London: Day One

We flew from Dublin to London early Monday morning. Our flight got in at 9:30, but by the time we took a bus into the city, then two subways to our hostel, it was already lunch time. We were really tired from five straight days of sightseeing, so we decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. We wandered around the British Museum {which was right next to our hostel} and saw the Rosetta Stone. We weren't huge fans of the museum though, because it didn't have any exhibits about British history. Most of the museum was Egyptian artifacts, similar to what we saw at the Met in New York. We ended the day by having dinner at a delicious Turkish restaurant one of our CEA friends recommended.

We woke up early on Tuesday morning to check out the Portabello Road Market in Notting Hill. When we got there around 9:00 am, there were hardly any booths set up! We were very surprised because its supposed to one of the biggest markets in London. But, I bought a teacup at a very cute boutique {you would have loved it, Allie!} We asked the shop girls why the market was so empty, and it turns out that its a lot busier in the afternoon, which is the opposite of French markets.

We left Notting Hill and joined a Fat Tire Bike Tour to see all the royal sights. The bike tour lasted four hours, with a break for lunch in Trafalgar Square. Our tour guide, Matt, was really awesome! He had the most interesting stories about London. First, we rode through Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, stopping at Buckingham Palace.

Then we rode to Trafalgar Square. The guy on the top of the column is Admiral Nelson. He won an important naval battle off the coast of Spain during the Napoleonic Wars. He defeated the French Navy, but sadly perished. His men wanted to bring him back to London for a proper burial, so they stuffed him in a barrel of rum to keep him preserved for the two-week journey. When the authorities opened up the barrel back in England, they discovered that most of the rum had disappeared! Yep, you guessed right, the sailors drank it! Eww!

During lunch, we sat with an older British couple. The man had been to Houston lots of times for work and had some very interesting opinions about the city. Mostly because he tried to walk over a mile from his office to his hotel - in the middle of August. Below is a picture of the Royal Mews, where the Queen's horses are kept. It's also where beach volleyball will be played in the 2012 Olympics.

Westminster Abbey. You can see our tour guide animatedly telling us about Guy Fawkes' Day in the corner.

Finally, Big Ben, which is apparently named after a 19th century street fighter. We rode back through Hyde Park, taking a different route this time to see the Princess Diana and Prince Albert memorials.

After our bike tour, we went to Harrod's. It was huge, but also ridiculously crowded! We only stayed for about half an hour, because we want to head back to Westminster Abbey for the Evening Song service. It's the only way to get into the church for free. The music was fabulous and the interior was beautiful! I didn't take any pictures though, because there were tons of clergy everywhere.

That was our very busy first day in London. Little did we know that we would be there much longer than we planned!