Paris in the spring...: London!

I left early Saturday morning for London and had a jam-packed weekend. We got into London around 10:30 AM. The train ride was nice. I actually got to see some of the French countryside for once, and of course, we went through the Chunnel. Very anti-climatic like several things in the UK. After getting some pounds and checking into the hostel, we set out. Saturday we walked along the Thames, seeing many sites along the way. We started at London bridge, and going west, we also got to see the Globe Theatre, London Eye (a huge ferris wheel that I wanted no part of), the Tate Modern Museum (some of the best modern art I've ever seen), the Tower of London, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey (from the outside, because it costs 16 pounds to go inside), the House of Parliament, and Trafalgar Square. The London metro has stops all over the place, but it's much more confusing than the Paris metro. We just tried to avoid using it too much. At least on Saturday, it wasn't raining. Cloudy and gray, but not raining. We got lunch at the cutest restaurant right next to London Bridge, right on the Thames. We all got fish and chips. It was delicious, but so heavy that I couldn't finish it.

Sunday, the plan was to see most of the parks and some of the more famous museums. We started the day off at Buckingham Palace, which was very very anti-climatic. Maybe it's very pretty on the inside, but the outside is rather standard (as far as a palace can be standard). Also, the famous guards were not even there! There were a couple of guards, but they were wearing gray, not red. We did get to see a little parade of some sort of officials on horseback though, so that was neat. Then we made our way through all of the parks right next to the palace. Green Park is, well, pretty much green grass everywhere, very pretty. Next comes Hyde Park, by far the coolest. There is a rose garden there (not quite fully in bloom yet) and lots of cool statues. Next is Kensington Gardens, which has a cool statue of Peter Pan and a memorial to Princess Diana, among other things. After the parks, we went to the British Museum. It's kind of like the Smithsonian with lots of artifacts from all over the world. What they discreetly fail to mention is that they stole many of the artifacts from places like Egypt and the Middle East (very common trend in the UK, to glance over nasty things they did in the past). The most famous thing in the British Museum is the Rosetta Stone. After the British Museum, we went to the National Portrait Gallery. Unfortunately, I couldn't take any pictures in there, but it's a small museum full of portraits of famous British people ranging from Henry VIII to Princess Diana. By this point, we were pooped, but on our way back to the hostel, we ran into a huge early St. Patrick's Day party going on in Trafalgar Square. It looked neat, but we were just too tired at that point. My train on Monday morning left at 5:30 AM, so I had to take a taxi. The taxi company that partners with the hostel was not very professional, but I made it to the station on time and got to experience driving on the opposite side of the road. All over London, they have sides on the road, reminding pedestrians which way to look before crossing the street.