Day 2 : London

London Aquarium
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Getting out of Heathrow turns out to be a breeze, and we arrive at the Globetrotter hostel via the “Underground” before 2. We check into our 4-share room – we have a roommate but he’s not around. The hostel seems nice enough, but we don’t stay long…we drop off our bags and then head back out to “do London”. We are booked on a Thames sightseeing cruise at 6:45, followed by a London Eye flight, so we have a few hours to see some sights beforehand.

Hopping on the underground, we manage to get to the vicinity of Buckingham Palace, which is our first destination. It’s about 30 degrees out, and we quickly work up a nice sweat – this is something we will get quite used to. We check out the palace grounds and take a few photos before continuing on our trek. We get to Trafalgar Square, and then carry on to the river front where we see Cleopatra’s Needle – the first of many obelisks we see around Europe…the Egyptians sure gave away a lot of those things! We cross the river and stop to watch a street performer before grabbing some dinner on an outdoor patio. One thing about London…it’s damn expensive! Prices are about the same as here…except everything is in Pounds, which more than double a Cad dollar.

Jeff and I discover that draft Guiness is in fact better overseas. I actually enjoy it!

Buckingham Palace
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We notice here our first instances of people casually drinking in public.  It’s odd to us because you certainly don’t see that back home, but here people all over the place walk around drinking beer. This is true of pretty much every place we visit on the trip. I like that European attitude!

We hop on our river cruise, which is about 45 minutes and shows us some of the major sites along the river…Tower of London, Big Ben, the HMS Belfast, Tower Bridge, London Bridge, etc. Following the cruise, we queue up for the London Eye, which is quite impressive, giving you some pretty wicked views of the city (see pictures). After disembarking, we continue walking back across the river for a closer look at Big Ben and Parliament, then Westminster Abbey. Jeff figures we should head to Picadilly Circus and find the sweet arcade he was at the last time he was here, so we go looking for an Underground station…and walk for about half an hour before we get to one. A bit of a miscalculation on our part, but we do make it the Circus.

Me in front of Big Ben and Parliament
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After wandering around that area for a bit, Jeff concludes he has no idea where the place is, so we decide to find somewhere to have a couple pints. We settle on “Cheers” (yes, it’s supposed to be like the TV show), and Jeff and I discover that draft Guiness is in fact better overseas. I actually enjoy it! Kronenbourg 1664 is also determined to be a good beverage, and we will have a few more of those on this trip. Oddly enough, the bar staff seem to close the taps at 10 – does London shut down early??

The 3 of us on the London Eye
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We meet a rather interesting Londoner who proclaims to us “I smell fucking fantastic”, and invites us to smell him. “Don’t worry, 100% hetero” he says. Apparently he is wearing Labrador K9, which prompts Jeff for whatever reason to say he’s from Labrador. Sure, why not? Anyways, whatever the guy is wearing seems to work, because he manages to pick up an American chick and makes out with her rather publicly.

Given that we are dead tired and we have to be up at 5:30 tomorrow to check in for our tour, we don’t stay very late. I somehow managed to wreck my underground ticket enough that the reader won’t accept it, so I have to get the security guy to let me through. Talking to him, I realize I’m rather tipsy – guess beer goes straight to your head when you’re running on no sleep. We get back to Globetrotter, where I discover I have also lost my room key. Sigh. Luckily, it’s not a big deal. We meet our roommate Ian who is also leaving on a TopDeck tour tomorrow, so he’ll be up bright and early as well. We all elect to have a shower before bed and thus avoid it in the morning. We finally crash at about 11:45…Jeff is out in literally 60 seconds and immediately starts snoring. We follow soon after.