Hello, goodbye London!

Wednesday was pretty horrible. We spent the whole day waiting and traveling, and we didn't eat until like 8 hours after breakfast. I am learning how vital food is to my mood. We finally made it back to London and had KFC for dinner (which is just chicken sandwiches and friend chicken in the UK- no sides :( I wanted mac and cheese so bad). We spent the rest of the night planning the rest of London and planning ahead to other cities. 

But Thursday was better! We got up in time for hostel breakfast, got ourselves together, and went on one of those open top bus tours. We couldn't afford the full one where you can hop on and off for 24 hours, but we could afford the 3-hour continuous loop option for about half the price. So we got to see a lot :) 

Forgive the shoddy camera work... We were moving plus I'm no uncle Winnie :)

The first Hard Rock Cafe. 

2nd highest court in London. 

St. Paul's cathedral. 

Monument to the great fire of London. 

Tower bridge. 

Tower of London- wish we could have seen the inside! Many people including Anne Boleyn were executed here and it houses the Crown Jewels. Next time!

O2 dome used in the Olympics. 

Us. :)

We saw some other interesting things like the school Michael Cain went to before becoming an actor and the church where Thomas Jefferson's mom was baptized. Kinda cool :)

We finished the tour around 1:30 but we decided to stay downtown until 5 for Evensong at Westminster Abbey. Normally it is £18 to tour but if you "go to worship" it's free and you can at least walk through. So we got some lunch at Strutton Ground, a tiny little local street market that we honestly stumbled on accidentally. We then killed about an hour sitting on a bench along the Thames (pronounced "tems" here, which I didn't know) in the Victoria Tower Gardens. It was so peaceful. A lot of kids and professionals on lunch. We have learned to seek out these un-touristy spots. 

We were the very first people in line for Evensong, which was great because second in line was the VP of Bank of America and her husband, who were very nice and we had a nice conversation before realizing they were FREAKIN LOADED (they had just bought 2 purses at Harrods). We also got to sit in the fancy seats with the choir- the first 40 or so got to sit there. It was awesome. I was a little sad at first because the official WA choir is on summer break, but lemme tell ya these visiting choirs are awesome! Beautiful service. 

But the service can NOT compare to the church. It is GORGEOUS. You're not allowed to take pictures but I broke the rule and snook one...

A bad picture but proof I was there.  Those figures on the left are part of Sir Isaac Newton's monument. He's like.... There! In his tomb! The guy who first understood gravity and calculus and like... Everything! Amazing. I just don't even have words. Except "like". 

The unknown soldier's tomb really got me. And they have the coronation chair on display too! So cool. 

The outside is breathtaking too. 

After the Abbey we were exhausted so we headed back. At this point we realized we hadn't been eating well at all, so we went to the grocery store and picked up fixins for chef salad. It was actually really good! We had chips and salsa as an appetizer. 

After that I did something that made me so happy I don't even know how to describe it- I washed my clothes. It was only £3.50, which really wasn't bad, and I showered too so I was a happy girl. We went to bed after that. It was the happiest sleep. 

Yesterday I had two goals- to see the changing of the guard and the mummies at the British Museum. So for the second time we got up early and splurged on transport to Buckingham Palace. We got there early, found a spot, and waited 45 minutes with several hundred other people. 

Nothing happened. 

So yes, again it was cancelled when we went to see it. I went over and spoke firmly to one of the guides about how the website says every day and how they're a bunch of liars. He didn't really care. 

So we left. On our way out we did get to see this...

Not really sure which soldiers they are or why they were moving but it was neat. 

After that we walked for a whiiiile through a nice park and other touristy areas of London.

We saw baby ducks and almost died of cuteness :) this pond was really pretty. 

We finally found the "tkts" stand north of Trafalgar Square, where you can get half-price theater tickets. I was hoping to see Phantom or Book of Mormon or Wicked... really anything. We asked if they had any show at any time in our price range, and of course they didn't. So we got Pizza Hut and left, slightly disappointed. 

Another long walk took us to the British Museum which was easily the most crowded thing we've seen besides the bicycle event last weekend. There were so many people you could hardly move, but we still got to see the mummies!!!

A coffin. Sorry about the glare. I had to fight to take this. 

A beautiful gold coffin of an important woman. 

There's actually a mummy like... Right there! Crazy. 

There was some other cool stuff like preserved dead guys from various sites around the world and a remake of a tomb at Jericho. 

My favorite thing we saw wa the Rosetta Stone, which had the biggest crowd to fight through to get a picture, but I got it!!!

For those who don't know, this stone is the reason we understand hieroglyphics. It translates the characters to the common Egyptian tongue and to Greek, which we still use, so we are able to understand a lot about ancient Egypt. So so so sooooooo cool. 

Here's the museum. 

Beautiful, just crowded. 

By the time we finished with that, it was 2 pm and we had been walking for a solid 4 hours. We were exhausted. So we took a bus back to the hostel and chilled. 

At the hostel, we looked again at the budget and estimated that, after food is accounted for (a small $16/day), we have $31/day for lodging and fun an anything else we need. So we started looking at other options for lodging, like couchsurfing.org or possibly staying working on an organic farm or winery for a few nights and working for room and board. Still researching that. 

We got some really good, cheap Thai food down the street for dinner. We looked ahead, figuring out Paris activities and where we could stay in Amsterdam. Weirdly, the cheapest thing available in Amsterdam was a hotel, not a hostel, outside of the city by the airport. This is mostly because everything was booked already, maybe because summer is almost over. We booked the hotel and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to our own room and bathroom!!!!!!!!! It will be a bit of a pain to get in and out of the city but that's ok- we will just go in for the whole day and head back to the hotel only to sleep. 

We had a second wind after resting and planning for several hours, so we hit a pub. This was a crowded local place full of working English guys who we got along with really well. They were buying Jeremy drinks and telling me I looked like Hayley from One Tree Hill. I get that a lot, actually. Anyway, they were nice. After that we called it a night. 

And now I've caught you up to today! Today is day 10- meaning we are a sixth through our trip. Today is also the day we leave London for Paris and let me tell you, we are READY. Neither of us fell in love with London. Actually neither of us really like it at all. We've run out of free stuff to do and frankly I'm sick of this hostel and of all the trash on the street. I'm a little nervous because we definitely know our way around now, our location is nice, and we know the language and I'm not sure about any of this in Paris. I feel like we will just be figuring out Paris when we leave. We're there until Wednesday. 

So today we're just waiting around. Might hit the Sherlock Holmes museum if it's free. Might just sit in the hostel lounge for a few hours. Jeremy is doing laundry and we have wifi and bathrooms here so we're pretty set right now. Train isn't until after dinner. 

I'm going to just finish this post up here. I have a lot more to share but this post is ridiculously long already so bye for now, more soon- probably today. 

<3