London, Pt. 2

Our second day in London was a busy one, since we had so much left on our list of things we wanted to see and had to catch our flight to Dublin that evening.

And of course, we had to take the Underground from our hotel, after we had walked the mile-plus to the train station...so it took a little while to get going in the morning.

On the subway, a class of elementary school students got on with their teacher. All the students were dressed in neon vests that you would see a crossing guard wear here in the States. They immediately spread out all over the car we were in and the teacher and her two assistants were walking all over the train the whole time to try and keep tabs on them. I couldn't help but think traveling that way must be a teacher's worst nightmare! 

I had read in a book about one of the most famous skyscrapers in London, so we decided to see it. It's called "The Gherkin" and yes, it is shaped like a giant cucumber.

We got back on the subway and found the Sherlock Holmes Museum. We didn't go in because the line was ridiculously long, but we were glad we found it. We had gone completely the wrong direction when we got off at the Baker Street station, so it took us a while to figure that out and get turned around.

Here's the famous address:

The Baker Street Underground station is decorated in a Sherlock Holmes theme...I thought it was awesome. This giant profile of Sherlock Holmes in the station is actually made up of tiny images of Sherlock Holmes.

Here you can see the tiny profiles that make up the larger picture, above.

This is a view of the Thames River in London. If you look really, really closely, you can see part of the Gherkin in the background.

Here I am with the London Eye in the background. We didn't go on the Eye because: (1) the line- super long, and we hadn't bought tickets in advance, and (2) the price...$45/person. 

Next, we found Big Ben. I'm pretty sure that's the most famous sight in all of London. Or at least, when I think of London, that's one of the first images that pops in my mind.

Here I am in front of Big Ben.

And here's Jason...

I thought this was a classic picture of London, the Eye and a red double decker bus. Those buses aren't just for show, by the way. They are everywhere and run regular routes all over the city.

This is a really good picture of Jason standing with the Eye in the background and a corner of another red double decker bus.

Next, we walked to Westminster Abbey, which is pretty much just across the street from Big Ben (and the Parliament buildings).

This is me in front of the Abbey. See the line that stretches from the doors off to the right of the picture? Yeah...we didn't go in the church either... This picture actually only shows one part of half the line, because it also stretched off to the left, and both lines extended beyond the sight of the camera.

We had a little more time on our hands than we thought we would, since the lines everywhere had kind of prevented us from going into things we thought we might do, so we took the Underground to the Science Museum.

Here you can see Jason studying the map of the museum and figuring out what we wanted to see.

This museum might have been one of Jason's favorite things in London because he loves looking at things and learning how they work (or, more likely, he already knows how they work), and then explaining to me how they work. Here he is in front of a giant steam engine.

There were a few things in the museum that I knew about, too! This is the first model of DNA built by Watson and Crick. I had no idea that they had used standard lab equipment to build part of this. I kind of geeked out when I saw this, because without these guys, I wouldn't have learned half of what I did for my biology degree in undergrad!

I had to include this picture. It's a Jenessa-sized car. I can't imagine a car like this is street legal, but I kind of want one...

Also, this is the only picture I took on our trip that shows how truly light we packed and traveled. See the size of my backpack? Everything you see with me right there is all I had. Jason's backpack was the same size as mine. They had to be this size in order to fit into those delightful luggage sizer bins at the airport. Amazingly, the backpack was much lighter on our trip than it was during all of law school!

After we left the museum, we took the Underground back to Victoria Station and then got on the Gatwick Express back to the airport. In all the Underground and train stations we were in in London, we had to scan our ticket to get in and out of the platform area. 

We had done just fine with this until we were getting off the train at the airport. Jason pulled his ticket out of his pocket in preparation of scanning...and dropped it on the train tracks. And there was no way he could safely retrieve it. So...he had to beg (ok, ask politely) the security guard by the ticket scanners to let him through. Lucky for Jason, the guard just kind of rolled his eyes and said "this is why you let the woman hold the tickets...she didn't lose hers"! I thought it was hilarious. Jason did not find it quite as amusing.

And on that note, we were off to our last city...Dublin!