Return to London

Day 1

I arrived in London at about 4:30 pm at Stanstead airport, then took a 2 hour shuttle bus to Victoria station, followed by a wait in line to buy my Tube ticket, and then 2 tube rides to get to the hostel.  By the time I'd arrived at my hostel it was about 8 pm.

I decided to stay in for the evening, and had my picnic lunch for dinner (including some cheese that I may have accidentally illegally imported from France).  I did some blogging, then went to bed.


Day 2

Today was a very busy day, as it is the last day of my trip to sight-see.

I started off by going to the National Gallery....only to walk in and realize that I'd been there the last time that I was in London...oops!  So I went around the corner to the National Portrait Gallery, to finish seeing the portraits there (I'd gone there last time I was in London, but didn't have enough time to see everything before they closed down).  The National Portrait Gallery is probably one of my favourite museums.  Every portrait includes a story about the person (and everyone's lives were quite scandalous 'way back when'), and there's portraits of royalty, politicians, and scientists (including many I recognized like Charles Darwin).

Afterwards I made my way to the Natural History Museum (I'd also run out of time the last time I was there).  I was really hoping to see the dinos, but they're currently closed until mid July...shucks!  So instead I paid to go into the special exhibition on reproduction, which was actually quite entertaining - learning about the mating habits of many different species.

After this I made my way across town to Old London.  I saw Shakespeare's Globe, and went to the Tate Modern.  Modern art is definitely not for me!

After this I went to a portion of the Evensong service at St Paul's Cathedral (I'd yet visited there) - but it wasn't really an Evensong, it was a full mass because today was St John the Baptist day, or something like that.  I didn't stay for the whole thing, but it was neat to see the inside of the church (though Westminster Abbey is much grander).

I returned to the hostel and changed into a dress, and headed off to see Wicked.  Where do I start, this musical is fantastic!  It tells the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz, and its really well done.  The cast was great, the singing was great, and the time of the show just flew by (if only the line for the ladies washroom had moved that fast).  Since Colin will be seeing Wicked in Calgary, I decided to pick up one of the souvenir programs so that we could compare the two performances.  This was a really great way to end my final evening abroad!  What a great surprise gift from Colin.

I returned to the hostel exhausted.  I did some packing, then went to bed.....I have to be up early in the morning to catch my flight.