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London.

I began my holidaying for the year in London. I thought it was a pretty apt place to start my travelling. So for half term (15th – 19th of Feb) I headed down four hours south and went to the capital city of England.
I like the London Underground so much better than Metro, way easier to navigate and trains every two minutes – pretty swish. So expensive though, so I think I’ll stick to my Vline tickets and Metcards in the future.
For my first two nights I stayed in a youth hostel across the road from St Paul’s Cathedral, and right around the corner from Millenium Bridge, the bridge that gets wrecked by Death Eaters in HP6 ;)





On my first night I went out to dinner in Camden at The Lock Tavern. Defo recommend it. It was really dimly lit, had a really retro feel with communal tables and when I ordered a ‘vegie burger,’  I got two slabs of roast butternut pumpkin with a whole bunch of green stuff and ricotta. Absolutely going back.

Day two I walked from St Paul’s to Trafalgar Square and that took the whole part of an hour, and when I got there I hopped on an Original Bus Tour bus. Sat on the top level of my first double decker for two and a half hours and saw all of London’s typical touristy things. Did you know that St Paul’s Cathedral is 365 feet high? One for every day of the year ;)
We drove past Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, the London Eye, a boat in a giant glass bottle at Trafalgar Square, lots of double decker buses, the skinniest pub in London, the Marble Arch, Hyde Park and just lots of rad places.




I hopped off my bus at the Tower of London and went to check out where Thomas More and Anne Boleyn (to name a couple) got executed. I had a really funny old tour guide that talked a lot like Ray! I got to stand at the foot of the Bell Tower – where Thomas More was imprisoned for two years. I saw Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour, and heaps of other people that King Henry VII got executed’s graves.. They also had the Crown Jewels, five centuries worth of royal armour and 500 year old graffiti on display.




On day three I found the cutests Twinings shop on the way. They had a ‘Twinings museum’ out the back, and a room where you can make your own cuppa for free. So I was pretty happy with that and ended up spending £20 there.... oops! I kept walking, up past Traf Square and headed up Regent and Oxford streets. I was taking photos of all the Monopoly streets I passed as I went - and took a mental note to find them all next time I go to London for some ‘tourist time’! I ended up in Hamley’s – the biggest toy shop in London – it had a whole floor dedicated to teddies, fantastic!




After that I meandered all the way back to St Paul’s Cathedral and took myself to Eucharist Mass – and that also meant I got in for free! Yay! St Paul’s was so pretty on the inside but they were really tight about not taking photos, dang.

And day three turned out to be a chockerblock day because after THAT I walked over to the Tower of London and hopped on a cruise to Greenwich and the Royal Observatory. The Royal Observatory was awesome, heaps of telescopes and clocks, big displays about the invention of clocks and time keeping. I got to start on the Prime Meridian, that was pretty cool.





That night I headed over to Acton – west london – and chilled for two days with my London family from Australia :) In those two days, I had a lazy day exploring the Science, V&A and Natural History Museums - taking photos where I wasn't meant to be sometimes... Oops! I got to see the first random number generator created - Ernie - and lots of maths things, it was awesome. Then at the Victoria&Albert Museum, there was a small exhibition of Beatrix Potter's art school drawings!




 Highlight of the trip was definitely going to Platform 9 3/4 at Kings Cross Station on the way home!


 

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