London Part 2

Wednesday found us at St. Paul's Cathedral. Our favorite part was climbing up into the dome and experiencing the "whispering gallery". We stood on opposite sides of the dome and whispered against the walls. We could hear what the other was saying, pretty cool.
Climbing some of the 530 steps to reach the top!


Here we are at the Golden Gallery aka the top, with a view of the city behind us. Unfortunately we chose the only rainy day on our trip to climb up to see the view.

Our next stop was the H.M.S Belfast, a ship used during WWII.


We loved exploring all the different levels and seeing the models of how life was on the ship when it was active.


Tristan pictured in the captain's seat. The long range gun in the background can hit a target 12 miles away!



Then we headed to the Tower Bridge. This bridge is a landmark of London and is featured in several movies (i.e. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix). The bridge is able to raise up so that large ships can pass through it. (Interesting Fact: The Tower Bridge was not bombed during WWII, because the German's used it as a landmark to find other prominent buildings.)


Below is a poster showing that a double decker bus once jumped the bridge while it was raising. It's not an actual photo, but the artists interpretation of the event.


Next we took a city cruise to our next destination. It was a fun way to travel.



The Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms showed us how the British operated during WWII.


Picture of me with the mannequin guard.


We also went to the National Gallery, home of some of the finest works of art. We especially liked the Monet paintings.


After a bite to eat, we decided to go bowling. I know what you're thinking. Bowling? You're in London! Why are you bowling? Well, the answer is pretty simple. We bought a London Pass to get into all of the sights that we've been seeing. The pass also gives you discounts on restaurants (Hard Rock and Wagamama) and leisure activities. Also, most of the sights close around 5 or 6, so there's a limited amount of activities that you can take part in. And since we are not pub going kind of people, we thought we take full advantage of our pass. Tristan is pictured below probably getting a strike. He totally dominated the game, giving me a sound thrashing 142 - 77.


Since we didn't make it to the Wellington Arch during open hours, we decided to see it at night.


And since Buckingham Palace wasn't far from the Wellington Arch, we visited it as well. Again, no monarchs waving at us. Sigh.


On the Tube ride back to our hotel at 11:30, there was a train backup and we had to stop and wait for about 15 minutes for the train to start moving again. You can kind of see how full the train is in this picture.


Our last morning was spent looking for a Krispy Kreme and for Platform 9 and 3/4. Obviously we found the Platform (which really isn't on an actual platform but is near to platforms 9 and 10), but never found a Krispy Kreme. We saw one earlier in the week, but couldn't remember where we saw it.

We made a quick stop at the British Library that houses the Gutenburg Bible, Magna Carta, and hundreds of other ancient books and documents (the Beatles collection of lyrics written on scraps of paper was one of our favorite things to see).


Our last major visit on our trip was the British Museum, specifically to see the Terracotta Warrior exhibit. When we got to the exhibit entrance, someone tried to get us to sell our tickets to them, basically telling us to name our price. We kindly rejected the offer and were glad that we did.


Standing next to some big Assyrian statue things.


Tristan, next to a bust of Ramses II, possibly the Pharoah of the Exodus account.


Pointing to the Annal's of Sennacherib. We looked all over the museum for this exhibit only to find that the room was closed. So we stood at the doorway to look at it from afar.


On our way back to the Tube, we saw the world's first Y, so we snapped a picture.


Here's a picture of us, happy about all that we did. Really the only thing that we had planned on doing, but didn't get to because of time, was the London Zoo. So we were very happy of the things that we were able to see and do.


You are probably wondering why the last picture on here is of our feet. It's because our feet have never hurt so much in our entire lives! We've done a lot of walking before, but I don't think we've ever done this amount, combined with just standing to look at every exhibit. By about 3:00 everyday, our feet were absolutely killing us. I guess we need some new shoes!