Saturday, March 17, 2012

London: March 16th

London March 16th

As my previous post stated, I woke up at 4am...stupid time change. Needles to say Nathan and I have been exhausted all day. But it hasn't stopped us from having fun.

We started our day with Tower of London. With the Beef Eater tour, we saw the chapel, and learned about the prisoners and beheadings. There were some great stories. We saw some torture devices, including the rack (where they stretch a person). There was one story of a girl who was torture on the rack until almost dead and then burned at the stake for hearsay. lets just say England has had some issues with religion.

Some of the sadest deaths were the two boy princes who were taken to the tower for safety but killed by their Uncle.

In fact it seems that the royal family had a tendency of killing or imprisoning family members for the throne.

Following the tower of London, we walked across tower bridge and got a picture in front of the Globe Theater. There weren't any shows, but I didn't really want to stand and see a show anyway.

We made a surprise visit to Tate Modern. Nathan enjoyed it more than the national portrait gallery. It was interesting to say the least. One of the exhibitions had mirrored walls with color changing lights hanging from the celling. My crappy description doesn't do it justice…

From the Tate modern, we walked across the Millennium bridge. My amazing engineering husband was showing me the retrofits that were needed.

We got a quick glimpse of St Paul's before catching the tube to Buckingham palace. The palace was cool, but the queen should open it up for more than 2 months of the year. We then WALKED from the palace through Hyde park to Kensington gardens to the peter pan statue. Let's just say it was a long walk on top of all the other walking we did today.

It was back on the tube to Harrods which is basically a fancy Bloomingdales meets Nordstrom. Too fancy and expensive for my liking. Why would anyone pay full retail price for clothes. It was cool looking around the food court but I could have opted out.

British Museum was next on the list. However we only had 40 min before they closed. We saw the Viking exhibit, China, the Rosetta Stone and my favorite the Egyptian. It was sad that we couldn't spend more time there. I would have liked to have seen the ancient Greek exhibition, they had closed it early. That museum is Amazing! So much history, the wannabe Indiana Jones in me was super jealous of all the archeologist who discovered these wonders.

We then went to kings cross station so I can see platform 9 3/4 if only the Hogwarts Express was there to take me to Hogwarts. Then I could turn in my unfinished potions HW. Professor Snape probably hates me…

It was then back on the tube to Picadilly Circus, which is like a circus. There were so many people and street performers out and about. It was there that we finally had dinner at about 9. We were exhausted and starving.

Our first full day in London was long, fun, tiring, and filled with walking

2 comments:

Rowdy Family said...

wow! way to get 'er done. Your first day was packed. keep having fun

Susan Conard Photography said...

I love reading your adventures. So happy to hear your doing well despite driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Got your postcard today from Sussex. The castle looks so pretty. Can't wait to read more blog posts from your British and Irish Adventures!