Some Folks see a Bird's Eye View

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This morning I think I woke up around 7:30AM after passing out on my bed with my clothes on. I was so tired from being all over the place and not sleeping for over 24 hours that I don’t even remember moving my computer off my lap and going to bed. Not only that, but I’m also still so sore from being in one position for a combined 12 hours of bus ride and plane that I had to roll out of bed. The shower, on the other hand, relieved a lot of tension from my back and shoulders, but my lower back, legs, and feet are still killing me. Following my nice long shower at 8AM I realized I was the only one awake in the apartment, so naturally I ate a bowl of cereal for breakfast and then passed out on one of the couches from a non-too-bright lamp.

At approximately 11:30AM, we met outside to begin our walking tour of London. You would think that after spending all day yesterday walking about, we wouldn’t have spent so much time today trampling about London to the point that I think my feet may have iron in them.. We started out from our apartment and took the underground down to Piccadilly Circus, worked our way through the street, and managed to escape into Trafalgor Square where we saw a woman painted silver like a statue and all climbed about a lion statue.

From Trafalgor we strolled down to the Houses of Parliament and captured our first sign of the clock tower sporting the Big Ben bell inside it. Contrary to what some think, Big Ben is the bell, not the clock tower itself. Dr. Stewart gave us a brief history of things as we passed them, and then he lead our group back through the underground to see the Tower of London, where we had lunch at the Weatherspoon.

During dinner a lot of people decided to explore the city since we had free time until 9AM tomorrow morning, and therefore a great many of us broke off into groups and either went back to the apartment or managed our way around town. Samantha and I went off on our own and ended up back around Trafalgor Square where we decided to try our hand at the London Eye.

Best. Decision. Ever. The view from the Eye was astonishing, especially since we had sunny skies and clear weather. It took maybe an hour at most to rotate around, but we had the benefit of hearing random tourists point out key locations of interest. Among those areas were Canary Wharf, MI5 and MI6, Buckingham Palace, and even I managed to spy the multicoloured IMAX theatre and point it out to Samantha.

Exiting the Eye was entertaining, as it is still rotating as you are boarding and exiting the pod. We had the opportunity to purchase a professional photo of ourselves inside the Eye if we wanted, but Sam and I agreed it would be much easier on our feet to find our way over to the Waterloo station and ride the underground back to the apartment. Despite making very good time on the underground, we realized once we got back that our plans to walk to the Pharmacy and purchase a European hair dryer were doomed to fail as it is Sunday, and Sunday in Europe means shops are closed!

Then, I went with some of the group and Dr. Stewart down the street to our local pub and had a brief stint watching the Brazil-Italian football game before Brazil went up 3-0 and I found myself wanting to rest. So even though we followed the others back into the main portion of the pub, again Samantha and I found ourselves walking back to the comfort of the apartment for some steady R&R before tomorrow.

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