London!

We left to catch our bus at 7:15am. We made it to the bus stop ok, but when we arrived, I realized that I was a pound short for the bus and they almost left without me! They wouldn't even let my friends off the bus to join me in catching the next one. Finally, they were so annoyed with me they just let me on without the extra pound. The hour and 45 minute bus ride was uneventful. When we arrived we took a while to orient ourselves (thank you Diane, for that map!!!), and we were on our way to Westminster Abbey. I didn't go in because I didn't want to pay the 12 pounds, and also I knew there would be a lot of walking that day and wanted to save my legs. I took a bunch of pictures of the outside and went and found a Starbucks and read a book.

I met back up with my friends and we headed towards (or so we thought) the Globe theatre. We got a bit lost (although we followed a sign that we think was bumped to point in the wrong direction), but with the help of a posted city map, we eventually found it. I wanted to go inside so badly, but it was right before a matinee (Romeo and Juliet), so I didn't. It's still pretty cheap to see a play there; between 5 and 27 pounds! We then walked to St. Paul's Cathedral, which of course was amazing. I was distraught over not being able to take pictures. I had to restrain myself! I won't even try to describe it, because I won't be able to do it justice! We climbed up a few hundred stairs around and around and around, and fiiiianly made it to an observation deck where we were allowed to take pictures of the city.

We made our way to the British museum, and this was about the time where my legs gave out. I begged to stop a minute, and since we were lost anyway, we stopped on a curb to orient ourselves once again. We found our route and set out again, only to get loster (yes, that is a word). We had to ask 2 people where it was before we eventually found it; ironic since it's one of the biggest structures in the city! The museum was huge!!!! We spent two hours there but could have spent days and days! It was the biggest museum I've ever seen, and frankly it was a bit overwhelming. We were sooooo tired at this point that we just rushed through it, seeing a few things of interest. I loved seeing the Rosetta stone, but unfortunately so did about 20 other people at every moment, and I never really got a good look at it. I also loved seeing the Chinese pottery (shout out to Cindy and TJ!) and the Samurai armour and swords.

After the museum we stopped at another Starbucks to load up on caffine for our long walk back to the bus. At this point it started to sprinkle, but it really wasn't too bad. It helped us walk faster, and we found our stop without any problems. The bus arrived, but after some people got off, the bus driver (rather rudely), told us we couldn't get ON the bus there and to do across the street. We had no idea what he was talking about, but we just started walking, hoping to find another bus stop. We walk and walked and walked and couldn't figure out what to do. We asked 2 or 3 people, all of whom sent us in different directions. Part of the problem was that we needed to take something called the Oxford Tube, but the Londoners were confusing it with the underground, also called the Tube. Anyway, we eventually did go into the underground and asked someone who gave us slightly better instructions. We were still looking all over for this magical bus stop when finally, a man out of nowhere asked us where we were trying to go. We told him, and he pointed behind us and said, "right there." I don't remember our reactions exactly, but we all thought about hugging him. I think in reality we just screamed a bunch of thank yous and ran to the stop (a bus was there and about to leave), and got on! We giggled out of relief for about 5 minutes. I took a million pictures out the window (as usual). We were stuck in traffic for about 45 minutes, but I didn't really care; I was just thrilled to have found the bus after over an hour of looking for it.

We calculated that we walked over 8 miles, and that doesn't account for getting lost three times and all the walking inside of buildings. Great, exhausting day! Pictures to come; time to leave for church.