London Day 3: Diagon Alley, Canadian pub, and more touring.

Today was another day of using the hop-on, hop-off bus tour. This time, I had already been on the whole route, so it didn't feel like buildings and monuments were jumping out of nowhere like they did yesterday.

I started the day with a trip to Diagon Alley, which in the muggle world is actually Leadenhall Market. It was interesting that no one seemed to know where it was. I asked my cousin and her husband, but they had never heard of it. None of the tour guides I spoke to knew anything of it. I ended up using a map and making my own way there. Once I got closer, I found signs pointing me right to it.

It was quite a beautiful little area, and I wish I had time to sit and have a cup of tea, but alas, I had a full day of touring ahead of me.

There were tables set up where vendors were selling various treats and foods. There were some meringue sweets that looked delicious, and little tarts and chocolates. There was a huge table full of cashews, peanuts, hazelnuts, and almonds, all in a huge variety of flavours. I ended up buying a bag of mixed nuts cooked with honey. They are super sweet but still delicious.

Yes, I finally worked up the nerve to ask a stranger to take my picture. I have this fear that they'll dash away with my camera, but I've determined that other tourists with big fancy DSLR cameras probably don't want my camera and are quite happy to take photos. I've also approached families and people who are waiting around in one spot for a while.

They had this beautiful pen shop where each pen was super fancy with intricate designs that cost at least about £75. Lots of fun to browse through bit slightly out of my budget, considering I tend to lose pens within days of buying them. I do think someone should open a magic shop there. It would do quite well!

The tour guide said this is the spot where Sweeney Todd is supposed to have had his barbershop. 186 Fleet Street. As far as I know–and I'm not going to research scary things to double-check facts right before bed–the musical has some truth to it, or at least is loosely based on a true story. It is a strange thing, to look at this place and know it is where it may have happened. This is the thought that kept going through my mind as I toured all over London. These are the places where the things I've read in history books actually happened; things that date back centuries and centuries.

Next, I headed down the Covent Garden Market, where I visited some little shops, including this sweet shop. But my favourite was...

Yes, I found a Canadian pub in London.

What made it Canadian? It had hockey jerseys on the walls (Edmonton Oilers–no Sens or Leafs), served poutine, Sleeman, and Moosehead, and had some Canadian employees. Apparently the cheese on the poutine is grated cheddar, not cheese curds, so I'm not sure it counts as poutine, but the menu swears it's an age-old recipe from Quebec. There was also a bear and a TV that supposedly shows hockey games.

More than anything else, this pub reminded me of a British pub that you'd find in Canada. However, I will make sure I remember it for when the homesickness kicks in.

Next, I took a boat cruise down the River Thames. The guide was really funny, and he shared some interesting facts about some of the buildings we passed.

This building is along the river. Technically, no buildings are allowed to advertise along the river, so OXO hid it in their stained glass windows. Apparently, someone took them to court, where they argued that they didn't realize that the windows spelled the name of the company and that it was simply a coincidence. The judge believed them, and they have had free advertising where there should be no advertising for many decades.

I just liked this photo because the glass building really stands out among the older style structures around it. The guide joked that inside was a university for glass cleaners. I can't quite remember what is actually inside, so a glass cleaner university is how I shall remember it.

This is the Tower of London. Its purpose has changed over the years, but it is famously known as an execution centre. In a 400 year span, over 100 people were beheaded here, including two of King Henry VIII's wives. Apparently, if the executed person was important, their head would be preserved in tar, put on a spike, and placed along the river to warn others. According to the guide, William Wallace, Mel Gibson's character in Braveheart, was one of the last people to be executed here.

This was the end of the boat cruise, so I headed back onto land for some food.

And what do I eat for my first meal out in the UK?

Fish and chips of course!

A creepy bird decided to perch down beside me while I ate.

It was nice to have some company while I ate my deliciously greasy meal. Lucky he wasn't a mooch.

And that's marks the end of my London adventure! My conclusion: London is very pretty and there was so much history in every spot. I didn't fall in love with it like I thought I would, but I did have a lot of fun. I'd like to see the museums and perhaps the Changing of the Guard but I figured I'd save some things since I am sure I will be back.

I will be heading to Scotland tomorrow, so I'm sure there will be more blogging from there. I'm really looking forward to meeting students, as it gets quite lonely touring alone. But for now, my job is to figure out how I can possibly repack everything in that luggage bag. Goodnight readers!

