Honeymoon Time: Arrival to London

Weeeeeee'rrrrrreeeeee baaaaaaaaackkkkkk!! From Honeymoon time... and after several hours trying to upload pictures from our 2 weeks away PLUS wedding pics, I am ready for the posting to begin to share our experiences from the UK starting with our very first destination: London, England! We flew to Heathrow from Pearson on the Monday following our wedding at 6:30pm. Our arrival in Heathrow was around 6:30am their time (only a 6 hour flight) with the time change, which is a 5 hour difference.

We were so pumped when we first got to London, we got coffee and energy drinks at the airport and committed to staying awake because we wanted to see London.

When we first arrived to the airport, we travelled all across the massive airport to gather our luggage (which luckily made it with us unlike Chile) and that was when we discovered... that we really didn't know how to get to central London where out hotel was booked. After almost paying 40 pounds (almost $80) for a fast bus, we learned that the cheapest option was the tube! First thing we did in London: grab the tube! And people watch... because almost every single person on the tube reads the newspaper on the way to work.

After locating our hotel (the Strand), which was close to the Covent Garden market, we dropped our luggage in our room, grabbed our first meal of some chicken and avocado sandwiches and began exploring. We started by eating our lunch in the somerset house, then saw the Judiciary buildings complete with lawyers with their grey wigs. We could even walk by and see courts in session!

Right next to the Judiciary buildings was St. Pauls. This is Aleksy with St. Pauls behind him. It was so massive and surrounded by buildings that it was hard to get a shot!

We walked along the pathway that follows the Thames River to see the London Bridge (which was really not architecturally exciting) and the tower bridge which is behind us! There were lots of observations to made along this route that filled with tourists, and many people just on their lunches from their work day: we noticed that London people walk REALLY fast, they dress REALLY fancy, and there are a damn lot of runners.

Because... It is 100% tourist necessary to take this shot!! We even used a phone booth in London on our second last day of the honeymoon when we had to call the hotel!

This is the Shakespeare building which is located on the other side of the Tower Bridge which we walked across... and learned the Thames River is very wide! It was really soon after this picture that we crashed... it was about 1:30pm and we hadn't slept since Sunday night! So after this, we headed back to the hotel for an afternoon nap, then headed back out around 8pm.

After sleeping our afternoon away (but we really needed it!), we got up and explored some of London at night! We found a 4 storey M&M store (which Aleksy thought was lame and I thought screw you Aleksy), china town, and explored inside the Covent Garden Market. Around the market, we were trying to find a good place for supper, and we asked one of the 100 rickshaws (that were available if we didn't want to walk) where to go. He referred us to the nice homeless man who gave us a suggestion for 50 pence. I know.. a bit sketch... but this place was friggin amazing! It was a little pricey (I think it came to around 45 pounds... $80 ish) but we got a patte to start, pies & mash/chips for supper and a hot pudding for dessert. And some brews of course.

After supper, we quickly caught on that the thing to do after work in London is what we like to call "stand around and get fucked up". This is when all the men in their fancy suits, and women fully done up go to the pub, get their beer and stand around outside of the bar to drink (not at a table). So we followed suit... had a beer whilst standing outside the pub, then decided to buy our own for "take away" from the grocery store because it was much cheaper than the 8 pounds our beers cost at the pubs. And the strangest thing was that the pubs totally closed down around 11pm... so it was a built-in cost saver!

The next morning, we continued out London explorations starting with boarding a double decker bus. By this time we were pretty much locals with standing around pubs with our beers, riding the tube and now the double decker bus. Aleksy is showing our "Oyster" card that we purchased for travel because we're pretty close to locals and needed a public transit card! (also, it made travelling on the tube and bus cheaper)

The double decker took us nearby the Natural History Museum, which we went into for a bit (but discovered it was general history rather than specific UK history), then found a church that you paid to go up the elevator to get a view of London!

We were nearby the Hyde Park area, so after our first of many times of buying some sandwiches at the grocery store (pre-made sandwiches are everywhere!), along with some fruit, we had a mini picnic in Hyde Park.

Did you know there' a horse trail in Hyde Park? Craziness! And this park is very big!

Following our picnic, we headed to Buckingham Palace down the looooong driveway to get there to visit the Queen. Here's us with Buckingham Palace and a million tourists in the background. The Palace was so massive that it was hard to get a picture of it all. I never knew it would be so damn exciting to watch a guard move in front of the Palace... he did nothing but march, but I didn't want to stop watching! There was a water fountain right across from the Palace where lots of people were having lunch and taking pictures, and we had someone take ours from the water fountain.

Once we were close to Buckingham Palace, we were close to the whole shabam. We admired Westminister Abbey from the outside as you can see the size of the line-up and everything in London seemed to cost 20 pounds per person ($40). This church is seriously beautiful, detailed, and large! Aldo thought about Kate & William being right there in the spot we were for their wedding... pretty cool!

And we made our way over to Big Ben and the parliament buildings! As there are no shortage of tourists in the area (hence the tourist coaches in the picture), we had someone take our picture. It appears approximately 4:10pm on September 3rd that we got our first glance of Big Ben.

After seeing Big Ben, we headed closer to the Thames River and crossed the bridge over to where the eye is located (picking up  postcard at one of the tourist kiosks along the bridge... they also had nuts for sale!). We had planned on going back to the eye of London on the last night before heading back to Canada so we could see London at night... this plan fel through because after 2 weeks of full exploring days, you get really wiped out!

By the eye, along the river there were also amazing buskers to be seen: on bikes, doing magic shows among lots of other cool things!

We stopped for a later afternoon tea around 5pm. Some traditional tea and scones with jam for me, while Aleksy went for the pie. There is no shortage of tea shops all around the UK: really cute ones too with cute china and sandwiches! This is actually the only afternoon tea stop we made... I guess we preferred the afternoon pub stop :)

And our last stop on our day of sightseeing was Trafalgar Square. It was like a central point in London where a million double deckers surrounded.There was some buskering when we were there, but it was quite minimal.

This was our last day in London before heading on an overnight bus to Glasgow Scotland (about an 8 hour bus ride), so after our exploration day, we went out for some overpriced, good-but-not-great Indian food then grabbed our bags to catch the coach around 10pm!


Next stop: Glasgow, Scotland!