Lines, lines and more lines!

   After the thrill of being on a plane and travelling across the ocean died down, the excitement of exploring the famous city of London, England kicked in.  Eager to see the London Eye, Big Ben, Buckingham Palace and many more landmarks, we set off bright and early (10:00am) to get tickets for London's on-off tour bus. 

     The weather was beautiful, at least compared to the freezing weather back home in Windsor. However, Emily requested a seat on the upper deck of the bus, but little did she know that the longer we stayed up there,  we'd get cold real fast.  But that didn't stop us from admiring all the beauty the city had to offer. There was a mixture of modern and old buildings throughout different areas of the city.  On the bus, we got to listen to the history of different buildings, interesting stories that happened in London and some pretty awful music between stops. 

     A bit into our tour we got into the more exciting, the more famous landmarks like the Buckingham Palace (which we just drove past), the Tower of London, St. Paul's Cathedral and the Parliament buildings. With the Parliament building comes Big Ben, and of course, just our luck, it's under construction!  All that was visible of the great clock tower I was so looking forward to seeing was the top portion. So that makes three out of three landmarks in capital cities we have visited that have been under construction when we have visited.  Ottawa... Parliament Hill.  Washington... the Washington Memorial.  And now... Big Ben.  Must be a sign that we have to come back another year.  Despite the construction it still looked pretty amazing. 

      We decided the time to get off the tour bus was when we got to the London Eye. On the sidewalk going to the Eye, there were a TON of people, and by a ton, I mean that there were so many people that everyone was smushed together and people you didn't even know were way too close for comfort.  We had even lost Ryan in the midst of the mayhem.  

      We already bought tickets to the London Eye and as we approached the Eye, it looked like there was no line at all.  Emily was more than happy to just cut through the line but that was before we figured out there was a line just to get into the line for the Eye. After a couple minutes of waiting in that line we got to the front only to be told our ticket was just a voucher for tickets and had to go in to exchange it.  After about 30 minutes of waiting in line to get the tickets, we ditched mom to go get a bite to eat.
      We walked all around looking for food but every place was totally jam packed.  We ended up all the way to Waterloo Train Station when Mom called to inform us that we couldn't get on the Eye until 4:15. So now we had 5 hungry people, split up in London with phones that barely worked (thanks Telus).            

     We ended up back on the bus to find a place to eat.  After a quick bit, we toured the rest of
London.  I now know where the rhyme "London Bridge is falling down" comes from.  Around 4:00 we made our way back to the Eye and with the sun setting (yes, sunset at 4:00 here) and our bodies half frozen, we got into a line of all lines. Yep, it took 1 1/2 hours to get on the slowest ferris wheel in the world.  Do we regret going up?  No. Do mom and dad regret not taking a separate "Champagne Experience", where it is a private pod for 2?  Probably.  But in the end, it turned out to be a good day in London.  You would think everyone was done for the day but  no, mom and dad found enough energy to leave us alone so they could go for a drink (or 2) at a pub. 

     I have come to the conclusion that London is the best city in the world, so many things to see and explore and we haven't even seen much of it.  Plans haven't been decided yet for tomorrow but we are ready for another full day tomorrow!  Pictures of today can be found here.  

Hannah Guthrie