So, I’ve experienced a lot of things in my life, but the nine-hour adventure I had yesterday is definitely going up in my books as one of the greatest days of my life. Basically, here’s how it happened:

I woke up at a reasonable hour, something like nine ‘o’ clock in the morning, had breakfast, and tried to figure out what I wanted to do that day. Well, it turns out that the cleaners were about to come in and do turn-down service, so I quickly through my stuff together and left without a definite plan. That could have ended badly, if I hadn’t picked up a tourist book in Waterloo Station. So, I sat down in front of the London Eye, seeing as though I couldn’t think of a better place to plan what I wanted to see, and I started going through the entire Central London map. I picked out literally every attraction I wanted to see, and I got started on my day.

My nine-hour adventure started, obviously, at the London Eye, which I had already seen during the Photo Frenzy. After that, I crossed Westminster Bridge, got more than enough pictures of the Houses of Parliament (and Big Ben), and then looked at Westminster Abbey and Cathedral from the outside. I didn’t feel like being cattle-herded inside either of them, so instead, I made my way for the Tube and headed towards St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Once I arrived at Blackfriar’s Station, from where I immediately got lost, I stumbled across a church hidden away behind several taller buildings in close proximity. I can’t for the life of me remember it’s name, but after all the things I saw, I’m not surprised! After I did that, I continued to be lost until St. Paul’s basically appeared to me. Seriously, I just turned a corner, hoping I was going the right direction while burying my face in my map, and there it was. It’s really quite an impressive building, and it takes a lot to make someone as well-traveled as me say that. They were having an ordination of deacons at the time, so I didn’t get the chance to peek in, but I did get to hear them ringing the bells, which was pretty sweet. Discovering I was hungry, I went into a restaurant called Yo! Sushi, which was very different from the other sushi places I’ve been to before. It had a conveyor belt at this large, rectangular bar, and little color-coded containers of sushi (say that five times fast) passed around on it. You snag whatever looks good, and depending on what color it is, you pay a certain amount for it. They also had individual faucets so you can serve yourself both flat and bubbly water, containers of soy sauce, wasabi, and pickled ginger built into the bar’s surface, and a button that let’s you call the server if you need help. I walked out of that restaurant full of sushi, eating green tea ice cream from a little plastic container.

Hopping on the Tube again, I made my way towards the Tower of London. Coming out of the station, I came across a beautiful World War I and II memorial with a lot of stone work and a very solemn pillared building at the edge. I paid my respects and moved on towards the Tower of London, which isn’t just a really big tower near the Thames. It’s a complex of castles and structures that have been completed over the past 1000 years, and though I wanted to go inside, it was, again, too crowded for my tastes. Instead, I passed by it and walked to Tower Bridge, which is not the same thing as London Bridge. This is a common misconception, but London Bridge is a much less ostentatious bridge now in the Western United States; they have since replaced it, but a businessman in (I believe) Arizona bought it thinking it was Tower Bridge. It’s funny the things you learn from stones in the ground. Anyway, instead of crossing Tower Bridge, I actually discovered that there’s an exhibit in its upper walkways, so I went in there and got some amazing views of the Thames. They also had panels of the past Olympics games in addition to magnificent bridges from around the world, but I was much more excited about seeing the steam engines in the underground section of the exhibit.

Upon leaving Tower Bridge from the opposite side, I passed by a shopping center along the river, as well as what is colloquially known as the “Armadillo.” I also passed the Shard, which is the tallest building in both the United Kingdom and Europe. Being the jaded New Yorker that I am, I’ve seen better skyscrapers, but it’s still a very interesting building, particularly for it’s slanted edges. Walking near the Thames back towards the center of Central London and looking for London Bridge Station unsuccessfully, I passed another church that I can’t name and then crossed London Bridge itself. I walked a little farther and came across the Monument, which is the tallest, isolated, free-standing column in the world. In short, it’s a really tall pillar, but next to it were a couple inebriated people around a very random piano. So, I sat and listened to the man at the piano play, which was surprisingly well considering the amount of alcohol they had with them.

Finally, after another short Tube ride, I went to Baker Street in the attempt of finding the closest point to 221B, which I eventually did. Before stumbling across a statue of the pointy-nosed detective himself, I stopped by a couple souvenir shops for random gifts, and very nearly bought a deer-stalker (the hat which is infamously associated with Holmes). When I did finally stumble across the statue, I realized that traveling alone through London makes it very difficult to get pictures of yourself, so I did the Facebook-esque self picture with him and headed back to Surbiton.

As you can see by the novel I wrote, yesterday was a very long, interesting day full of little discoveries and really sore feet! In the course of nine hours, I saw about half of the things I still needed to see in London, though not necessarily as thoroughly as I might have liked. I do still have some time to explore London more, though I spent today lazing about my dorm and getting caught up on my class reading. Then again, I really only have one weekend to do things, seeing as though my two four-day weekends are filled with trips to Scotland and Paris. I’m hoping to go to Stonehenge during that open weekend, but we’ll really have to see. For now, I have to go to sleep and wait with bated breath to see what my classes are like on a normal basis. Good night, all!

Photos:
(Since there’s SOOO many pictures from Saturday, I’m just going to give you the link to my Dropbox folder with them in it. Enjoy by clicking here and following the link inside it!)