I shall now make a list

A list of all the important things you need to know about London.

1 If you go from Paris to London is costs an extra 75 euro.
2 The London Bridge is not pretty, its the ugliest one on the Thames.
3 Big Ben is short.
4 If you ask someone how to get to The Tower of London, do not get this confused with London's Tower, because they will send you to Parliament, which is an hour walk away from The Tower of London.
5 If you get a London Pass, go to all the expensive places.
6 There are no octopuses at the Aquarium.
7 If you're going to a show at the Globe, check the weather and find out if you're going to be a groundling in the rain. By all means be a groundling in the rain, its just better to know it in advance.
8 Don't go with someone who walks fast and doesn't look behind them to see if the whole group is actually still following them.
9 The changing of the guard happens every other day. Don't go on the other day.
10 The guards at Buckingham Palace arn't the ones in red.
11 Westminister Abbey closes at 1:30 on a Saturday. Do not show up at 3 and expect to get in.
12 There is a statue of Abraham Lincoln in the common in front of Westminister Abbey.
13 If someone tells you that you can't get to the London Luton airport by train they're lying.
14 If you have a London Pass you get a free bear from a place called "Crest of London."


I think that's about it. Basically the story of going to London was that I didn't want to fly into London because I have a eurail, and the train schedule said that I could to go London on the train. It didn't happen to mention the part about the trip from Paris to London costing a whole lot more, but that's about what I would have paid for the plane ticket, so either way I was out the money. When I got there I was supposed to meet the 5 other people I was travelling with at the Tower of London, because we had this one guy with us who was rediculously planned out and they HAD to get there at a certain time. I asked for directions there, and I ended up getting send to Parliament, which is a loooong walk from the Tower. It also didn't help that I knew nothing about London, so I wandered around Parliament for a while before finding out what was wrong and where I needed to go. I finally caught up with the people and that guy ran off so he could see something else he wanted to see, and since everyone else was going with him I didn't see the Tower of London. We ended up going to see Anthony and Cleopatra at the Globe, and that was nice, except that we didn't eat lunch before going. Thankfully I remembered I had a big Milka bar hidden in my backpack so we didn't die of hunger. The show was good but it rained a lot so I missed a lot of the dialogue. After the Globe we outrulled that one guy and went to the Hard Rock Cafe. In the morning 4 of us ditched the annoying guy and I got a London Pass, and that turned out to be a stupid idea. After that we got our free bears, and headed off to Buckingham Palace because that one guy had given us all schedules and had the changing of the guard on it, so we figured that he must have looked into it and had the right day. He had the wrong day. We did get to watch them walk a little bit, and their leader came out and talked to them for a while. After that the plan was to go on this short cruise on the Thames and go to Westminister Abbey. The cruise was nice, the abbey was closed. After that we went to the Aquarium because it was the only place still open and within walking distance. Then we had been told that there was no train to the airport we needed to get to Ireland, so we would have to take the train to this weird creepy far out place and catch a bus. Unfortunatly for us there was no bus there, and we actually did need to take the train. At this point the 4 of us were pretty much unhappy with that one guy, and since he and the other person weren't meeting us until the day after, because they had a different plane to Ireland, we thought up many different ways to ditch him for the rest of the week. We also never looked at the schedule again. It took us a while but we finally found the right train, and headed off to Luton to spend the night at the airport before our early flight. On the train we met a couple from Sweden who were visiting her sister, who was dating this one guy who's best friend used to be from Australia, but now lives in London. The woman from Sweden (visiting her sister) thought Austria and Australia were the same, and we ended up meeting the guy from Australia who we'll call Fred. Anyway its a kind of long story and a little confusing but the short version is that we ended up spending the night at Fred's house on his couch because he felt bad for us for having to sleep at the airport. Fred was very nice, in the morning he even gave us money for a cab because we didn't have any pounds.

I liked London a lot, and although I had a good time I'm still a little upset that I didn't see the majority of the things I wanted to see. Westminister Abbey was high on the list, and so was the Tower of London, and I didn't see either of them...wait let me rephrase, I didn't go inside either of them. If I ever were to go back though I have a much better understanding of the city and how everything works, and I know all the things not to do, and since it is relatively close to the states I'm hoping to go back.