before we left for an early dinner. We got vouchers to eat at this Indian restaurant in Soho. Not able to speak the language we pointed out our meals to the waitress and she went to ring it in. When we got our food we informed the waitress that she gave us the wrong meal and she got mad and switched tables with a different server. We ate our dinner and left for the show. Blair's parents bought us tickets to see Wicked. The musical was absolutely phenomenal. The costuming was gorgeous and the singing was amazing. 

We left the musical and went to meet up with the bar crawl we got a flyer for. When we arrived we were told that it would be 12 pounds each but with the flyer it was 10. We told the guy that we only had 5 each so we could not join but we were really fun and they should probably let us go anyways. After 10 minutes of us all looking at each other not speaking we were told we can join for 5 pounds each. We got our wristbands and we on our way. At the first bar we went to we waited at the bar for our drinks and sat down with some other crawlers.  As most people know we love to dance. Unfortunately everyone else on the pub crawl was not feeling it. Some random guy came up to Jill and asked her to dance because he had some sweet moves.  When she decided not to, I sprang out of my seat and decided to dance. He definitely had some interesting moves.  Although it was funny to dance with him, it got old pretty quick. I went back to sit with the group, but this guy didn't like that idea. He continued to come up and try to dance with us.  This was clearly not working in his favor. Finally one of the pub crawls guys decided he should step in and ask this guy to leave us alone. 

By this time we had decided we should head to the next bar. This bar had a lot more people with a lot more dancing.  We danced for a while and had a great night, but were getting pretty tired. We had decided to try to find out way home. We had two options, find a bus, or find s taxi that took credit card.  We were pretty sure the bus would take our metro card, so decided that would be our best bet. 

While walking toward the bus we were stopped by many club promoters. They wanted us to come to their club. When we told them we would only go if we could get in for free, they told us that was not going to happen anywhere. We politely told them no thank you and made our way to the bus. We were able to take the same bus as the night before,which we remembered how to get to, and made it home safely. It was time to finish packing an hit the pillow for the night.