London!

May 9-12

What a great trip! We were so lucky--the whole time the weather was amazing. It didn't rain at all the entire three days we were there. In fact, the sun shined the whole time. The only bad thing about it being warm out was that our hostel was SO. HOT. Obviously it didn't have air conditioning (since it seems like nowhere in Europe does), but that would have been ok if the room we were in had a window larger than a doggie door. It was actually cool at night outside, probably around 60, but it was at least 20 degrees hotter inside the room. Not exactly the most comfortable sleeping conditions.

We got to London super late on Friday night, then the next day we had to wake up kind of early so Jonathan could check out of the hostel (it was complicated--because he booked later, he wasn't able to get a room there the second night and had to move to a different hostel, so he had to check out and check back in the next day, but then the third night we weren't in a room together...like I said, complicated). After getting some pounds, we walked to Buckingham Palace and saw the changing of the guard. Boring. (Yes, I said it.)
Then we saw Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey (which we didn't go in because the line was long), the London Eye, all that good stuff. Then we ate lunch at Borough Market and walked across the London Bridge. After discovering that the London Bridge isn't the cool one, we went to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge (indeed the cool one). We passed on the Tower of London because it was way too expensive. Then we rode the tube to Regent's Park and walked around there for a little bit, which wasn't that exciting. We wanted to do the paddle boats, but it was 7 pounds per person for a half hour! After sitting down for a little bit and a brief rain scare (it almost started drizzling), we went to Chinatown and ate some dinner, then walked to Piccadilly Circus, then to Trafalgar Square and Nelson's Column. Then we went back and went to sleep.

The next day was the British Museum (cool, but we just weren't that into it), Covent Garden, and of course lots of walking. We ate lunch at Subway because it was the cheapest thing we could find (two people having lunch for 6 pounds? Sounds good to me!). After lunch it was more walking and then the Tower Bridge Experience (I think it's actually called that). It showed how the bridge was designed, built, etc., plus we got to go up to the two walkways above it.
After that we went to St. Paul's Cathedral, where we got lucky and since it was Sunday it was "no visitors allowed" aka we didn't have to pay 10 pounds to get in. We just weren't allowed to take pictures. After that we went to Regent's Park and walked around a little bit, then ate dinner in Covent Garden.

Monday, our last day. We didn't have the entire day since I had to leave for the airport from our hostel by 4:30. We went to the British Library, where we saw the Magna Carta and some other famous stuff. There was also a video about the Magna Carta starring a woman with the worst teeth I have ever seen. Very British. Then we sweatily rode a double-decker bus part of the way back to the hostel (It was just way too hot to go the whole way. We gave up and rode the tube). Hence the sweaty, unfortunate picture of the two of us:
Jonathan rode with me to the airport, and then I headed off to Belfast. He went back to the US the next morning. It was sad to leave him, but we'll see each other again in two months, and then it'll be all the time!