EuroX Trip: Day 3, 4 and 5

After the previous entry, I went to carouse around a bit more around the Mall, the big shopping street near where we're staying. I think that the Burger King/Hungry Jack's they have in the UK shits all over the one in Australia, mainly because ... they have STEAK burgers! They have burgers which have patties made from Angus-Aberdeen beef, which is pretty much a steak patty.

I picked up my travelling companion, Henry, from the airport, where he had been stuck for four hours due to the foule influence of the fogge. Afterwards, we wondered the Mall a bit more before I went off to meet another friend, Ben, in London city.
The amusing part was that I was supposed to meet him at Victoria station - I thought he meant the Underground station, and as a result spent about half an hour trying to find him before realising that there was a train station that connected to Victoria Station, which was where my friend was waiting. He complained to me he was 'freezing his balls off' while waiting for me, and while I was giving him landmarks he hadn't even heard of.

We roamed Picadilly Circus, and the Chinatown they had there, looking for a good Chinese restaurant for dinner. After dinner at a Chinese place, we went to Covent Garden to meet with said friend's Kiwi (New Zealand) friend at a bar. We hung out for awhile, chatting and 'birdwatching.' I gotta say, London has some mighty fine women.

The following day, Henry and I went on a marathon tour around London.
When Big Ben and Parliament House came into view, I was goggling. It was this amazing experience, like - "OMG I've seen that on TV so many times, now I'm actually seeing it with my own two eyes!"
We went to the London eye, which was unfortunately closed for maintenance. The whole time we were supposed to be in London >_< So that was scratched. Instead, we had waffles with ice cream and took a cruise along the River Thames, seeing many things, like London bridge, Tower Bridge, Charing Cross train station, this huge building that looks like a bullet (locals call it the Gherkin, apparently), among other things.
We got off at Greenwich, and went to the National Maritime Museum, and the Royal Observatory. I actually stood, for a moment, on the line of the world - the Greenwich meridian. Seeing all those things, I could really feel the weight of history and time - seeing all those old buildings and the historical artefacts inside.
We took the Thames Clipper to the Tower of London and went for a fairly amusing and informate guided tour, done by the Yeoman Wardens of the Tower. The cool thing is that they all seem to be ex-military, yet the one we had really enjoys his job. Afterwards, we went to meet up with Henry's friend, Athena, in London, at the Tate Modern museum. I swear, the exhibitions we saw there were WEIRD. There was this huge thing in the window that looked like something had tried to crawl out a polluted primordial soup, and had died in the attempt, covered in rubbish. There was this huge spider thing inside like one of the walkers from the Tom Cruise edition of War of the Worlds, and there was this huuge hall filled with empty bunkbeds which had strange, radical fiction books attached to them, and this big screen playing bits of old 60s and 70s sci-fi movies.

We went back to Athena's place, where she was kind enough to cook us dinner. The three of us then took off back to the Tower of London, to witness the Ceremony of the Keys, where the tower guards close up the Tower of London for the night. It was a very interesting, historical and solemn ceremony.
We finally staggered back into our beds at about 11:50pm, tired after a whole day out seeing London.

And now, today as of writing.
Henry and I set off for Leicester Square to find the booth selling half-price tickets to the Les Miserables musical, after which we wandered along to Trafalgar Square to check out the huuuge monuments, including Nelson's (very phallic) Column. Despite the weather, which was wet and windy, we managed to brave the elements to get there, as well as visiting the National Gallery, and seeing all sorts of paintings which I have zero ability to appreciate properly (lol). We walked down to get lunch and into Parliament House, but unfortunately it seemed to be closed at this time of year to tourists. That didn't stop us from trying to find a way in, before we went to Westminster Abbey.

Westminster Abbey is HUGE. Absolutely HUGE. So HUGE that I have to write huge three times and in capitals each time. The architecture is amazing. I noticed the same thing with Parliament House - all those crenellations, spires, the windows, as well as the reliefs and the inlaid statues and carvings. We couldn't get a tour for Westminster, so instead, we went to the nearby St Mary's Cathedral, which seems to have a lot of people buried within its walls (literally). The walls were festooned with plaques to memorable members of the Parish who had 'fallen asleep' over the centuries.

Later tonight, I'm going to see my first musical! Les Mis - which promises to be a highly entertaining three hours of entertainment.

Bye for now!