1st Day - London, EnglandApr 24, 2006
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Westminister Abbey and I
Big Ben and I
London England bird sanctuary - this is the coot - check out...
Buckingham palace - its not like you would expect it to be...
Our plane left Toronto, Canada at about 7:00pm and landed in London England at 6:30 am. Linsay Michael has been so good to us and has even lent us her extra set of keys to her flat with Blake Moran and her friend Bec.
I haven't really slept since 7am Ontario time yesterday so I'm quite wiped out right now (approximately 9:15pm Uk time, or 4:15pm in Ontario). The first part of the trip has been queue after queue and line after line. My feet are tired just from holding onto the bag and standing in one place. However, we arrived and met Linsay at her work and she told us that we weren't allowed to nap, because we need to get over our jet lag! So we hit the town all day long. We bought a tube zone 1&2 pass which is really amazing. The subway (tube in local lingo) gets you everywhere and anywhere - we didn't wait more than 2 minutes for a train and there is about 15 different lines. The pass also works on the double decker bus system so we have rode those too. The train from the airport to downtown London however was horrible and long (about 1 hr) and after standing at customs for 2 hours, and then jamming onto this train, well it wasn't as nice as the tube.
So we bused to downtown, got out and walked around parliament square saw big ben and parliament (which looks very similar to Ottawa parliament - coincidence?) and then ate cod fish and chips at a pub downtown. After this I spent about 2 and a half hours wandering Westminster Abbey - it was truly amazing but very sombering (and I fell asleep on some comfy chairs for about 15 mins with tourists running around!). After this I went through St. James park and their bird sanctuary (Lauren you would love it - check out the picture of the bird called a 'coot'), and made it to Buckingham Palace and St. James palace. Finally we rode the tube for awhile until we found Hyde Park and we walked around there - it is huge, think Central Park, NY. So London is nice, weather ok, and staying with people we know is great.
Since this is my first entry - I'm allowed to ramble a bit. I'll try to keep the next few short and just the highlights. hopefully the pictures will continue to download at future sites!
Talk soon,
