We leave on our next trip tomorrow so it is time to finally finish the trip from 3 years ago! This one might be a little long. Thanks for reading!
Day 16: Bus, Boat, Park, and Pub
Today we got out of the flat even earlier because we wanted to not have to worry about cooking breakfast. We found a tasty cafe and I got my first full English breakfast. Yummy! It was full, pun intended, of meat and toast and beans. I have to say, eating baked beans for breakfast was weird and I just kind of skipped on them. After that we had decided to go on an open top double decker bus tour around the city. We figured we would see some stuff we already had, but would see a lot more driving around instead of walking. So we found the start of the tour and hopped on. It was a beautiful day for an open top bus tour around London! Our tour guide Andre was awesome with a very dry, witty sense of humor that we enjoyed. It was great to get to see almost all of the important sights around London. Dot took lots and lots and lots of pictures of all the sights. We really should have started our time in London with this tour, would have helped us get our bearings a little. Oh well. After the tour we picked up some lunch to go and made our way to the boat dock for a short trip down the Thames. It was included in our bus ticket so figured we might as well. It was a pretty lame boat trip that lasted all of 15 minutes, but it did take us to the Tower of London. We decided against going in because of the price, but got some good pictures from the outside.
Then Dot needed some down time, so we hopped on the tube and found a park and lay down and enjoyed some relaxation and sunrays. It was nice to just relax. We then had some dinner and met up for our old pubs tour. It was….ok. I felt like we learned some very odd history that I have already forgotten about. We did get to see some interesting old pubs like Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese and the Sweeny Todd pub. The highlight of the tour was Dot getting herself a nice half pint of Guinness, which to her was tasty. It was a full day of touring around.
Day 17: Royal Walk, Changing of the Guard
We had some plans, but got switched because we wanted to go see the changing of the guard with a guide along with a tour around the Royal parts of London. So we did a Westminster walk tour that really helped us learn more about those Royal parts. It was great to add on more to what we had already seen. We got to see the new guard as they gathered to start their 24-hour shift. We saw them march on to Buckingham Palace, but it was so packed on a random Wednesday in April we couldn’t see much after that. Really was quite a scene though, Britain plays up that pomp and circumstance. Got to then hear some fun stories about why there are no potted flowers in one of the parks (couldn’t remember why now). Overall good tour learning about stuff that I knew absolutely nothing about.
Next up we went to the science museum, mainly because they had a fun sounding interactive theater where you experience the Apollo missions. I thought this would be awesome, but weirdly one of the areas was closed so we had to walk up 4 floors and back down to get to the theater that we bought tickets for. Then not 5 minutes later we hear over the speakers “Please evacuate at the nearest exit.” That was strange. They evacuated everyone. After a long wait and no real idea what had happened it was reopened and we exchanged our tickets for the next day. When that excitement was over we went back to home base to do some laundry and pack up the best we could for our last day overseas.
Day 18 & 19: Last Days in England (For now)
A sad day. The last full day in Europe. We are ready to leave London and this tiny place we call a “home,” but not ready to go back to work and responsibilities. It sure would be fun to get paid to travel in Europe and write about our experiences. Not in God’s plans right now, plus I was a science major, not an English major, writing doesn’t come easy.
Went back to the science museum to ride the Apollo simulation. It was kind of lame, thought it would be a lot better. We then did something called the Butterfly Experience, Dots dream. It was a tent full of butterflies flying around us. Dot always wanted to have a butterfly land on her hand, unfortunately it didn’t happen, but it was still really fun. Then back to the British museum to check out some things that we missed, but really it was all leading up to a big last night of seeing Les Miserables!
Something on my bucket list was to see it in London. WOW! Just WOW! Such an unbelievable performance, everyone that gets into London should do his or her best to make time to see it. Great end to an amazing trip.
Next day we grabbed all our stuff and rode the tube to the airport. Saw The Doctor, Matt Smith, there which was surreal. Other that fun thing it was a normal airport experience. Watched 4 ½ movies on our way back and ready to be off the plane at the end. Such a fun experience. Excited to get back!
Travel Tales From BB-8 