After Amsterdam, I was looking forward to a city that didn't smell like marijuana and we found that in London!
Just like our transportation into Amsterdam, Kiri and I took the iD Bus, which happened to be an 11 hour overnight marathon travel time. Luckily, the bus was practically empty so Kiri and I spread right out and each took a row to ourselves. I set up camp and got all settled in the hopes that I would sleep for the 11 hour journey, but that just wasn't to be and I ended up staying awake for the whole thing. So did Kiri. Mostly because she was trying not to puke. And once again, we were coming into a brand new city after being awake for over 24 hours. We are getting good at this.
The bus dropped us off at the train station at 5am, which was too early to take the London Underground, so we drank espresso and stole some wifi from the local businesses. When the train did open, we hopped on and I am proud to say that for the first time on this entire trip, we did not get lost or experience any difficulties finding our hostel! I suppose I could credit this to the fact that for the first time in a month we are in a place where English is the official language, but I will instead attribute this our incredible travelling skills that have developed substantially.
We got to our hostel around 7:30am; much to early to check in so we ended up setting up camp in a booth in the bar and basically spent the next several hours figuring out our lives. We booked accommodations, places to stay, and stuff to do. For the first time in a long time, we actually had plans made! It was exciting, but at the same time we were quite tired so it was probably dangerous to be making grand plans. Luckily everything has worked out smoothly so far so maybe we do have a knack for being really productive when we're sleepy.
After finally checking in and dropping our bags, Kiri and I hopped on the underground, took it all the way to Piccadilly and basically just started exploring. We hit up the touristy stuff... Big Ben, Buckingham Palace (ask Kiri for what she likes to call it!), Westminster Abbey, etc.
Being awake for 38 hours takes a toll on you eventually and we decided to come back early and crash. We fell asleep, but only for a little bit as we were interrupted by possibly the loudest snorer in the history of snoring. I know I sound like I'm complaining hardcore right now but it was bad. If I can figure out how to post a video, I will. Because I was so livid/in awe of how loud a person can be when they're sleeping that I took a video at 4am.
The next morning, we crawled out of bed around 8 and had some breakfast, before heading to Covent Gardens to do a free walking tour of Westminster. We looked like tourists that day but I don't even care; the guide was hilarious and SO good about telling us great stories at each site. I think my favourite was when he explained that a drunken Irishman had wandered into Buckingham Palace way back in the 80s and ended up in the Queen's bedroom at about 6 in the morning... Apparently they had a 45 minute long conversation while the queen tried to plot an escape from him. Now the guy is hailed as a bit of a hero back in his hometown in Ireland, which I find absolutely hilarious and ridiculous.
A rather exciting moment of the walking tour was when we were wandering down a street near Princess Anne's royal address when the queen rolled by in her golden carriage! So now we can say we've seen the queen... It did however make it hard to find something to top it; it's hard to be impressed by anything associated with London after you've seen the woman who rules it.
After our tour, we headed northeast (maybe? I will never be able to read maps) to check out the Tower of London... We didn't go inside but it was quite impressive from the outside. We also wandered down by the river Thames and crossed over what we thought was London Bridge... Turns out it was actually Tower Bridge. So we've been to London and haven't actually been on London Bridge... Kind of sad.
The rest of the afternoon was spent just wandering around, checking out the sites before we grabbed dinner and set up camp in the hostel to finish off our Africa Blog portion of this website... I know. We are such interesting people. Clearly the life of the party haha.
We went to bed early again in an attempt to continue to catch up on all our hours of lost sleep. The snoring started again.... This guy (he spoke Portuguese) shook the beds. I was ready to suffocate him at one point... Kiri was in the same boat so she headed down to reception to get earplugs. They didn't work... Another guy in the room looked up on his phone how to say "please turn over, your snoring feels like an earthquake" in Portuguese at about 4:30am... The snorer turned and went right back to snoring, so it didn't help much. Luckily, I was so exhausted I could fall back asleep, however Kiri was livid so she just decided to stay awake from 4am onwards.. Apparently she went downstairs to the lounge/bar area and made all sorts of friends from all over the world, plus received a bottle of wine from some people who we're leaving and couldn't bring it with them. So I suppose there's some benefits from being woken up by that insane snoring...
Kiri woke me up around 8am the next morning and we worked out a game plan for the day... We decided to go shopping in the morning (my cousin is getting married shortly after we get back home and I had nothing to wear to her wedding) before heading over to an area near Leicester Square where a place called Her Majesty's Theatre is located. We had purchased tickets to the Phantom of the Opera the day before and oh my goodness, it was worth every dollar. Maybe it's because we both love live theatre, maybe it's because we've been pretty musically deprived since high school, but spending an afternoon watching that show was incredible. The acoustics in that theatre were amazing; I was absolutely blown away. The orchestra was simply outstanding... I have no words. And the acting was pretty great too.
As soon as the show ended, we ripped back across the city to the Tower of London to participate in another walking tour; this time a "ghost tour." The tour guide was awesome; she took us all over the place to tell us about ghosts in the Tower of London, the exact sites of all the Jack the Ripper murders and where a couple mass graves have been located from back when the plague wiped out half the population. It was really really interesting... I'm still not convinced that I believe in ghosts completely but the guide presented some pretty strong arguments... She cited how the Tower of London has a book that guests fill out when they experience/see anything paranormal. Until recently, this book was completely private; no one could read it. Then the whole freedom of information act came to be and this book was published. What's incredibly interesting is that this book was started way back in the 1600s and continues all the way through history until present day. The descriptions of paranormal events that people have experienced there are virtually identical, as in an entry filled out in 1705 describes the exact same experience as another entry that was filled out in 1950. It leads a number of people to believe that there are ghosts there, as no one has been able to read this book until recent years, so there'd be no way for people to know and be able to copy the same entry in. Food for thought, that's for sure!
After our tour, we walked back to our hostel, anticipating the snore fest... It was just as bad as we expected it to be. Kiri at one point almost launched a 600 page novel at the guy's face so we decided to go down to reception to see if it was at all possible to switch rooms. The hostel had ONE single bed left in another room and we took it. Kiri and I put to use our skills we learned sleeping in a single size bed in Kakum and holed up in another tiny bed. At one point Kiri kicked me in the head a few times... I'd complain about it but then she could come right back with the whole "I locked her in a room without toilet paper" in Africa so I still have got nothing on her.
We awoke from our cozy sleeping pattern at 5am in order to catch a high speed train up to Edinburgh... Stay tuned for that post! I have lots and lots to say about how much I love the land of my ancestors!