London by Bus

Today (pretend it’s Saturday) we did our big first tour of London so we could see everything, take a bunch of pictures, and decide what we want to take a closer look at during the rest of our time here. We went on a double-decker tour bus, and for the first part of our tour, we had the whole top to ourselves, which was pretty sweet. We saw (I’m remembering all these with a little help from the brochure we got):

Piccadilly Circus/Eros Statue
The National Gallery
Trafalgar Square
St. James’s Palace
Ritz Hotel
Hyde Park
Buckingham Palace
Westminster Abbey
Big Ben & Parliament (my favorite!)
The London Eye
Covent Garden
St. Paul’s Cathedral (second favorite)
London Bridge
Southwark Cathedral
London Dungeon
HMS Belfast
Tower Bridge
The Tower of London
The Globe Theatre
Tate Modern
Sherlock Holmes Pub
Leicester Square

The two things I didn’t get to see that I really wanted to were Harrod’s and Kensington Palace, but there’s time for that. Also, I took about ten bajillion pictures, and it would be cruel and unusual punishment to post them all here, but here’s my favorite that I took all day:


Doesn’t it look like the clouds are photoshopped in? But they’re naht. Clouds are just really cool in England (I’ve been taking way too many pictures of clouds…). Another great part about today was that it was an excellent excuse for me to take pictures of my name all over the place.

Here’s my bus:

And my Underground station:

And my street:

And my STATUE. Yeah, statue:

At night, we went back to Clapham, stopped into the internet café for a bit (it is becoming my new best friend) and then went to the Nightingale Pub, which is right on the corner of the entrance to the mews. I ordered my own drink for the first time (half pint of Foster’s…I am a fan of this beer) and they didn’t card me! Woooo! So I officially look over 18. I think we can call this a successful day.