London

After my 10 hour flight from LAX, 2 hour rendezvous at the airport (customs, baggage claim and left baggage) and 1 hour subway into the city, I finally made it to my hostel; which provided a cheap bed, warm shower, noisy street, gross breakfast, but most of all a beautiful city and a place to lay my head at night. I only had one day to see everything in London so I wasn't able to spend much time in any one place, which was good because I wasn't able to spend a lot of money. First off I went to the US Embassy (which was the largest of all the other countries), then walked the wrong direction to the British Museum and stopped there to see the Rosetta Stone for Uncle Rick. The stone contains a decree written in Greek, Demotic, and Egyptian Hieroglyphics and was used to translated the Hieroglyphics on the pyramids and Egyptian artifacts into Greek. After my brief stop at the the museum (which was free, by the way) I made my way to St. Paul's Cathedral, which you might know from the song "Feed the Birds (Tuppence a bag)" from the movie Mary Poppins. It was very big and apparently you can get a very nice view of the city from the top of the dome, however it was pretty cloudy so I didn't want to spend to go up. Next I made my way to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge, which were both my favorite. The Tower of London was a fortress built in 1078 and is equipped with a high wall and moat (filled with grass today) for protection. It looked a bit out of place to see an old castle in the middle of the city, but was also really cool because it's not something you see everyday in the U.S.. Then I walked across Tower Bridge, found a cool little side street made of cobblestones and walked back across the bridge to continue on my way towards Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey. Now, in every movie I've seen that Big Ben has ever been in (mainly Peter Pan and National Lampoon's European Vacation) it looks rather large, but don't be confused it would only stretch goal post to goal post (if laid down flat) on any football field. Doesn't seem very tall does it, but then again, neither is the Statue of Liberty. Right next to Westminster Abbey was a smaller church, St Margaret's Church, (with really cool sundials) that buried people in the walls, like a mausoleum. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be sitting in church, lean against the wall and the see the words "Here lies Sir Larry beheaded for robbing his neighbor" inscribed on the wall, talk about creepy (I guess it would keep people from stealing though). Then I walked through St James Park to Buckingham Palace and lucky for me the queen was home. I didn't stay too long because the sun was beginning to set and I had to wake up at 2AM to catch my shuttle to the airport. So I went to the Norwegian Embassy to get a map of Oslo, had dinner at Subway, packed my bag and went to sleep. My shuttle came about 15 minutes early so the driver gave me a quick tour of London, which was really cool because I didn't get to see any of it at night. We drove past Hyde Park (which is like Central Park, just smaller), the Marble Arch (moved from the entrance of Buckingham Palace because the queen didn't like it), Piccadilly Circus (like Time Square), Big Ben, Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, the Hilton to pick up another family and finally the airport. All in all London was very nice, I probably could have spent a whole week there, but Norway was waiting my arrival...