We had our first concerts today in the park and a church which took most of the day, and then we went to a pub and got fish and chips, and then went to the London Eye. The Eye was quite fun with a lot of the green bus in the same carriage thing taking lots of pictures.
First English breakfast complete some beans! A tour guide came along with us on our bus and we drove around looking at the city and then got out and walked around.
It’s pretty cool – they are doing a bunch of construction, but they keep the fronts of the old buildings up. Also fun fact, when London hosted the olympics, for every gold medal they won they painted a public post box gold. Another fun fact, the streets are filled with the red double decker buses that we consider a staple of London, but the locals think they’re terrible because there’s too many and very few people are on them at any given time so they just cause traffic.
We walked by Westminster Abbey and a bunch of small castles like for people like the prime minister and the Duke of Wellington, but Big Ben is undergoing construction so all we could see of that was scaffolding. It’s really cool to see and hear all the stories from WWII, especially the smaller stories that you don’t learn a lot about in school but the locals all know about.
Then, we went and saw the changing of the guard in front of Buckingham Palace. Next, we went to the Tower of London (where we had lunch and experienced our first “crisps”); our tour guide showed us around a little bit and it seems that a lot of murders occurred in there. We saw the Crown Jewels which were very fancy, and in there there is a table salt holder that is literally a tiny castle (that actually isn’t that tiny) and that is so extra I love it. Also in the square was the White Tower which held a bunch of different armor and was really cool to look at; in there was also a giant dragon made out of different armory things which was pretty cool. Then we went out to Dinner at an Indian place before going to see Les Mis which was so amazing. It had a spinning floor and the barracks were superb. And all the marching and deaths looked fantastic. Enjolras (the lead rebel guy) had an amazing death; he flipped over the back of the set around a bar, and then when it rotated around he was just hanging off the barracks with one leg! Finally, to get home we took a cab, which I didn’t realize they had seats facing both ways in the back.
It doesn’t feel like we’re in London yet or that we’ve been traveling for almost 30 hours. We were able to board the bus right after we got off the flight and traveled to Windsor Castle. Coincidently, the Queen was also there at that time (as we could tell from the flag flying), and a couple people from our group actually saw her driving away in her car! We went down to the River Thames and hung out with the geese and swans there, and then after a while of trying to figure out how to get there, we went around to some gates where you could see the castle, the huge road leading up to it, and the guards in the distance. After dinner we walked to and around Kensington Park and saw the palace and pretty views.
We got to visit the 9/11 Museum and the Empire State Building. We also went to Ellis Island, learned a bunch of the history behind it, and saw the Statue of Liberty.
We got a backstage tour of Radio City Music Hall which was super awesome, and then we hung out in Times Square before going to see Phantom of the Opera on Broadway!
We went on a helicopter ride over the Grand Canyon! Later, while we were waiting on our lunch we went to a general store where I bought a mini cactus that looked like it had a mohawk and named it Calvin Jr. Even though it was raining, we went to see the sunset, but it wasn’t very good because of the dark clouds. Then we saw a little show where a ranger was dressed as Captain John and he told us his stories.
We finally made it to the Sydney Opera House which was really cool! The inside carpet was very colorful in some places like bright red and purple. When we went into the theaters we got to see how they prepare for the shows! We also got to see where they make props and where the stars come in, which most tourists would not be able to see (but technically we were not tourists)! We didn’t even have to have backstage passes! Next, we went to an Opal shop where I bought two pairs of earrings (not opal though).
After that we went to Rocks Walking Tours where we dressed up as convicts, governors or lieutenants; then we went out in public to learn about the Rocks history!