London wandering, Day 2

Today's adventure consisted of setting up my mobile phone, and sightseeing in London.

I initially went to Three, which had a great phone plane for pretty cheap. Apparently, my Lloyds offshore banking account doesn't cut it for direct debit payments at Three, and therefore I have to put my cousin's information. After a lot of confusion, we set it up, only to find out that the sim card wouldn't work in my 2G Blackberry. I don't know why the salesman didn't tell us before we paid, but we subsequently had to reverse everything he had done, and went to Orange.

The plans are much better here than in Canada. I got a plan that's £20 per month, with 200 any network anytime minutes, unlimited incoming (a standard here in the UK), unlimited texting, 500MB of Internet data, and unlimited Blackberry email and messenger (free for the first month).

I'm still waiting for them to activate my Internet and email. They said it could take up to 24 hours. I'm going to facing withdrawal if I have to go much longer without my email on the go!

Next, I headed into town for my tour.

London is gorgeous. I love the architecture and history behind all of the buildings. The tour guide pointed out buildings that have been around for centuries (though most in some areas were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666, when a bakery on Pudding Lane caught fire, which spread all throughout central London). He pointed out the spots where two of King Henry VIII's queens were beheaded, as well as tributes to British soldiers, such as the first London tomb for an unknown fallen soldier.

We passed one street where the cars swap sides of the road. Tthe tour guide described it as the street where some people in the world mistakingly believe the cars to be driving on the correct side of the street.

In total, I took 201 photos today. I don't know what I'd do without a digital camera. Of course, we were on a bus, so I had to take two to four of everything in order to ensure I'd get one that wasn't blurry. I'll have to go through them and delete the ones that didn't turn out so great.

I'm still not used to the cars being on the wrong side of the road. The whole time on the bus, I kept expecting to turn into certain lanes and we would drive into the other, making it feel like one of those theme park rides where you don't know where you're going.

The whole city seems surreal. It is a beautiful city and it's amazing to think people live here and walk by this history on a daily basis. It makes me want to take a bus tour of Toronto to see if we have a lot of history behind our buildings. I suspect not, but it would be interesting to find out that some of the buildings I have passed dozens of times is actually the site of something really special.

The London Dungeon seems like quite the unique attraction. We drove by it and it reminded me of something you'd see at some sort of theme park, or an area like Clifton Hill. It seemed quite out of place among the rest of the buildings. The font made it a bit cheesy, but basically, it's a museum depicting the darker history of London, specifically dungeons and torture. It is apparently filled with live actors reenacting these scenes, and you can experience being shaved by Sweeney Todd. Definitely not for me.

I have discovered the weather to be as unpredictable as I've heard. The sky was bright blue today with a few white clouds and maybe one darker one. I went into a shop. I came out, the sky is dark and it was raining. I went into another shop. I came out and it was blue with clouds again. I haven't been rained on yet, but I doubt my luck will last. I've been advised to have an umbrella with me 100 per cent of the time.

I found a friend for Sgt. Snow Flakes. He doesn't have a name yet and I am not in the most creative mindset right now, but I'll have to think of something. Regardless, I think I've determined that I will collect teddy bears from each place I visit. I'll have to get smaller ones or visit less places, or else it's going to get damn expensive. But one day, I'll have a teddy collection that represents everywhere I've been. I suppose I'll have to go back and get Israeli and Dutch bears at some point. I already have a Spanish Bearista.

Tomorrow's agenda includes a boat ride down the River Thames, more hop-on, hop-off touring (it's good for 24 hours, and I didn't start until about 4:00 pm today), and a visit to Harry Potter film locations. I can't wait!

I loved this plant. It was in a garden on my walk from the subway station to my cousin's house, and from a distance they looked like little baby pumpkins–though I suppose the shape isn't quite right.

This is Eros in Piccadilly Circus. I hopped off the bus at Trafalgar Square and wandered mindlessly until I found myself at Piccadilly's Circus. It was full of shops, many of which were chains in Canada. The HMV store was huge and had way more books than in Canada, but there was nothing I could find that I couldn't buy online for cheaper. I did hear my first Canadian song while in London: Arcade Fire's City with No Children. I gave a silent cheer for Canada.

