Several hours on a plane, little to no sleep, London Calling by the Clash playing on repeat, and multiple cups of coffee later, we finally made it to the UK. Stepping out of the airport it was clear that the recent summer-like Pittsburgh weather hadn’t made the journey with us. Even though most of us brought multiple layers/heavy jackets, the high 40/low 50 degree weather might take a bit of adjusting.
After a short bus ride through the city, we made a quick 15 minute pit stop at Buckingham palace. The Queen wasn’t there unfortunately BUT it turns out the royal baby (son of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle) was born only a few short hours after our visit. I personally don’t follow any of the Royals but it was pretty cool that it all seemed to happen on the same day we arrived in London.
Around 1:30 pm or so we got dropped off at Tower Hill. The Tower of London is a historic castle located right along the Thames River. Once inside the fortress we had the opportunity to walk through each tower (The White Tower, The Bloody Tower, The Wakefield Tower, etc). They served different purposes in the past, for instance the Bloody Tower for instance was used for as a torture chamber.
The best building however was in charge of displaying “The Crown Jewels.” It was a building completely dedicated to showing off the beauty and riches of past English royalty. In fact it even includes an exhibit that puts on display the very crown used in the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. *Sadly no photography was allowed or else I would have plenty of pictures to show just how insanely huge the diamonds were.
Our long day ended with a traditional English meal, Fish and chips, followed by a rather large piece of chocolate cake (with the amount of walking we did today though it was okay to splurge). The whole chips not being actual potato chips thing is probably going to continue throwing me off.
It was nice being able to sit down finally and enjoy some down time. As of right now I’m completely focused on getting enough rest to not be jet lagged by tomorrow. Stay tuned to learn if I can manage to not sleep through my alarm tomorrow.