Day Tour of London!!!

Greetings non travellers! Matt here. The time is currently 6:45pm local time (4:45am Brisvegas time) and already we are knackered (surprising really, considering we slept for a relatively short 14 or so hours). But in our defence, today has been one epic day of sightseeing. We awoke at 6:30am, and walked down the street to be picked up by a Margaret Thatcher loving tory with a penchant for speaking with a thick English accent that even the Queen couldn’t understand. But that’s ok, because he merely dropped us off at a coach line where we awaited our ACTUAL tour guide to come and collect us. After indulging in a light bacon and egg roll and a tasty mocha, Zach and I boarded the coach for the London Day Tour commencing at 8am.

The tour started off with a visit to the Tower of London to see the Crown Jewels. These ‘family jewels’ featured a sceptre with the world’s most expensive cut diamond at 530 something carats. Apparently the stone uncut was 2500 carats, so you’d wonder why they’d even bother cutting it in the first place (greedy monarchs). From there we looked around the rest of the area. There was an in depth look at the life and times of Henry VIII, followed by cells featuring prisoners’ graffiti on the walls. Then we looked at the room where Walter Ralegh was incarcerated, and in comparison to our ‘room’ (more like – Janitor’s Closet) here in this hostel, it seemed far more luxurious.

After taking some pictures, we took a cruise of the Thames, and it was off to see the changing of the guard, except, it was raining lightly during the whole day so we were not expecting it to be on. However, to our surprise and our luck, we hear some trumpets blaring and some of the soldiers marching around inside Buckingham Palace. So we take our position on the side of the road near the barracks, and wait for the guards to march out onto the street and past us. The only downer is, they were wearing black coats, instead of their traditional red garments. Why, I hear you ask? Because the black coats keep them warm. That’s it! You’d wonder why they just don’t make the god damn coats RED as well! Anyway, they pranced over to the barracks and we strolled back to the coach to get a feed at a pub somewhere.

Next we got back in the coach and headed for St Paul’s Cathedral. We entered via the crypt and saw many a tomb – each one marked on the floor, not unlike the Chinese Theatre in Hollywood where they have people’s handprints. Except instead of each one of their handprints in the floor, their dead bodies lay underneath. We couldn’t take pictures inside the cathedral unfortunately – so check out google images – but it doesn’t matter cause no picture could do it justice – it was truly a magnificent piece of architecture. We climbed 200 sets of stairs to get to the whisperers balcony or something, and Zach and I tried to whisper to each other on opposite ends of the building. But it didn’t work, despite other members of our tour group raving about its success. Despite being left disenchanted by this, we climbed another 300 flights of stairs to the top of the cathedral and saw an amazing, unparalleled 360 degree view of London. A spectacular sight indeed. Then we walked back down 500 steps to get back to our coach. After getting a drive by tour of the rest of what London has to offer in the way of brilliant architecture and unparalleled history, we arrived at Harrods’ for tea and scones, before we looked around at what the ultramegastore had to offer, including chic animal garments for the conscientious pet owner.

Unfortunately we weren’t given a lift home, so we had to find our own way back - which would have been a whole lot easier if we weren’t lied to about the circle line on the tube being closed for maintenance. So, after receiving little help from some Indian prick, we managed to catch a #70 bus from South Kensington to Acton Town via our stop. Things seemed to be going smoothly until, all of a sudden, at Notting Hill Gate, one stop from our destination, the bus said ‘bus service terminating, please get off.’ Yeah, you heard me. Busses don’t seem to go all the way to their destinations here – they just terminate when they feel like it. Pretty neat huh? So Zach and I try to bust out Google Maps on our iPhones to try and find our way home, but that doesn’t work. So we end up walking and then take a black cab home, which cost us 5 pound.

So here we are, at 7:38pm, chillin’ in our hostel room. Zach’s pretty sick at the moment. That German guy must have spit in his mouth or something. First the holocaust, now this. God damn Germans. Not able to go out this evening, so we’ll probably head out Monday or Tuesday evening or something.

Anyway, that’s all from me. Peace out!!