9,000 Steps

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Today started off nice & leisurely, with a walk down to the nearest market. There are no stores like Cub or Target here, you just go into these little stores reminiscent of gas station convenience stores - on steroids. After we dumped our goods off at the apartment, we went to a restaurant we'd passed advertising brunch. Without looking at the menu, we walked right in to Cock & Bull and asked for a table for two. This place was really cool, but clearly didn't cater to vegetarians. The main attraction, poised high on a pedestal in the center of the warehouse-esque place, was…an actual cow inside a gigantic glass tub of bluish liquid (likely a formaldehyde cocktail) with a rooster sitting on top of its back. Hence the name - Cock & Bull. I couldn't stop staring at it, but we didn't take photos since the skylight windows caused weird reflections and glare on the glass case. Breakfast was decent. The toilets were cooler. (Bathrooms - they call them toilets here.)



Once we were filled up from our meal of duck eggs and juice, we headed back to the subway and off to the Tower of London. There were just hordes of people there. We didn't take the tour, but I was still able to learn that the Crown Jewels are housed there, and it's also the home of King Henry VIII - famous for beheading several wives. That's a yikes. We did buy some fancy 'royal' liquors in the gift shop. Just a bit farther down is the Tower Bridge, often mistakenly called the London Bridge. It was very cool.



We had lunch at what we thought was an adorable authentic Italian restaurant - Zizzi. Turns out we think it's like Olive Garden back home; we even saw a second one later that afternoon while walking around. The food was still very good, and we even tried some new ciders.



After lunch, we made our way across the River Thames and saw Shakespeare's Globe Theater, walked back across the river via the Millennium Bridge (famous for being destroyed by the Death Eaters in the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince movie), then saw (and even walked into!) St. Paul's Cathedral before taking the subway back to our apartment.



Tomorrow we're taking another set of subways, trains, and buses to get us to Stonehenge!

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