Living La Vida London: Day 22

Today was my first day not going to school while I've been in London this time around so naturally I decided to start it off with missing my train to Cardiff. I didn't get to go to the Doctor Who Experience or Wales, but I did spend a day literally wandering around London. It's pretty amazing that I was able to wander around from about 7:00 a.m. until about 2:00 p.m. I mostly walked from place to place, crossing most of the bridges on foot and passing by all the landmarks. I think my feet started to swell because my ankles looked a little odd by the end of my seemingly endless hike.

I was up early first of all because I had to be out of my dorm room and into my hotel room by, as well as on the train to Cardiff by 7:00 a.m. I went as fast as I could from task to task until I got to the train station at about 6:58 a.m. just as the train was rolling away. It's strange, I actually felt okay that I had missed it and had to stay in London. I really do want to go to Wales and have fun at the Doctor Who Experience, but I also want to be with someone else who also loves the show like I do.

So I got back on the Tube and went to the Tower of London. I sort of sat outside of it for a while, watching people get in the queue for a ticket in the Tower and then sort of got up and left. Before I did, I took this picture.

I then walked to the Millenium Bridge that ultimately leads to the Globe and the modern art museum, but also found this interesting angle of St. Paul's Cathedral. I love the different colored buildings here.

Right before you exit the bridge on the side that the Globe is on, you have this view of St. Paul's and I have to say that it's pretty amazing despite the fact that it's a view of St. Paul's. Obviously I'm not too keen on that building- too many stairs for not enough pay off. It's also very noisey whenever I visit it.

Something cool that I learned on the ghost tour I took is that the London the general population is familiar with is actually made up of two cities: Westminster and London. The entrance of Westminster is marked by a lion and the city of London is marked by a dragon. Yes, a dragon. Part of the reason I like Wales is because they have a dragon on their flag so finding out that the "mascot" of London is a dragon kind of made me excited. So this is one of the dragon statues that marks the entrance of London. This one is on the Blackfriar Bridge. 

I took four photos today, so that's all I have as far as visual aides go. 

For lunch I went to a restaurant my friends from my program raved about called Nando's; this place is basically a Portuguese barbeque and really did live up to all the hype. I cannot tell you how wonderful it was to feel some real heat in my mouth again! I chose the medium spice option for my chicken, so it could have been even hotter, but I was still very content. 

After filling my stomach with delicious Portuguese barbeque, I went back to my hotel room and layed on my bed staring out the window for a while. Suddenly I came up with the great idea to take a hot bath- something I haven't been able to do for almost a month now. The bathtub is deep and the soap they provided smells like honeysuckles so I was obviously excited to take a nice bath. I must have fallen asleep in the bath because I all of the sudden woke up to the maid knocking on the door to see if I needed anything. That was nice of her. 

So I got out and was thinking about what I could do with my evening, but then Step Up came on the TV and the Step Up movies are some of my guilty pleasures, so I didn't even think about leaving until it was over. By that time, I was hungry again and decided that falling asleep in the bath was a sign that I need to go to be early today so that I can rock it out at Stonehenge and enjoy the Roman baths in Bath tomorrow. I won't actually be getting near those baths by the way, just so we're clear. Anyway, I watched an English cooking/reality TV show and then Big Brother UK. Some show about a serial killer is on in the background at the moment, so naturally I'm in heaven. I really am fascinated by things like this.

Tomorrow's post will be the last before I finally get to go home! I'm excited to go back to the States and see my family, but I'm sure that I'll miss the UK and France at some point in the future. For now, I will be passing out in preparation for a long day of old things tomorrow.