Bloody Good Time In London

Cheers!

We finally made it! After landing in Manchester we hopped on a train and went straight to London. We got to London in the afternoon and checked in to our hostel, The Generator. We reserved a small private room for the 3 nights we were staying. We were pleased with the room, it was clean and we felt safe. In the room was a bunk bed and a small sink, we had to share a bathroom that was down the hall.

First order of business was to find some Fish and Chips for Stasia and something for Jessy to eat as well. We found a nice café down the street from the hostel that was cheap and had large portions. We liked it a lot and ate there 2 more times.

We didn’t want to waste any time so we got straight to site seeing. We hopped on the tube to Westminster to see Parliament, Big Ben and The London Eye.

The London Eye is the world’s largest observation wheel. The ride lasts 30 minutes and you can see as far as 25 miles of London’s skyline. 

The next day we went on a free walking tour offered by the hostel. The tour was interesting and our tour guide, David, offered great information and was very funny. He took us to most of the main sites and even some lesser known sites.

During the tour we saw a lot of awesome sites including the Queens House, Buckingham Palace.

Another great thing about the tour was we got to meet the other people staying in our hostel. We met fun 3 guys from Wisconsin Adam, Alex and Sean. After the tour all 5 of us went to see more sties together. 

We saw the Tower Bridge and St. Paul’s Cathedral. 

Jessy saw some trampolines with bungie cords that you could jump on for only 6 pounds.  The trampoline was rigged with a machine that made you jump even higher than normal. It was awesome!  She even got to do some flips. 

On our way back to the hostel we had to change tubes at King’s Cross Station, which is home of Platform 9 ¾ from the Harry Potter Books.   We had a jolly good time pretending we were going through the platform just like Harry Potter!

And of course we couldn’t pass up a photo opp in an Original London phone booth.

We had big plans for the following day. The plan was to see Westminster Abbey, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Tate Modern Museum, the Tower of London and go on a ‘Jack the Ripper’ Tour. We made it to Westminster Abbey and did a self-guided tour of the church, unfortunately there are no pictures allowed inside the church.

Then we headed off to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and Tate Modern. There was some confusion about where the bus stops were and how they were labeled so we missed our stop and ended up walking a lot and not being able to see the Tate Modern because we didn’t have time.  We grabbed some lunch and headed over to catch the bus, like a true Londoner, to the Tower of London. 

At the Tower of London they offer free tours given by the Yeomen Warder or ‘The Beefeaters’. This was one of our favorite things of the day.  We learned about many of the people that were imprisoned and executed there and looked viewed some of the equipment used in the torture chamber.

During the tour, Stasia ran to the front of the group. The tour guide asked our names and yelled them out to everyone.  Then when we walked to the next stop on the tour he made us take his arms and gave us a special spot in the front of the tour.  When we told him where we were from Kansas City he thought we meant Kansas and made us click our heels together and say “There’s no place like home”  in front of the whole crowd.  We were so embarrassed.

After the tower of London we headed over to the meeting spot for the Jack the Ripper tour. This tour let us walk in the foot steps of Jack. We learned about each murder and even saw the actual sites of two of them. One site still had the original cobble stone that were there in 1888, when the murders took place. 

Who can go to London with out making a trip to Harrod’s? After a long day of sites and tours we rewarded ourselves with a small and inexpensive present to experience the high class shopping of London. Harrod’s was so large it was almost over whelming for us, which does not happen often. 

 

Cheers!

Stasia and Jessy

 In response to Gerardo and Audria’s questions from the first post:

Q: Why does the Liberty Bell have a crack?

A: The bell is cracked because of it’s large size and it was made with many different kinds of metal. The Bell was actually made in the same foundry that the Ben Big Bell in London was cast in. Both bells cracked and had to be re-cast many times.

Q: Did we have anymore delays?

A: No we did not. We made it to Europe finally on Tuesday.

 

Thanks for the Questions!