From London with Love

London - Tuesday, August 4th

Our crazy European odyssey has finally begun… It didn’t start out crazy so much as very overwhelming. The flight from DC to London was about 7 hours. After some recommendations from friends, we decided to shell out the few extra bucks for British Airways and it was more than worth it. The service on the plane was what you imagine the old-school air travel to be. The stewards and stewardesses were so accommodating that with everything from meals to drinks to blankets and pillows that the eight hours passed by fairly enjoyably. It also helped that the flight was overnight so we managed to get some winks before heading off for a day of sightseeing in London.
When we got into London, we took the tube to our hostel. We took the tube many more times throughout the day during out sightseeing and were grateful for how well designed, efficient, and on-time it was. The hostel we were staying at didn’t allow check-in until 2:30 so we decided to drop our bags off and make the most of our one day in London. I must say that it felt like we crammed in two or three days of sightseeing into just a few hours. We managed to take a tour through the Tower bridge, see the Eye of London, the tower of London, as well as take some amateur artsy pictures of Big Ben. We also took a surprisingly informational and in-depth (thanks to our knowledgeable guide) tour of the Parliament building (attached to Big Ben). The building was incredible and the amount of ornate decorations backed by rich English history and tradition really left an impression. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside except for the main hall, known as Westminster Hall. We also took some pictures of Westminster Abbey although we couldn’t go in because it was too late in the day.
After walking around in the city a little bit and taking a stroll along the Thames River, which runs through London, we decided to go to a local pub for dinner and a beer. The food was great (we tried some of London’s tried and true staples, which included fish and chips and bangers and mash, or sausage with mashed potatoes & gravy state side) and the local beer was definitely worth trying. I had some sort of ale brewed with honey, which was delicious.
After dinner we walked to Buckingham Palace. We didn’t get to see the changing of the guards but we did see one of them strolling back and forth and that was good enough for us. They really do look like little toy soldiers. We were planning to go to Hyde park but after what felt like a 48 hour day we decided to call it quits. We did get to walk through Green Park, which is located right next to Buckingham Palace on our way back to the metro.
When we got back to the hostel we were a little nervous about the accommodations since this was our first hostel experience. The rooms were pretty cramped and we were sharing two bunk beds with two other travellers but they were nice enough and we were so tired that at that point we might have paid for a roomy park bench. I fell asleep almost instantly and our new roommates probably thought we were pretty lame for going to bed at 9:30 but we had a 5:30am train to Paris that we needed to catch the next morning.

Onward to Paris…