Advertisement
Published: February 11th 2013
Edit Blog Post
001
St. Paul's Cathedral Today was my last day in London! I decided to use my last day before the tour started to sleep in, considering it would be all early mornings from now on. At 11 o'clock I had to check out of my triple share room because I would be checking into my included double share later. The Canadians/Americans get the night before the tour included with the tour price, but for some reason the Australians/Kiwis don't. We also get free sleeping bags. Guess we are just special! :D Down at the Contiki Basement I weighed my suitcase - it was 24 kilos! The limit for Contiki was 20 kilos, so that was a bit distressing. I'd definitely have to do some rearranging later on.
I headed out to do some more sightseeing on my own. I had already bought a ticket to see St. Paul's Cathedral, so I headed that direction first. It was in an area of London that I hadn't been to before. It didn't seem very touristy, more like how I envision Wall Street to be - a business district. The Cathedral was beautiful though. I decided to climb the 528 steps to the top of the tower.
002
528 steps to the top! I thought it would be best to get used to the exercise. I'm super lazy at home, so I was hoping to lose a few pounds on this trip. There were three parts to the climb. The first were some wide stone steps, then a tiny, spiralling stone staircase, and finally, an even smaller, metal staircase. I'm proud to say I was able to climb all the way to the top without stopping! Took me forever though. The views from the top were amazing, definitely worth the climb. I'd do it again if I'm ever back in London. One of my favourite things to do now while travelling is to find a bell tower, or cathedral, or anything with lots of stairs and climb them - you get exercise, you can say you've climbed all those steps, and you get fabulous views at the top!
On my way back I stopped in Starbucks to write in my journal, then made my way back to the hotel. I got really lost trying to find my way to the nearest tube station. I wandered around in circles for about an hour before finally finding it. It was past 2 o'clock
003
Too much luggage so I was able to check into my new room once I arrived back at the Royal National. Turns out I was rooming with Christine, my tourmate I had met the previous evening. Once in my new room I spent some time organizing my suitcase. I had already acquired way too many new clothes, and my suitcase was way too heavy for Contiki standards. This meant I had to move 4 kilos of stuff into my handbag. All in all I had my purse, a big lululemon bag to carry with me on the bus, and then my suitcase. Luckily I was able to get it down to 20 kilos. I chatted with Christine for a while, before we both headed down to the Contiki basement for our pre-departure meeting. Contiki holds these meetings on the evenings before every tour departure, in order to check in, and get to know your tour manager and driver, as well as your fellow tourmates. Tonight I was able to meet the majority of the people I'd be travelling with. Lots of them were totally different than how I thought they'd be, while others were exactly as I was expecting. We met our tour
004
All of us at dinner at the Royal National manager, Seb (from Australia), and our tour driver, Krzysztof (from Poland). They gave us a run-down of what would happen the next day, and what we could expect from our tour. By this point I was so excited to start!
Most of us went up to the hotel lobby and got some dinner and drinks. I didn't want to stay out too late because we had an early morning tomorrow, so I was in bed by 11 pm.
What did I learn today? I
CAN climb 528 steps! Ha!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.117s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0524s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb