London: Day 1

Today we flew in to the London-Heathrow airport and I'm having a hard time believing that I'm actually in England! I've wanted to come to England for as long as I can remember. 

As soon as we claimed our baggage we received our passes to The Underground. Believe me when I tell you that those passes are our best friends here in London. The Underground is the subway system that runs through London and it gets us everywhere we need to go. If we lose those passes, it won't be good. 

We got on the subway at the airport and rode about 45 minutes to the Goodge Street station which is only a few blocks from our bed and breakfast. We left our luggage in our rooms and immediately took off to spend the rest of the day walking the streets of London taking in the sights. 

Our first stop was King's Crossing Station where we stopped to see Platform 9 and 3/4 from Harry Potter. I'm not into Harry Potter, but it was still cool to see it. We also took a gander through the Harry Potter gift shop that was there. There were some pretty cool things in there and I decided that if I was into Harry Potter, I probably would have spent a lot of money there. 

Platform 9 and 3/4 from Harry Potter 

Next we went to Trafalgar Square where we took some photos of the fountain there and went for a quick stroll through the National Gallery. We were able to catch our first glimpse of Big Ben in the distance from the edge of Trafalgar square. That was an exciting moment for me.

Trafalgar Square, National Gallery, First glimpse of Big Ben

When we left Trafalgar Square, we walked down to Big Ben. It was unreal having Parliament right there in front of me. It's such an elaborate building. After we had passed Parliament, we crossed the Thames river and saw the London Eye. As fun as it would be to ride the London Eye, the line to get on was so incredibly long and the ride itself takes an hour and a half. Since it was getting late at this point we all went back to our bed and breakfast and crashed. We were all riding on about 2 hours of sleep because as hard as this is to believe, it's not easy to sleep on a plane. And thus ends my first day in London!

Parliament and Big Ben

The London Eye

                           

Michaela :)