England Day 3 - St. Paul's and the British Museum
Dressing, shower, email, breakfast, and we were finally on our way, albeit later than we had initially planned. Since we still had a whole morning left on our Big Bus Tour’s 24hour timeframe, we walked over and boarded the bus at the same point we did yesterday, then rode it around to the Red Route. Got off, road the Red briefly until Hamley’s came into view, at which point we got off and spent some time shoppiting. Yay, we haven’t spent enough money! ;) Alana made for a clothing store she’d wanted to go into yesterday, and I browsed there briefly before going over to Hamley’s.
Hamley’s was nice, but not extravagant. I did find the MLP section, but they had nothing new (and I’d pay over 50% more if I bought in England vs. US). I picked up two lollipops though, and a packet of jelly beans that I’d been craving since we had arrived (why? I don’t know). Briefly stared at cute little fuzzy lamb plushie. Back on the bus!
We road the Red Route for a while now, and had a truly excellent tourguide, who pointed out different things from the last person. We actually drove by Buckingham Palace just as the horsemen guards were walking down the street (having just finished their processional). Our tourguide joked that she had arranged it just for us *G*. The sun was trying its hardest to peek out from behind the clouds.
As we passed around Trafalgar Square a large group was gathering, waiting to see if London would be picked as the host city for the Olympics 2012. We were still about half an hour away from the verdict as we rounded the square and continued on our way.
Eventually we reached St. Pauls Cathedral, where we got off and bid the Big Bus farewell. Unfortunately there was an entrance fee that amounted to 19GBP for all three of us. Sigh! Well, we hadn’t come all of that way *not* to see it, so we paid the fee and wandered about.
St. Pauls was nice, but I enjoyed Salisbury more. After walking through the Crypt I ended up sitting down at the Crypt Café (*snicker*) and waiting for Mom and Alana to do the 500 steps up to the top of the Cathedral (I feared for my feet on the rest of the day if I continued with them). Spent my time idling about the gift shop, and then getting a horrible cup of “lemon and lime squash” that tasted like straight lemon juice.
We exited the Cathedral and attempted to find the St. Pauls Tube entrance. Five minutes down the wrong way we backtracked (gods, I so need to get a map!) went PAST the Cathedral, down a weird side way, and finally came out to the Tube. We ended up only purchasing a single ticket for the three of us, but it took us to the British Museum.
Alas, finding our way TO the British Museum proved a challenge. We walked about fifteen minutes out of our way (having trusted a sign pointing in that general direction) until we finally found a store that sold maps.
My precious! My London A-Z!
Finally, NOW I know where I’m going! We made our way back down the way we’d came, hung a left, and arrived.
The British Museum is free entry, however you cannot get a map to the museum unless you fork over some pounds. Call me silly, but I’d rather just pay an entrance fee and get a map along with that than be suckered into buying a map. We were quite famished at this point, so I was very glad that I’d happened to jot down the fact that there was a sit-down restaurant in the Museum.
Eh. And eh again. So not worth the price. Mom ended up with an open roast beef sandwich, I ended up with chicken curry and jasmine rice (our server lied not, that stuff was hot!), and Alana with an arrangement that pretended to be a children’s pizza. Having paid way too much for this, we were finally free to explore the museum itself.
We ended up splitting up, as Alana and my attention skills are rather lacking (we’re so children of the Internet generation). Since we were able to take pictures here but couldn’t at St. Pauls, we had a grand time just wandering around snapping pictures. We did get to see the Rosetta Stone.
Having not learned our lesson the first time we met back at the same sit-down restaurant for “afternoon tea”. I chose a blood orange cake that was neither very flavorful or very moist (think Passover cake), mom had coffee walnut cake, and Alana had a chocolate chip cookie and a brownie, neither of which did she finish. We wended our way back to the Tube Station, bought our tickets again, boarded our train for one stop, got off, boarded a second train…all during rush hour. Nothing says fun like being shmushed up against the wall! Very tired, we finally got off at our stop, made a quick stop at Marks and Spencers, and dragged ourselves into bed to read.
Tomorrow was to be our hot air balloon ride, but unfortunately the weather wasn’t looking very good. As we lay there trying to go to sleep and unable to, the call came at 10:30 with a reprieve: the tour had been cancelled due to weather. We were actually excited about this *G*, as the idea of getting up at 2 in the morning to take a cloudy and potentially rainy balloon ride just didn’t appeal to us right then.
Oh, and I’ve developed cold symptoms. Why?