Supersonic

"A view of Buckingham Palace through St. James Park"
see all photos »

Our trip to Europe was coming to an end, in the morning we left Paris for our final destination, London, England.  We took one last ride on the tour bus and bid farewell to our wonderful bus driver as he dropped us off at the train station in Paris.

As we waited for our luggage to be put  on the train, we noticed a homeless man who lived on the sidewalk.  He seemed very clean and was very well dressed.  He wore a leather coat and sat on a couch with leashed dogs on either side of him.  In front of him, there was a coffee table and to his left was a shelving unit that had cans of dog food on it and a radio.  Our bus driver noticed that the man's television set was missing and we assume that it was probably stolen.  To the left of the couch on the ground was an inflatable mattress with a tent over the top of it.  We could only assume that this is where the man sleeps each night. Some of the people on our bus took pictures of the man and his dogs.  While I admit it was a rather interesting thing to see, I never would've photographed that man.  It is always sad to see something like that.  Clearly, the man is trying his best to maintain some degree of normalcy in his life and you have to wonder what exactly happened to him.

"A weird looking bird we saw in St. James Park"
see all photos »

Once they loaded our luggage onto the baggage car it was time for us all to go inside of the station and wait to board the Eurostar to London.  We would be taking this high speed train under the English Channel in the "Chunnel." The train went extremely fast through France and even through the "Chunnel" but once we reached the United Kingdom, the train slowed down to a normal pace.  (Throughout France, if you passed another train going the other way on the tracks, it would zip by so quickly that if you blinked your eyes you would miss it! ) Apparently the reduction in speed had something to do with the laws in England.

"A view of the inside of one of London's Tube stations"
see all photos »

The train arrived at Liverpool station in London in the late afternoon around 3 pm.  We were met at the station by a new bus and a new driver and taken to our hotel near Edgware Road station.  The Hilton London Metropole is located in the Arabic section of London and not too far from Oxford Circus.  Once our luggage was safely inside our room we tried to decide what to do.  I had hoped that we could go to the British Museum or British Library but both were closing within an hour and a half.  We didn't really have enough time to figure out how to get there via the subway (or the "Tube") so we decided to just walk around to explore and sort of acclimate to our surroundings. The three of us got pretty hungry and wanted to stop and eat something for dinner. Originally we stopped into this typical British pub and had intended on eating there, unfortunately the cigarette smoke was really beginning to bother me and we couldn't stay there.  We found a Subway and grabbed a quick bite.

After dinner, Christy started to suffer the early signs of a migraine and had to return to the hotel to rest.  Mike and I continued up Baywater Road (I think)and ended up in very busy Oxford Circus. From his map,Mike saw that the famous Piccadilly Circus (London's version of Times Square) was just a bit further so we decided to head in that direction.  On our way, we noticed a sign advertising Yo Sushi this incredible sushi restaurant that was featured in a travel video we watched while planning our trip.  We made note of its location in hopes that we could go there for dinner the following evening.

Piccadilly Circus was very interesting because on one side of the street there was nothing but modern buildings and electronic billboards.  But when you looked at the other side of the street, you saw nothing but really old buildings.  It was the perfect blend of two completely different worlds! As we took pictures of Piccadilly Circus, we saw Big Ben and it didn't seem all that far away.  We decided to continue on towards it.  We passed a few theatres on the way and also caught a glimpse of Westminster Abbey. From that point we walked over to Buckingham Palace and ended up in the beautiful St. James Park. By now, we were too exhausted to walk all the way back to our hotel so we decided to brave the "Tube" back to Edgware Road station.  It's a very good thing that we did this too because once we arrived at our station it was pouring outside!