Sorry for the delay in posting these.
Righto,
So today was a relatively late start. But we got up and had a breakfast of bread, cheese, tea (for me at least) and strawberry jam. We left the apartment around 9:30 am. We took the tube to London Bridge. Now, this is not to be confused with Tower Bridge. (Tower Bridge is the most famous one, it's the one with the drawbridge and it held the iconic Olympic symbol for the 2012 London Olympic Games.) We arrived at London Bridge and we walked along the waterfront, getting pictures of Tower Bridge on the way. We detoured around some construction before arriving at the Tower of London. (Although it's more like the fortress/castle of London.) Anyhow, we realized that it was too late to get into the Tower of London without waiting in the massive line, so we decided to do the tour of the Tower Bridge. We have these wonderful cards called the London Pass. They allows us entrance into many of the famous places without getting tickets. (It's like the fast pass at Disney World) so we got the tickets, which we still had to obtain as a physical item, and went on the lift (elavator) up one of the support columns in the bridge. We watched a short film on the history of the bridge. Then we walked above street level where we got brilliant views of the river Thames. Tower Bridge had just recently put in glass floors in on part of the pedestrian walkway above the street, so we got to see cars, people, buses, taxis, boats, and the river below our feet. It was an oddly satisfying experience. After we walked on the walkway, we went back down to the street level and went to the engine room where we got to learn how the bridge opened and closed. After Tower bridge (which was around 12:15) we walked towards the HMS Belfast, a famous war ship for Britain during WWII. First we grabbed lunch at a local cafe. So far, this has been the best sandwich place...well actually panini. It was cool because for the sandwiches you asked the sandwich dudes what you wanted...for example I wanted the egg sandwich so I told the guy what I wanted and he grabbed a bowl (that was full of egg salad) and dumped some of the egg salad between two slices of bread. That was my sandwich, and he handed it to me. After a delightful lunch/walking break, we went to the HMS Belfast. We took a tour through the 9 level war craft. At first I didn't think I would like it, but it was actually very intriguing. Although the HMS Belfast doesn't sail the seas, everything is still in ship shape order. *wink wink* We got to see the galleys, the meat storage, bakery, sleeping quarters, torpedo, mail room, communications room...ya know all the Morse code stuff...all of the guns, the navigation room, and so so so much more. There were videos showing how everything worked. There even was a working (not currently) operation room and candy/snack shop! All in all, the HMS Belfast was something that far exceeded my expectations. After the almost 3 hour tour through the ship, we walked back towards London Bridge. We stopped at the London Bridge "History and dungeon" place. It was kinda scary. It took us back 2000 years on an interactive tour with live actors. They'd made it really creepy with some. ..very unpleasant props. (We got a "demonstration" and explanation on how they cut the heads off of rebels...yeah, not so pleasant.) But the history of London bridge was interesting. After that tour, we went back on a very crowded tube to our apartment. We made dinner, and we are now thinking of what we will do tomorrow.
Cheerio!
~Hannah~
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