Tour of London, in a day
Today I had a bit of a late start due to a late night with some folks from my hostel. It was a fun night but not a fun headache. I mailed off some souvenirs today, which cost me a horrible 30 bucks, and then paid another horrible 44 bucks to ride the hop on/off bus today, but it included a cruise on the River Thames.
My first stop off was near Big Ben/Houses of Parliament, mostly because a group of war protestors caught my attention. so I jumped off to check it out. They were standing outside Downing Street waiting for Tony Blair to leave, who had just resigned, and I caught a glimpse of his motorcade, and then they were awaiting the arrival of the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown, which according to their signs was not any more welcomed.
After that I toured over to the Tower Bridge/Tower of London, grabbed a coffee and sat looking over the river. The sun was peaking out and it felt nice just to people watch. Everything is so spendy to get into, so I basically just saw the outside of things today, refusing to pay the ridiculous entrance fees. I then jumped on the river cruise, which I really enjoyed and took that back to Big Ben and grabbed the bus again, touring the rest of the route around near Buckingham and Kesington Palaces, Harrods and so forth. I met a high school teacher from TX who was touring for the day as well and just also happens to be catching a flight to Italy tomorrow.
Unfortunately my flight leaves at 1025 tomorrow out of Heathrow, which means an arrival time of about 7 a.m., which means getting on the tube at 5:30...so off to bed for me.
