Day 3: London, England

Day 3:            London, England                             6/20/14

The group met for breakfast a little after 7:00 am and we were ready to go by 8:00. Everyone was ready and on time. Anna took us on a walk through Barking and we took the subway in towards London.

We got off at Westminster and she gave us a mini walking tour. We went towards Trafalgar Square. We walked to the Embankment Tube (subway entrance) and then we had a break before our 11:00 am bus tour with our speaker.

I went to Starbucks and got some warm coffee. Our tour guide was from England/London and was pretty funny. Some of the things we learned:

·       London was originally Londium, an encampment from the Romans.

·       We went around Parliament Square and had a look at the statues. Nelson Mandela was a recent addition.

Nelson Mandela

Zach with Winston Churchill

·       We stopped at Covert Gardens, a new spot for me. It had some fancy shoppes, there as well as some entertainment. Very artsy.

We ended at the Tower of London at about 2:00. The groups split up and did different things. My group decided to see the Tower of London while we were there and paid £20.00 for an hour and a half.

The changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace

Gavin at Trafalgar Square

We wanted to stay longer, but had to budget time to get back to Trafalgar Square to meet the others for supper at 5:00. The tower had some different things going on, including 5 performances of people in costumes reenacting the life of the people in earlier times. It was quite entertaining to watch from a distance.

Elise and I took the Warden’s tour, complete with a Beefeater’s commentary. It is always amusing to hear that.

We left to go back and deftly got around a potential problem with subway lines that were closed.

We met Anna and walked up to an Indian cuisine place. Everyone seemed satisfied and them we planned our evening. Because we had to get up early for tomorrow, most wanted to go back to the room and rest. The group from Texas saw the play Wicked and the California group wanted to do more shopping. Elise went with the shoppers.

The rest of us spent time at Leicester square, the theatre district of London and spent the last of our British pounds.

We walked back to Embankment and made it back to Barking. We even had good luck finding our way back to the hotel from the train station, walking about ten minutes. We prepared ourselves for tomorrow.