Day 2 - London

Trafalgar Square before embarking on our walking tour
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Our second day in London.  We're a little recharged now and not so

jetlagged so it's time to continue.  Since we caved in yesterday and

bought the Big Bus Tour of London, it came with a free walking tour.

Well, being cheap students, we HAD to go on the FREE walking tour.  It

Buckingham Palace
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was actually really entertaining and informative - our tour guide

looked like an older English version of Chandler from the show

Friends.  It was the royal tour, so we got to start our tour from

Trafalgar Square and saw all sorts of royal buildings, like where

St. James's Park
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William and Harry stay when they're in London.. ooohhh.  We ended the

hour and a half tour at Buckingham Palace with the changing of the

guards.  By the way, her flag was up.. so yup... she was home.

After we finished the tour, we walked through exceptionally beautiful

Millennium Bridge
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St. James's Park right outside of Buckingham Palace.  Definitely some

of the most beautiful views in the city.  We then proceeded back to

Trafalgar Square, since that's where the National Museum is located.

We walked through the National Museum for what seemed like an eternity

The Tipperary
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looking at amazing exhibits.  After our sore feet could carry us no

longer through the museum, we took the tube so that we could walk

across the Millenium Bridge.  Built in 2000, it is a pedestrian-only

footbridge that spans across the Thames River.  It was there that TJ

first tried the super soft serve ice-cream.  Yes, they call it super

soft.  They're not lying.  It tasted like very cold whipped cream.

Both of us were in heaven!  Anyways, back to the bridge.  Walking

across the Millenium Bridge from near the London Bridge exit towards

St. Paul's Cathedral - yes, the one where Di got married at - was a

really amazing sight.  St. Paul's is AMAZING.

TJ says - very breathtaking, especially when you look straight up - looking at all the paintings and stained glass.

We explored the cathedral for a bit and then headed on up towards the

dome of the cathedral.  There, we encountered the Whisper Gallery.

Melissa's been here before with her friend, Michal, but found no luck

with the Whisper Gallery.  Supposedly, you can stand on one side of the

dome, whisper into the wall of the dome, and a friend on the opposite

side of the dome 32 meters away will be able to hear your whispers

through the wall.  Well, most of those attempts are destroyed by the

other gajillion tourists trying to whisper into it at the same time.

However, this time we were both lucky!  TJ whispered - I like pizza and

hot dogs - and Melissa heard it!!! and not just from across the dome,

but it actually sounded like the voices were coming through the wall!

We then left the cathedral and took many a picture on the Tower

Bridge.  Quite pretty.  However, we were feeling pretty exhausted by

now and hungry to boot.  We headed back towards London Bridge and ate

at a great little restaurant called Wagamama.  It's a Japanese noodle

restaurant with pretty cheap prices.  We both got ramen. Yum.  Because

Melissa got her way and went to bed early the night before, it was TJ's

turn.  TJ was interested in going to a really historical awesome pub.

We ended up at the Tipperary.  No, it was not packed.  Yes, we still

had a fun time.  The Tipperary has been around forever.  No, really.

It was the first ever Irish pub anywhere outside of Ireland.  It was

also the first place anywhere in the world to serve Guinness outside of

Ireland.  We both had a beer, hung out for a bit, thanked the super

nice owner, and left.  We walked down to Picadilly Circus and Leicester

Square to watch all the young folk before they were headed off to their

clubbing business.  Wednesday night and it was PACKED.  We, however,

had enough of the endless crowds.  We decided to head on back and get a

good night's rest.