Trip to London - Day 1

I left Boston at 9pm on Thursday evening, terrified that I was flying for the first time in over 2 years. I took a sleeping pill almost immediately upon getting comfortable in my seat on the plane, but I didn't fall asleep until we had been in the air for a while. I barely remember them serving us dinner, and I think I ate maybe two bites. I woke up after about a 3 hour sleep with 2 hours left until landing. For those 2 hours I was surprisingly calm...and so was the airplane. I got particularly excited when I saw on our flight map that we were flying over Ireland.

I even tried to take a picture out the window of the airplane, but it was still quite dark so you can really only see a little twinkling of Irish lights and the wing of the plane.

My next excitement came when we starting flying over England.

And since it was starting to get light out, I was able to get a very nice picture of us landing in London.

On my way to the place where I was staying I had to go through Kings Cross station. Even though it was superiorily out of my way, I went up to the area with the trains so I could visit Platform 9 3/4. *grin*

After I found my way to my host's home, I planned my adventures around London and headed back out. My first stop was The British Museum.

Once inside, I headed straight for the Rosetta Stone.

One of the rooms in the museum is dedicated to money. The neatest thing is that there's a woman sitting at a desk who will let you look at and touch various objects that were once used as currency.

In that room they even had a Harry Potter coin and a fake Dr. Who £10 note. They even play a video showing the episode of Dr. Who where they needed all of that fake money.

After the museum I was feeling peckish, to borrow the British term, so I went for a real afternoon tea! It was beyond delicious with so much food that I had to take some of it back with me. And the tea was spectacular.

After tea it was only proper that I visit Westminster Abbey! I wasn't able to go inside because they were already closed for the day, but I got some great pictures of the outside.

Of course you can't go to Westminster Abbey without seeing Big Ben! In fact, I heard Big Ben chime 4 o'clock. That was incredible.

In the background you can see the London Eye, which is a gigantic ferris wheel. I walked over there next.

I didn't actually ride on the London Eye because there was a gigantic line and it would have been quite expensive, so I just took a bunch of pictures of it. There were also some people performing right near there, so I stopped to watch them. First were a group of people dressed funny - I think they were trying to be statues except they kept moving and chatting with people. LOL Second I saw a card magician who was doing some pretty amazing tricks. Then I saw someone blowing gigantic bubbles, but I couldn't get any good pictures of the bubbles.

After I watched the performers I walked back over the bridge and took a bus to St. Paul's Cathedral. Unfortunately neither of my pictures of the outside came out so well, but it was gorgeous to look at. I then walked all over the area looking for anyone who had a Merlin wall calendar for sale but to no avail. It was suggested to go to Liverpool Street Station, which was where I was headed anyway. I looked in all the shops there, but no one had the calendar, so I sat to wait for my friend Kevin who I was going to have dinner with that night. We had a lovely dinner together before I headed back to where I was staying and passed out from exhaustion. My trip continues with ColdCon in my next post...