City Post: London

We couldn't go to the UK without stopping in London for a few days!

Our train from Edinburgh got in around 10h30, and we had a relatively straightforward trip to the hostel. We got there early, so we dropped our bags and headed into the city center for an audio tour.

We did two walking tours in London. The first was of the City of London, the one square mile which makes up the historic city center. Today, it is a major financial hub tucked deep inside the nation's capital. We started off at the Church of Saint Clement Danes. This cathedral has close ties with the Royal Air Force, and inside it is adorned with memorials and emblems celebrating its history. Its floors are lined with grey tiles which are dedicated to individual RAF squadrons. From there, we made our way past the Royal Courts of Justice (which have an IMPRESSIVE fascade), down past Prince Henry's room, and ultimately ended up wandering through some of the alleyways that jut off to either side of the road. We had lunch at Ye Old Watling, a pub we found behind Saint Mary-le-Bow Church. It was absolutely fantastic. We highly recommend. From there, we transitioned to Bank Street, which has impressive buildings all around, including the Lord Mayor of London's official residence. We capped off the tour at London Bridge before heading back to the hostel. Jack had a date that night, and wanted to make sure he got to her place right on time.

The second day, we did a second walking tour, this time of the Westminster area. This tour centered around the various government buildings, administrations, and histories. The scenery here was pretty cool, very much like what you see in all the British TV shows and movies! However, for the supposed tourism off season, this entire area was PACKED with people. We actually were looking forward to getting away from Parliament Square, because there were just so many people. On Whitehall (the road), there were some unique moements erected in the medians to different aspects of wars gone by. We got to see the Horse Guards outside of the Horse Guard Parade, and we definitely got more than a few pictures! The ones this day were in blue uniforms, but we got to see the ones in red the next day when we went back to see their changing of the guard. We continued on, eventually ending at Trafalgar Square.

After lunch at a nearby pub, we decided to go see the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum. It is on the ground floor, and really easily accessible...which is why it was surrounded by tourists. Still, it was great to see such an influential part of history! We decided to explore the museum a bit, as it had a lot of artifacts from all over the world. Sadly, all of the Middle East exhibitions were closed. They claimed it was for cleaning, but the exhibits aren't all located near each other. Our inference was that these exhibits were closed to protect the artifacts from any protestors (we were there a week after Hamas launched 5,000 rockets into Israel, kicking off another armed conflict and protests around the world). Afterwards, we wandered around a bit, eventually making our way to Buckingham Palace for some sunset pictures. Sunset was a great time to get some awesome photos of the square while it wasn't packed full of people. Unforuntately, we didn't get to see the Horse Guards in fuzzy hats, so we decided to try again the next day.

And try we did. Great success. We stumbled upon the changing of the guard (we had no idea when or where it happened), and we both (separately) got some great pictures of both the horses and the dismounted soldiers. The changing of the guard lasts about 45 minutes, and it is clearly a massive undertaking. The security there, while not overt, was clearly high if you knew what you were looking at. Unfortunately, you can't get close to the Horse Guards at Buckingham palace anymore. They have been moved inside the palace grounds, so we decided to try our hand over at Horse Guards Parade. While we didn't get pictures with the fuzzy hats there either, we did get to see the mounted element's changing of the guard. That was cool to see, and the security there was much more overt (i.e. Metropolitan Police decked out with assault rifles and more cool guy gear than you'd ever thing British police would ever have).

Unfortunately, we had to get ready to catch a flight the next morning, so we spent the afternoon doing laundry. We might have had Pizza Hut as our last dinner before heading to Morocco...maybe...

Where We Stayed: PubLove @ The Crown, Battersea Hostel

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