Hello all! Where to begin… Oh I know. The … well… long flight here. Seven hours beside my not so well brother, and not one wink of sleep. Fun. Lets hope that getting there isn’t actually half the journey, because getting there wasn’t all that great. Our flight was from 10:00pm Canadian time, until 10:15am, London time. Yup, up all night, and on our first day in England, not one of my family has had any sleep. Beautiful.
So after figuring out where to go, and what to do, we arrive in Gatwick, London and go straight to our rented apartment to conk out. I felt guilty about wasting valuable time like that, but honestly, I couldn’t see straight, so sleep was needed. After sleeping until 9:00pm, we woke up again totally thinking it was the next morning, which was honestly so confusing. So after sleeping the day away, guess what? We went to bed again. Yeah…
Here was what I wrote as my first impression of London….
The fog was stifling—thick grey and curling like it had always been described. A mist adjoined the fog, drenching the cobblestoned streets and running off the shingled houses in large drips. The four story houses were most distinguishable by their brick chimneys, tall thin structures, and tall bowed windows. People walked in the streets, wearing all the latest trends, their umbrellas shadowing their heads, coats drawn close. Occasionally a black taxi would speed down the streets, splashing through a puddle that would shower the sidewalk in water.
All the colours are darker—richer. They are accentuated by the water, only the white paint around the windows remaining unaffected, a strict contrast to the muddy browns of the bricks and the dark evergreen of the trees. It is evening, and London has no sunset. The sun cannot shine through the fog. Instead, darkness slowly falls on the streets, lengthening the shadows and blanketing silence across the houses. No one is out in the dark, fog riddled streets, except for the hound that howls somewhere in the distance.
So, after looking out the window with that nice… rainy, dark view of the streets, I locked my window three times over just to be sure, and went back to bed. First day in London, England, and so far it has been wonderful.
Day Two:
We woke up early, after a nice long sleep, and found ourselves locked in our apartment! Fun! So… hehe… Dad and I climbed out our window and unlocked it from the outside. That was my little mission impossible experience, and I can tell you right now that it is a very exhilarating way to start out your day. So, after jumping on the London Tube (a subway train for those of you who were wondering 😉 ) we rode right to Westminster to see the parliament buildings, and Big Ben! It was still really foggy, and a little wet, keeping true to all the books I have read about London, but seeing Big Ben for real was just about the best thing ever. I couldn’t help but to try and find out where the second star to the right would be, so that I could find Neverland :P.
After seeing Big Ben, the fam and I rode a double-decker bus around London and took a bazillion pictures of everything. Then we stopped at Saint Paul’s Cathedral (for those of you that don’t know, the song “feed the birds” from Mary Poppins takes place on the steps outside this Cathedral, so it was totally awesome to visit). It was 7.50 euros to get into the cathedral, so just my sister Kate, and I went in, because Dad wanted us to climb up to the top to take pictures. Since we had only 45 minutes, Kate and I had to run up the steps two at a time. Yup. All 523 of them… The steps were those really narrow spiraling ones, so by the end of it I was dizzy and panting and dragging myself up by the railing, but it was fun. 🙂
We took pictures from the outside of the cathedral when we reached the top, and it was just about the best thing ever. We had a bird’s eye view of London, the London bridge, Big Ben, the London Eye, everything. After running down all 523 steps again, we had more walking in mind. Lots more walking…
Next we visited the British Museum, which is awesome. You can actually just walk into that place, unlike the museum I’m used to, the British Museum is free to visit! It is said that if you spent a minute at each and every one of the exhibits in that place, t would take you 10,000 years… wow. So yeah, it was huge. We only went to the Greece, Egypt, and Prints and Drawings exhibits, but what we saw was awesome. Everything was original, like the originals. There were carvings from the Parthenon, and those winged bull statues from outside the palace of Sargon from Assyria… yeah, so major stuff I had only seen pictures of.
After that, we walked around for what felt like hours, trying to find food that looked edible and reasonably priced. I tried to steer us clear of the ‘crispy ducks’ roasting on spits here and there. They did not look edible. Nuff said.
After that, we went to see Les Miserables at the Queen Theater, and it was absolutely AWESOME. I cried like… the. whole. thing. I was trying not to cry all the way back to the subway station, like literally, it was that moving. I am still singing all the songs an hour later… 😛 Oh, and I may or may not have fallen in love with the actor who played Marius… yeah.
So now it is like 12 here in London, and I am supposed to be asleep o.0 so, I guess I better sign off now.
That’s all for now folks, I shall try to upload my photos soon, so you all can see pics.
Over and out,
Lara