London!

  London, United Kingdom
Friday, May 4, 2007

Hello from London! I'm at the Apple store (aka free internet cafe) just outside of Piccadilly Circus! We have had a few busy days, and we've already seen so much.

Our flight from Edmonton yesterday was uneventful, and we arrived in London at about 1130 am. After about an hour on the tube, we were at our hostel, and had some time to freshen up before setting out. Laura decided that we didn't need a map, since she had been in London for 4 days last year and was essentially a tour guide. Well, 5 minutes later, we were already pretty lost, but we eventually found our way to Tower Bridge, and then along the Thames to the London Eye.

We paid to go on the "flight" around the 43 storey high London Eye/oversized ferris wheel, where we got a good sense of where some things are around the city.

Later, we went out for dinner at a nice Mediterranean restaurant near our hostel, and decided to get on a random double-decker bus. After about half an hour on the bus, he pulled over and turned off the lights - we were at the end of the line in a strange neighbourhood. Luckily the buses were still running in the opposite direction, so we made it back alright, and called it a night at the hostel.

I survived my first sleep in a hostel, although it was a bit rough. I'm such a light sleeper that I woke up every time someone walked by our room. Once I put earplugs in I slept pretty well until the morning.

We got up fairly early this morning and set out for a bus tour as soon as we were done breakfast. The £18 tour (over $40 CDN!!) ended up being a decent way to see most of the main attractions. A few moments of hilarity ensued as our luck with the double decker buses repeated itself. Our bus broke down in the middle of early rush-hour traffic, and we had to wait about 15 minutes for the next bus to pick us up.

Laura split up with me about an hour ago to meet a few friends for dinner and a play, but I still had fun on the tour bus by myself - a few Spanish ladies who apparently thought it was raining (ponchoes with hoods up...) got on the bus, and then I saw our broken down bus being towed away.

Although it is crazy expensive, London is such an easy city to be a tourist in, especially without any language barrier. I started to get bored with English, and decided to make it harder on myself by listening to what I thought was the Russian channel on the tour bus guide. It turned out to be the kids' channel, which was really quite entertaining, as it was essentially a rap remix of the regular English channel.

Some other things we saw today were Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and Parliament, the Tower of London, and Piccadilly Square. Hopefully tomorrow I'll go for the tour of the Tower, and maybe check out a museum or two.

Unfortunately I don't have my camera cable with me, so I can't put up any pictures with this entry. The Apple store staff probably wouldn't like that either, I've already been given the evil eye for writing here, so I pretended to play around with Photobooth for a bit. (A store employee JUST asked me if I needed help, so I whipped out the "ummm... dun't speek Eengleesh," and then I realized he probably saw me writing in English on here, and my Canada flag on my backpack)

So I guess that's it for now!
Paul