This is a monument to the Great Fire. Apparently, if it were to lay horizontal, it would touch the bakery where the fire began.

The South African High Commission in London.

I believe this was the Canadian Pacific Hotel in Trafalgar Square. 

The Earl Haig Memorial, Commander-in-Chief of the British Armies in France.

First day in London

Taking off was terrifying. The airplane was fine, the flight was fine, but it was so difficult to get myself onto the airplane and ready to go to the U.K. for the school year. This will be the longest I have ever been away from home. Even though I have been at school in Ottawa for three years, this time I am on my own, which makes it all the more scary.

Flying over Toronto on my way to Gatwick airport in London, UK.
I love that you can really see the grid of the streets from the plane,
illuminated by street lights. It really is quite beautiful. I'll miss you, Toronto.

The first 20 minutes of the flight was near a thunderstorm. My boyfriend was on his way back to Ottawa and had told me he was going through so much lightning. There wasn't any in Toronto, but it was really neat to see the lightning in the sky from afar, knowing it was probably the same flashes he was seeing. Airplanes always boggle my mind. I don't understand how they work, and it seems crazy that a giant hunk of metal can speed through the air, and that I can look down and see hundreds of kilometres away.

I sat beside two older Canadian women on their way to a Baltic cruise. Lucky for us all, the plane arrived half an hour early! I carved a path around the people strolling towards customs and I got through pretty quickly. I met another student who was also hurrying through, and we joked about the need for express walking lanes. Unfortunately, our efforts proved useless in the end as the baggage took quite a while to come through.

I navigated my way through the airport (even stopped to help a Japanese man find his terminal since he couldn't speak English!) and got onto the coach bus.

My first thoughts driving down the M25 towards Heathrow, where I would get on the subway, was that it looked like it could be anywhere. The trees and hills looked no different than some of the areas I've driven down on the 400, particularly around cottage country. The only difference was that the vehicles were clearly driving on the wrong side of the road. It's going to take some getting used to seeing people driving in what should be the passenger side of the car.

I arrived at Heathrow and went directly to the Piccadilly line of the subway. Luckily, it was the end of the line, so it was clear which line I was meant to take. I plan on taking the tube to the centre of London tomorrow, and I'm a bit nervous considering the complexity of the lines in comparison to Toronto. I'm glad I didn't choose to study in Paris! I found South Ealing Station easily enough, and there was only one way out, so finding my cousin's place was not too difficult.

I opened my luggage and discovered that most of it survived the trip. My soap and shampoo bottles broke. Frustrating, but at least it wasn't my nail polish. That would have been much more of a pain.

I went on a walk with my cousin Bridget and her 19-month-old daughter, Sabine. She was absolutely adorable, and was having a lot of fun in Walpole Park, in Ealing, playing with a little dog named Ben. Before I boarded the plane, I felt like I really needed a hug, so I bought a little teddy bear with an RCMP uniform. Sgt. Snow Flake, according to his tag. Sabine was getting a real kick out of the little bear and was playing with it. Unfortunately, Paddington Bear's shoes were a bit too big for Sgt. Snow Flake, so he couldn't come with us on our walk.

At the end of our walk was the Ealing Broadway Mall, where I was hoping to set up a phone plan. There are too many companies here and the plans are a bit different from Canada. For example, they all seem to be unlimited incoming, but they charge more depending on whether you're calling a mobile or a landline, and depending on which networks the caller and receiver are on.

This was quite different from the malls in Canada. It looked like an indoor mall but then there was no roof in the middle. Reminded me of the Great Hall. :) I guess we don't have these in Canada because it would be too cold!

While I was chatting with a salesperson at a mobile phone store, I mentioned I was from Canada. He commented on how nice it must be for me to escape the cold weather. It was 30 degrees in Toronto yesterday. It was maybe 15 here.

When we got back, I fell right to sleep. I had planned on staying up until the nighttime, when I would fall asleep right away and jet lag would disappear. However, I doubt I got more than an hour's sleep on the plane, so I was utterly exhausted. It's now a quarter to midnight and I'm just starting to feel sleepy, but I'm going to attempt sleep soon anyway. I have a feeling I'm going to be woken up early by a crying baby.

Tomorrow, I'm going to do a hop on, hop off bus tour of London, so hopefully I'll get to see some of the famous buildings.

Until then...