Man! There's a lot to drink...I mean do...here!

London is a cool place! I've been having a blast so far!

I arrived Tuesday morning around 7 am. Although fairly crippled by the flight, I got to my hotel (which was not what I expected. I booked a room that I thought would have a private shower and bathroom. What I got was four beds and a sink! It's relatively cheap though, so who am I to complain.), checked in and rather than take a nap, I decided to go for a walk. Being completely unfamiliar with my surroundings, I got lost in no time. My wanderings were not in vain however; as I stumbled upon the British Museum accidently. Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, I went in and checked it out. It's a pretty cool museum, but it was also full of screaming school kids on field trips. I stayed there as long as I could stand it and then went off to see if I could figure out where I was.

By this time it was around noon, and I was quite hungry (my last meal having been on the plane around 5am) and thirsty. I found a pub, ate a glorious bacon/cheese burger and had a few pints. Sated, I asked the bartender to point out where I was in relation to my hotel on the map I had. Turns out I had been wandering in the opposite direction of my hotel. Armed with the knowledge of where my hotel was, I confidently strolled out of the pub, took a wrong turn and immediately got lost. Thus started my first London pub crawl. I would walk around, find something interesting (I found Old Bailey and St. Paul's Cathedral this way), stop in a pub for a pint or two and some directions. Rinse and repeat. Who knows how far I walked but I made it back to the hotel tired, quite buzzed, and ready for bed. I crashed at about 9pm.

Yesterday, I was up at 6am. I bought my Oyster Card (discount Tube rates) and hopped on the Tube to go check out the Imperial War Museum. This is a very impressive place. I ended up spending almost three hours wandering about inside. After the museum, since it worked so well the day before, I set off to find a pub and start another tour. After I ate, I formulated a plan of sorts: orient myself with the goal of getting to Buckingham Palace. This turned out to be a good plan in that I ended up seeing Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the Palace. Westminster is stunning. You see the pictures, but you never realise how huge it is until you're right up next it. I went into the Abbey itself, and checked out all the monuments to the illustrious dead of England's past. The worst part is that I couldn't get the scene from The Sixth Sense out of my head where the little kid says, "I see dead people." People kept looking at me slantwise because I kept giggling to myself. Buckingham Palace was a bit of a disappointment after Westminster. I wanted to get a picture of the Palace gaurds in their red uniforms and tall bearskin hats, but it seems there's been a uniform change (maybe it was only that day) and the gaurds were in dark blue uniforms and peaked caps with a silly little poofter thing sticking out the top. Oh well.

I headed up the street to Trafalgar Square and then onto Leicster Square where I stumbled upon the Opening preview to Will Smith's new movie: Hancock. I managed to get photos of Will Smith, Charlize Theron (sp?) and Justin Bateman. After that, I hopped on the Tube (I was tired of walking) and headed back towards my hotel. I stopped for a kebab on the way and went into the hotel bar to eat it and have a good night pint. However, I ended up chatting to a cockney guy with the odd name of Dabar, or something like that, and playing pool and drinking. It was afun night.

Today, I'm taking it easy. Woke up around 1 pm, and dragged my sorry, hungover ass to the train station to get my ticket north. The price difference buying tickets in advance rather than day of? Advance: £21. Day of: £55!!!

Anyway, I'm off to have a quiet pint somewhere and take it easy. Plenty of photos on the way.

Later!