London: Day 2

Day 2 of our trip was our first full day in London! We had circled many things on our map the night before and wanted to see all kinds of fun things in London. It was a very stereotypical touristy-type day. The weather wasn't very good though, which destroyed our plans of wearing fun summery outfits. It was very cloudy and looked like rain, but we were hoping it wouldn't rain because none of us had umbrellas. Luckily, we made it through!

We got up and ate breakfast at our hostel. They had this crazy good spread to put on toast. It's like nutella, but it also has white cake icing type stuff swirled in with it too and it's heavenly. We need to figure out where to buy some of that stuff, because it was SO good and addicting. Probably not healthy, but SO GOOD!

We walked to the center of London and crossed the bridge and took a bunch of pictures of Big Ben. And when I mean a bunch, I mean a BUNCH. I'm pretty sure I have a picture of Big Ben from every angle and distance possible. Haha we were going crazy with the cameras! It just looks so cool no matter how you're looking at it. It's going to be interesting to go through those pictures and see what time it is in all of them and how I kept taking pictures all throughout the day.

We were also taking a bunch of pictures of the London Eye (the largest Ferris Wheel in all of Europe). The skies were starting to clear, so we decided to head over and ride it. We stood in line for a long time, but it was so worth it. The view was absolutely incredible and being up that high in the air in a little capsule was mind-blowing! I took tons of great pictures from in there and it was a great way to view the city. If you ever go to London, ride the eye. It's totally worth the money you pay to go on it. One freaky thing though is that when you board and get off, it doesn't actually stop. So you have to be very careful getting on and off! They also had very high security which was interesting. We had to get our bags checked and were swiped over with those metal detector bar things. Good to know we're safe though!

Our ride was at 1pm, and after that we were starving. There were some hotdog vendors on the bridge, and we decided to eat that because it was quick, easy, and pretty cheap. Those hotdogs were beyond amazing. Super greasy and unhealthy, but totally tasted like America and they were so delicious. We got waffles for dessert at another stand. Also naughty, but super delicious. One of the tastiest meals I've had in Europe! Haha. After lunch we walked around the city a bit more and saw some other sites including Westminster Abbey. While we were walking, there were a bunch of police and security guards and two helicopters flying above. We were determined it was because the Royal Baby was being born, but alas, we were wrong. It was a huge protest thing going on in the street. It was kind of freaky so we walked through it quickly. We went and bought tickets for a double-decker bus tour! Gotta do one of those while in London. It's really nice because your ticket is good for 24 hours and it's a hop-on/hop-off bus so you can get on and off wherever, so we also used it for free transportation later on. The ticket also includes a river boat cruise. The bus ride was super fun and it was neat to see all around the city. I took a ton of pictures. We had a tour guide on the bus too and learned all kinds of fun things about the city and the monuments in it. It was really cold on top of the bus in the wind though! We rode it all the way around on the yellow route, because right by where we started was M&M world!! We hopped off and explored M&M world. If you've never been there, it is SUCH a cool place!! I've never seen so many M&M's and they do some really neat things with them. Here we are hanging out with the M&M's on Abbey Road! ;)

After M&M world we grabbed some food and started our LONG trek back to the hostel. We were planning on going there, dropping off our stuff, taking a quick nap, and then heading out again for the evening. That plan failed though, because it was already 10:30 and we were SUPER tired and that 25 minute nap turned into over an hour and then we decided to just stay in bed. Haha. Whoops! We had been on our feet ALL day long and it was very exhausting.

So that was most of what went on during our first full day in London! We got to see all the great famous sites and explore around the city. I don't know if I've ever walked that much in one single day! But seriously... how beautiful is London at night?!