Tour of London by bus!

I made the investment of buying a 2 day tour London pass and bus tour, and I had a very enjoyable day. So much happened, I'm trying to remember it all.

I get a continental breakfast included with my stay each morning, and good heavens was it big. A selection of yogurts, fruits, and cereals as well as juices to choose from, and I got toast ("white or brown?") with a selection of tiny jelly jars. I had tea (unsweet, blech); orange juice; a concoction of my own making of strawberry (I think) yogurt, peach and mandarin orange slices, and Muesli; an apple tart and a croissant, as well as 3-4 slices of toast with orange marmalade and black currant jelly. I could have gotten eggs and bacon and other nicer things, but I would have to pay for it. I might treat myself on Saturday though.

After breakfast, I went to find the tour bus, and discovered I'm very close to the British Museum. The tour bus has several lines, one (blue) devoted to museums, two covering the entire city with either a live English speaker (yellow) or prerecorded in your selection of languages (red). I took the blue line until it linked with the yellow, and switched over. Along the way, I met up with a Brazilian family, only one was a strong English speaker. On the bus, I sat next to an Australian of Asian descent (I would guess Chinese or Korean, probably Chinese judging by her eyes) named Anna. The entire loop takes about two hours, and covers everything you've ever heard of in London plus a lot more. I took probably over 200 pictures of landmarks, buildings, architecture, anything else interesting I found, and of course some duds because the bus would start or stop unexpectedly. I also got a short movie right when Big Ben was chiming on the quarter-hour.

About an hour and a half into the tour or so, we crossed over the Tower Bridge...which is the fancy bridge that everyone who's not British thinks is London Bridge; it's not, London Bridge is much smaller and looked a bit plain. Fun fact: a few decades ago, some wealthy American bought the London Bridge and moved it to Lake Havasu, Arizona (I mentioned it to someone I know that lives there, who confirms that it's there and it leads to an island). London Bridge itself has been rebuilt a bunch of times, always on the same spot, and I think it goes back to about the 40s AD, when Roman soldiers built it at the narrowest point of the Thames River, leading to what they called Londinium. Anyway, I was very hungry, so I got off (they have a bunch of stops and you can get on/off as often as you like) and went to a pub near Tower Bridge, called The Minories (pronounced "MINN uh reez") and had a tuna melt with chips (fries) and a Coke. I showed off my skills at not being able to quickly count out British money, but foreigners are of course very common in London so it doesn't phase merchants. The tuna melt was really good, but it looked like long wedges of pizza (like with heavy cheese) so I kept forgetting that I was going to taste tuna when I bit down.

I got on the next tour bus and headed back towards my hotel, but I decided to get off where it joined the blue line and walk back to my hotel...I got off too soon. Suddenly I was walking through the theater district, which is just opposite Chinatown (of London). I saw that Les Miserables is playing at the Queen's Theatre, so on a lark, I bought a ticket for tonight's show, then walked back to my hotel (without getting too lost). I got back at 4 pm my time, which was enough to get in a couple of hours of work, before time to get dinner and head to the show.

I took the Tube to the theater, had to walk to the Holborn station and then took the train to the Piccadilly Circus station. I was pretty proud of myself, I made it straight to the theater (finding the Holborn station was the adventure part) with about 10 minutes til show time. It's a small theater, only seats maybe 600 people I'm guessing. I set in the upper part and had a really good view. The performance of Les Miserables was very good, moving in the typical parts for me. I thought that in general the singing felt rushed, Eponine was a bit too dramatic (and I think she dropped a line), and Cosette was a little flat). But, I really did enjoy the whole performance, and not just the singing and acting. The stage and all its intricate moving parts is worth seeing as well. I sat next to a couple down from Manchester, and the husband at least had never seen the show, and he was appropriately amazed. I definitely do not regret buying the ticket. Oh, and I browsed in a souvenir shop afterwards and ran into three Americans: a couple from Alabama, and a friend of theirs from South Carolina. The Alabaman apparently teaches at a local London college, and they spend months at a time in London. Their friend was visiting them. I got a good word of advice: use my debit card on an ATM, which are all over the place, to get more British cash. The worst thing I could possibly do would be to go to a Bureau de Change and use my credit card; the credit card typically charges a 3% fee, and the Bureau assesses its own fee. I'll still pay a small fee of a couple of dollars at the ATM, but otherwise what I withdraw will be in up-to-the-minute valuation.

I've met a couple of other Americans too. There was a couple from Spokane, Washington that was taking the tour bus, and another couple but I didn't catch where they were from.

No pictures this post. It's already after midnight and I need to get in a little work before bed. I hardly slept at all last night, so it was painful waking up this morning. But worth it for the breakfast.