Some more of London

So, we've had a fun 24 hours. We slept late on Wednesday so that we could adjust to the time change. As evidence to show how much time we've spent blogging, we didn't get going until about 2:00 yesterday from the internet cafe.

First stop was the Tower of London. There we got to see the crown jewels (which Katie loved! Surprised anybody? We didn’t think so). We also got to see some big ol’ ravens and some medieval armor. That was fun. We also got to see some of the rooms that were used as prison cells way back in the day. On the walls were etchings, carvings and notes some prisoners left almost 900 years ago. Cool huh? Well maybe not for the prisoners… but we thought it was cool. Just outside the Tower of London is a great view of the London Bridge.

Meet Philippe, our stowaway!

After checking out those sites, we then went to Westminster Abbey. As soon as we exited the Tube, we looked up and there was Big Ben! No joke, like we almost ran into it…alright a little exaggeration but it was really close!

We walked from there to Westminster Abbey. We really wanted to get there by 5:30 because we heard that you could get in for free at 5:30 and hear the choir perform the Evensong. Turns out, we got there on the wrong day and had to pay. It was well worth it. We got to see a lot of dead people and some sweet gothic architecture.

After leaving Westminster Abbey, we saw the London Eye in the distance. We walked across the river to check it out. Before we boarded the pod, we watched a 4 minutes 4-D video about the London Eye. Turns out the 4th dimension consisted of bubbles, snow, and water…all on us. Good times. We then boarded our pod for our “30 minute flight.” There were some sweet views of the whole city from there. Unfortunately we didn’t really know what we were looking at but it was still really cool. We took some pics on Rachael’s iPhone and stitched them together using an app known as Autostitch. You should go download it! It’s pretty cool. Here’s a panorama we created using the app (I think if you click on it, you can see it bigger)):

After that we went to grab some dinner at an Italian restaurant called Azzurro. It was really tasty. After that we started walking to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre along the river Thames. While on our way we stumbled upon the Royal National Theatre and just had to go inside and see if they were accepting resumes. They update their job posting website every Friday so we’ll definitely check that out tomorrow. All of the shows for the evening had already started but they did have a cool exhibit on Alison Chitty. She has designed numerous sets, costumes and props for several shows around Europe.

We then continued our walk and eventually found the Globe! We snapped some photos and decided it was then time to head back to the hostel.

Our taxi cab driver was really nice and was really curious about our take on Tiger Woods. We said that scandals like that don’t really surprise us anymore but he’s still one hell of a golfer.

We got back to our hostel and met our new roommates for the evening including an Irishman we refer to as Muscles McGee (because we never learned his name) and some fellow Americans who are on break from studying in Germany. We went to bed but didn’t get much sleep. We’ll the gory details but suffice it to say, Rachael did not have a good night. We’ll leave you with this heartwarming photo of the two of us below.

We went to a walk-in clinic near SoHo square and decided to consult the pharmacist instead of paying the 50 pounds to see the doc. He laughed at us when we said it might be the water that we‘re drinking and recommended the pink goop. So far, Katie seems to be okay, but we’re being wary and trying not to push it today because tomorrow we go to Dublin!

All in all morale is still high even though there were some low moments last night. It can only get better from here!

XOXO K&R