London's Calling

I have had quite the whirlwind weekend. We left Dalkeith bright and early on Friday to make it to our train ride into London. There was plenty of time to relax and look at the scenery during our four and a half hour train ride. Then once arriving in London at King's Cross Station we were all packed onto the "tube" or subway to reach our hostel, The Generator. Once we unloaded our luggage there we had the rest of the day to ourselves. Being the nerd that I am, I traveled to the Science Museum with some friends. It was huge and there were kids everywhere.
We started at the top with medical history and are so glad we did. While in the veterinary history room a little girl and her father walked in. There was a life size model of a horse to show some of the internal structure of the animal. While looking at the horse the little girl, in a British accent, said, "Daddy, have you ever seen a horse die?" The father quickly responded that no he had not seen a horse die and exited the room. It was all we could do not to burst out laughing. In my opinion the top floor was the best we spent over an hour on that floor alone and it is a five story building. There were rooms for almost everything, but the lower you went the more kids there were and the more fun games there were. Only after we had touched almost everything on the Materials floor did we realize that all of the kids from all over the world had touched all of those things as well. Needless to say we quickly washed our hands and no longer ran our hands along the wall. All in all we spent over five hours in the museum, we were there until close.
After that we walked all around town to find the Golden Hind. Construction does not make understanding a map any easier. It was a cute little place but fishcakes are a different thing here than in the states. They are made with potatoes and fish. While making our way back we found a small side road with this cool elephant.

Then we took the tube back to the hostel and fell asleep promptly. We woke up Saturday morning and spent the day walking around the city. We saw:

• Westminster Abby
• Big Ben
• Parliament
• a park full of statues
• and many other iconic images of London

We went on the number 11 bus tour and went to Wicked. It was amazing. Then I went to the bar in the Generator to meet some new people and hang out. Then off to bed again. On Sunday we decided to travel in to a different part of town. The Changing of the Guards was this morning and we thought that if we arrived a half hour early it would be good. We were wrong this was my view when holding my camera above my head.

Here was the view after we decided to go eat some crepes because we could not see anything and then walk toward the London Eye.These are the guards that were replaced processing out of Buckingham Palace. Great timing right?

We walked along the river to get to the London Eye and take a ride. It was spectacular!

The capsule next to us was a private capsule. Inside there was a couple and a worker who was serving champagne and chocolate. We spent most of the thirty minutes of the ride looking into that capsule after taking some pictures of the view.

Right after they were no longer in our view he got down on one knee and the next time we saw them she had a massive ring on her finger! After getting of the London Eye we wrote them a postcard saying "We saw in happen, Congrats! From your friends in Wisconsin" and gave it to them once they got off their capsule. Afterwards we continued to walk and saw the bridge that is Harry Potter. Then we came back to the hostel to get a little bit of rest and went out to a pub that was a couple of blocks away to relax and play some cards.
Monday was nice and relaxing we ate a good breakfast and made our way to the Broad St. Pump. It was the first site of relating a sickness to water.

And spent some time looking through the shops along Carnaby Street. I managed to snag a Celtic jersey for only 15 pounds! For those of you who dont know Carnaby Street is somehow related to the Beetles.

Then we stopped for some lunch and walked to King's Cross Station to catch our train.
Of course while at King's Cross I had to stop and take some pictures at Platform 9 and 3/4! It was all in all a great experience in London.